The end of reading slump
Exam was over and I had my newly minted Project Management Professional (PMP) certification in October this year. Rainy season just started in Kuala Lumpur, the weather is going to be cosy, a nice weather for a hot chocolate and a book! My brain was already picturing good ol’ me throwing myself in my reading nook picking up books from my To Be Read (TBRs). It’s a dream after being nailed to my desk for 10 months studying for the exam!
Just like how I planned, that weekend, I picked up a book and it feels stale, I picked up another and it didn’t pull me in and I picked up another and another, I found myself staring into the page zoning out. What is happening to me?
Nothing is troubling a bookworm more than a reading slump. I can’t even finish reading a 6 mins online articles; do I not liking to read anymore? ugh the horror.
Was it a dry interest to any kinds of reading?
I fell into an abyss of long hours of consuming from TVs and Youtube, and hours of playing games. It feels counterproductive during these periods; so I started a mini home project and started decluterring my house to feel good about the passing time. Home is more organised as planned. Other times, I played chess till I felt exhausted and went to bed.
Everytime I passed by my bookshelves, I stared at the book admiring the beautiful covers…In this periods, I have the desire to pick up a book and read but for some funny reason, I don’t have the motivation to do it. I put it back on the shelf.
Then I picked up my journal and started writing “What is causing my reading slump”?
I spent the last 10 months studying for long hours after work
Researching and reading heavy lifting books with 300-1000 pages (or maybe more!) of notes that utilised my critical thinking energy
Big shift of routine after the studying period
Big life change when we took in Jojie (my old cat) who was sick to stay with us
Transition to a new role at work, which was an effort behind the scene
I am simply just tired from the hustle
And few other private reasons that I kept in my journal..So life happens and any humanly body and mind reacts to it. All these events are energy draining although they brought high impact and fulfilled my life.
How do I get out of this? I wrote all the possible steps and it went down to these :
📖 Read a page a day. It feels basic again for sure, but our brains need to unlearn to relearn again.
📃 Read bookish articles. Look for articles that about books and readings. I recently read an article that says, “Stanford University researchers have found that close literary reading in particular gives your brain a workout in multiple complex cognitive functions, while pleasure reading increases blood flow to different areas of the brain.”
📚 Head to the nice bookstore. Wandering in a bookstore is the closest way to be inspired by other book lovers. Seeing them picking up book to read right there by the shelf brings joy to me and reminds my cell-brains how I love being in reading realm.
Have a bookish coffee date with a bookish friend. I am bless to make friend with my colleague who’s also a book lovers. We went for a bookish Christmas date and we had a long conversation discussing about books and the possession of books! Having a conversation with someone who has the same interest as me sparks my motivation to read again.
Re-organise reading lists. Who I am today is not the same as who I was ten months ago. It’s just means, even in a small scale, I have grown (I would think for the better) and that’s part of living. I re-organised my reading list and decided to start with something shorter starting with watching films that are based on books, or TV shows that’s academic and let me learn something (like Big Bang Theory is my all time favourite!), choosing favourite books I have read before, poems, short stories (Currently slow reading Before We Say Goodbye by Toshikazu Kawaguchi)
I let my mood choose the books to read. It doesn’t have to be 300 pages of fiction book; sometimes I let myself delve into online non-fiction articles about Science and History, whatever I feel like reading. But please, not hours of scrolling on social media, that’s the rule for me! That way, I kind of getting into reading anyways.
📝 Start writing something. It doesn’t have to be published, it can be just in a journal. Writing my thoughts have been a useful strategy to analyse my thinking and emotions, I’ve seen myself shifting habits and solving problems through writings.
🍀 Do something else that’re bookish, it doesn’t have to be just reading. Maybe play a game with themes from the genre or books you love, like the Hogwarts Legacy game (but am also currently into Need For Speed, lol). Or maybe just write.. See me now, writing this tips to you, eh? I guess that’s also me being active-ish to blog again.
I am slowly getting to end my reading slump…
What’s your tips when you are in a reading slump? Let’s hear it. 🎧
