Reading as Medicine

I’ve always enjoyed reading, but lately I’ve realized how crucial it is to my physical health.

A few weeks ago, I was diagnosed with severe hyperthyroidism due to Graves’ disease, which was good only in that it explained a list of odd symptoms I’d tallied for months: unexplained weight loss, tremors in my hands, a fast heart rate, and occasional insomnia.

Along with the diagnosis came new medications, those to get my heart rate down and others to stop the raging party my thyroid has been holding for the past few months. I take them twice a day, and they’re starting to make me feel better. The mornings, however, are when I still feel the worst. Waking up, I often feel shaky, my heart pounding a little too hard, often the wisps of a nightmare still clinging to my mind.

It’s times like these that books are my other medicine. I’ll eat some food so I can take my drugs, and then I’ll curl up in bed and read while the medication takes effect. There’s nothing like reading to calm my mind, to allow me to relax while focusing on something other than the hammerings of my heart or the worries of the day. Meditation has never done it for me. Sometimes even sleep doesn’t get me there.

Books are now part of my treatment plan. And maybe I’m not alone. I read this recent article in The New Yorker about bibliotherapy, specifically about two women who prescribe particular books to help people cope with grief, breakups–even the overwhelm from having too many books to read. (Sound familiar?) With my recent nervousness about my health, I did my own bibliotherapy by snatching up a lovely used copy of Charlotte’s Web, seeking its themes of mortality and acceptance to help me process my own emotions.

Have any of you readers out there had experience using reading as therapy?