Senior year has not been kind to my sleep cycle. Between homework, extracurricular commitments and my ever-present tendency to procrastinate, I often find myself awake well into the night. But no matter how late my World Literature assignment or my math homework keeps me up, I always make sure to read for at least 10 minutes before I fall asleep.

Throughout elementary and middle school, I was an avid reader. To this day, my bookshelves remain crowded with the hundreds of books I ended up finishing. But around the time I started high school, that habit disappeared.

I always figured that reading for pleasure, like going to bed early or stress-free weekends, was something that just naturally disappeared when you entered high school. I justified my lack of reading by pointing out how much I was reading for school. Plus, why would I possibly spend my little free time reading a book, when I could use it to check social media or watch the new season of “Scandal”?

And then, about two months ago, I looked at the growing pile of interesting books on my night table that I had picked up here and there and realized that I had only read two books outside of school in the entire last year. So, I decided it was time for a self-intervention. I wrote a reminder in my phone for midnight (as you can see, I don’t have much optimism about my abilities to go to sleep early), simply saying “read!” I set the reminder to go off every night, and the rest is history.

My two months of reading every night have been amazing. I’ve long believed in using reading as a tool to understand different cultures or situations, so in the past years I’ve picked up a whole series of really interesting non-fiction books, and then, of course, have left them to collect dust on my night table. But now I’ve finally started to dig into that pile, and right now, I’m reading this amazing book full of moving testimonies from people in solitary confinement. I only read a tiny bit every night but I still learn so much, which to me feels really important.

Regardless of if you’re reading to learn more about the world, or just reading books that seem fun and make you laugh, setting time aside every day is so beneficial. It’s been really gratifying to remind myself that I can be entertained without the internet. And as someone who often has trouble falling asleep, I’ve found my 10 minutes of reading a night to be incredibly helpful. Although I might lose a bit of sleeping time, the reading relaxes me to the point that I make that time up by falling asleep faster than I ever have.

I know that after a long day of school and homework, everyone wants to just fall into bed and go to sleep. But after two months of reading every night, I can confidently say that it has enhanced my everyday routine beyond what I could have imagined. Learning more about the world combined with relaxation? I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t sign up.