The Reading After 10 P.M. Experiment

A couple months ago,

I got tired about moaning about being in a book slump and complaining about how far behind I was on my reading goals. Around that time, booktuber Ariel Bissett released a video entitled “i tried reading before bed every day for a week” where she conducted an “experiment” with three rules:

1. At 10 P.M., she had to put her phone away and read.
2. It didn’t matter what she read—she could read anything.
3. After finished reading for the night, she could not go back on her phone.

She claimed that she had “forgot how to read consistently” and hoped that following the three rules for a week would help her develop that habit again. Watching the video and hearing about her positive results from the experiment inspired me to recreate it for myself. I ended up taking the trial a step further by adding a fourth rule:

4. Instead of using social media to pass time when I was killing time (i.e. standing in line, waiting for a teacher to show up, etc.), I had to read.

By the end of the week, I successfully achieved the objective of reading consistently every night, but not without making a few adjustments.

I quickly broke rules 1 and 4 on the first day. I found that I couldn’t start reading exactly at 10 P.M. because of school work, and that I automatically reached for my phone whenever I had down time. However, I compensated for breaking the first rule by reading two to three hours and staying up well-past midnight every night. Some days I even started reading before 10. I figured it really didn’t matter what time I started reading every evening, just as long as I did it. It got to the point where I had to force myself to sleep every night. I had a thought of keeping a daily written account of my reflections on the experiment—and even did so for the first two days—but I was too invested in reading that it didn’t even cross my mind by the time I put my book down to go to sleep.

As the week progressed, I found myself reading throughout the day, naturally remedying my first-day violations of rule 4. Because I had to force myself to sleep at night, I would often wonder about the book during the day and the part of the story I left off, so I was more inclined to pick it up in my spare time. It was fun and motivating to see something as simple as setting aside time at night to read extend into my day and become second nature.

Because I was would read throughout the day and at night, I ended up reading more than one book at once. At one point, I had a book for daytime, another for night, and one wild card book for day or night. I read each book depending on the time of day and how much I felt my brain could handle. For example, I would read romance stories at night because they’re feel-good, light, and don’t demand much of my exhausted processing powers. Oppositely, I would reserve more serious/heavy books for the day time when I’m more alert.

During the experiment, I noticed that I immersed myself more in the bookish community— commenting, posting blog posts, and watching booktube videos. I think part of it was, because I was reading so much, I needed more recommendations for my next book. I ran into a minor glitch where I would get ahead of myself and spend more time adding books to my TBR than actually reading 😂. Luckily, instead of taking away from my reading, it motivated me to read faster as there were so many books that intrigued me.

Not to sound dramatic, but I felt almost like I was falling in love with reading again.

I loved having an allotted time at the end of the day to read and found that reading every night had the unexpected benefit of improving the quality of my sleep. It felt good to make time for myself and not be on social media before sleeping. Even though I technically make time for myself by watching YouTube videos and scrolling on my phone, I found that reading at bedtime was better because it made me sleepier.

Being on social media less, especially at night, also made me feel more at peace. There’s an endless supply of upsetting content on social media just waiting to be discovered by a drowsy, unsuspecting… me (😂 sorry, I couldn’t think of anything clever). It was nice not having to worry about the possibility of seeing something that bothers me because if something in a book makes me feel bad, it’s not based in reality and is easier to shrug off.

 Overall, the experiment was a success.

I think by putting a name to what I was trying to accomplish (re: establish a habit) somehow made it seem like a challenge, and, because I’m competitive, I wanted to be consistent. It’s no mystery that in order to read more, you have to read. This experiment just made it more like a game rather than just another thing I should start doing eventually.

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Thanks for reading! Do you set a certain time of your day aside for reading? Would you try this experiment? Let me know 😊.