Chooseday 3rd November - Choose a book before bed
Good Morning,
It’s 11:47pm. You said “just one more video” forty minutes ago. Your eyes are tired, your brain is buzzing, and somehow you’re now deep into a stranger’s kitchen renovation.
Sound familiar?
Happy Chooseday! This week, we’re choosing to break the scroll and reach for a book before bed instead. 🌙📚
It’s an easy habit to fall into: one last check of the news, one more video, and suddenly it’s midnight. But that end-of-day scroll comes at a cost.
A 2025 JAMA study found that adults who used screens before bed had a 33% higher rate of poor sleep quality, and slept about 50 minutes less each week than those who switched off.
A book does the opposite. Instead of revving your brain up, it gives it something gentle to focus on, helping stress melt away as you wind down. And the results show it: in a randomised trial published in the journal Trials, 42% of people who read before bed said their sleep improved, compared with just 28% of those who didn’t.
The benefits don’t stop at sleep
A University of Cambridge-led research review released in September 2026 found that reading at any age is associated with enhanced well-being, reduced stress and greater empathy, along with reduced feelings of loneliness and slower cognitive decline among adults.
Bedtime stories count too
Two in five Australians read to someone else, most commonly children or grandchildren. And it helps the grown-ups as much as the kids: an Australian Reads survey of 2,000 parents, 81% reported that reading to their kids helps not only the children fall asleep, but the parents themselves.
So this Chooseday, we invite you to try a simple bedtime swap.
Tonight, put your phone on charge somewhere you can’t reach it from bed. On the kitchen bench, in the hallway, anywhere it won’t tempt you. Then pick up a book and give yourself just ten minutes. ⏰
It doesn’t need to be anything worthy or ambitious. A gripping novel, a memoir you’ve been meaning to start, a few poems, or a well-loved picture book read aloud with your kids all count. The best bedtime reads tend to be the calming ones, so maybe save the edge-of-your-seat thriller for the weekend and choose something that lets your mind slow down. 📖
Dim the lights, get comfortable, and let the story do the rest. If you drift off mid-chapter, that’s not failure. That’s the whole point.
And if ten minutes turns into “just one more chapter”? Well, there are worse habits to have.
Choose to share the bedtime story
For many children in remote Australia, a bedtime story in their own language, about their own Country, has been hard to come by. The Indigenous Literacy Foundation (ILF) is changing that.
The ILF works with more than 495 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities, and has gifted over 1,000,000 culturally relevant books through its Book Supply program and published 158 books by Community, in 48 First Languages as well as English.
In 2025 alone, more than 140,000 books were delivered into communities.
A little goes a long way: for every $10 donated, the ILF can get a culturally relevant book into the hands of a child in a remote Community.
This Chooseday, choose a book before bed, and help another family do the same.
Sweet dreams and happy reading,
the GoodCompany team.
Know someone who will benefit from a Chooseday mindset?
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