Friday, July 31, 2015

Making time for books



 
Fiction: The Girl Missing From the Window  |  short stories by Paul O'Reilly

Non-fiction:  Anxiety Free: Stop Worrying and Quieten Your Mind by Patrick McKeown


My to-do list has never been longer, but reading counts as an essential element of my day, just like food:

Fiction  |   There is something about short stories (oh, and how I love epigraphs!). These came into my hands courtesy of John. The book was featured on a culture programme on the radio, and we were both driving (separately) and listening to it, and John was hooked as soon as he heard the writer's Wexford accent (John is a proud Wexford man) and bought the book the following day. My reading prescription to myself is to include more short stories. I say this every time I finish a good collection, and then I leave too long a gap again.

Non-fiction  |  I have had this for a good few months, but only read through it the first time around, without doing the exercises. It can be so hard to commit to doing the work required, and it is yet another thing to add to my Daily List for Health and Wellbeing (after yoga, meditation, Transformational Grounding, ...) - this can get overwhelming, the opposite of what I am trying to achieve... But I was intrigued by the Buteyko Breathing Method. In a nutshell, chronic overbreathing causes increased brain cell excitability and thus anxiety and its accompanying physical symptoms, so the aim is to learn to breathe less. I always knew I needed to work on my breathing, but this book doesn't suggest the usual deep breathing techniques. I shall report back.

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