What Giving Up Books for Lent Taught Me About Time, Stillness, and Prayer

I gave up reading for Lent. Not just doom-scrolling. Not just social media. Books too.

For someone who reads as much as breathing, this felt like a significant sacrifice. What I didn’t expect was how much it would reveal about how I spend my time, what I use to avoid stillness, and what happens when you create space for something quieter.

The first thing I noticed was the time.

There is so much of it. When you’re not reaching for your phone between tasks, not winding down with a novel, not filling every quiet moment with words, the day stretches out in ways that can feel uncomfortable at first. I won’t pretend I used every hour wisely. I watched a lot of West Wing. But even that was instructive: I realised I genuinely need time to decompress, to switch off, to not be improving or achieving or absorbing. Books had been doing that for me. So had scrolling. The difference is that one was nourishing and one wasn’t, and in their absence, I had to figure out what else could hold that space.

The second thing I noticed was what meditation actually is.

I’ve dabbled in meditation before, but this Lent I leaned into it properly, guided sessions, Mindvalley courses, and simply sitting in silence. What I found is that it’s genuinely a skill. The more you do it, the easier it becomes to be still. The easier it becomes to not reach for distraction. I got better at sitting quietly. I got better at doing nothing. Eventually I started to quiet my mind. That sounds like a small thing, and it isn’t.

But the heart of this Lent, for me, has been prayer.

Not structured, liturgical prayer, though there’s been some of that. Mostly it’s been time spent listening. Praying for people, for situations, for peace in a world that feels like it badly needs it. There’s something about removing the noise of books and screens that created a different kind of receptivity. I found myself in prayer in a more sustained, less effortful way than I have in a long time.

So what am I taking forward?

I’d planned to stay off fiction for a while. I have a stack of non-fiction I’ve been meaning to get to, and that felt like the right re-entry point: intentional reading rather than habitual reading. But over the time since Easter, I’ve found books have crept back in, I was really craving that escapism. I have kept some distance from social media; it’s not doing me good, and I don’t think it does most of us much good. And as the days get longer and warmer, I’m hoping the evenings will pull me outside rather than inward, into the garden, into movement, into the kind of presence that dark wet winter nights make very difficult.

Prayer and meditation have stayed somewhat, but like many things, I’ve realised how quickly we fall back into our old habits. That was the point of my Lent fast, really. Not just to give something up, but to find out what fills the space when you do.

I’d love to ask you the same question I’ve been sitting with: what are you making space for in your life right now? And if you cleared away the noise, what do you think you’d find underneath it?