A reading collection and resources for reading group facilitators
This is an online collection of wellbeing-themed reading suggestions including poems, short stories, true life stories, quotes and children’s stories. These reading resources may help you to reflect on the following topics: –
- What types of thinking and mindsets may be generally helpful to improve wellbeing?
- What techniques have humans used to cope with hardship, a difficult start in life or challenging experiences?
Most of the items in the collection have their own literary value and can be enjoyed by anyone. The reading resources that may appeal to you are dependent on both your preferences and experiences as a unique individual and also on where you are in your personal life journey. This resource is not meant to be prescriptive or endorse any particular way of living. Instead it is offered up as a toolbox of potential ideas for wellbeing that individuals can choose to take or discard at their own discretion.
Some people have mentioned in feedback that they find it useful to keep a notebook nearby to jot down any particularly useful thoughts and ideas gained while reading.
Why read for wellbeing?
Reading can have several benefits including the potential to inspire hope and can help with transitions from one mind state to another, including seeing the world from a different perspective. Reading can help to improve literacy skills and can be an inexpensive and enjoyable leisure activity that enables readers to travel to new and undiscovered places and develop better self awareness through reflection. It is an activity amenable to being shared and discussed such as among friends or in reading groups, increasing positive social connections. It is also a flexible activity that can fit in around periods of limited time or concentration. (Plenty of shorter reading suggestions have been included with this in mind).
Resources for reading group facilitators
A toolkit is currently being developed for those who would like to use wellbeing-themed short stories and poems in reading groups. Further information about the development of this toolkit can be found here
