When the Mind Needs a Lamp: Six 5-Minute Bedtime Stories for Gentle Mental Health Care

When the mind won't slow down, sleep can feel far away. When the Mind Needs a Lamp offers a gentler path into rest-one built on reassurance, presence, and quiet companionship rather than pressure or solutions.

This collection of six short bedtime stories is designed for nights when thoughts race, emotions rise unexpectedly, or exhaustion makes everything feel heavier than it should. Each five-minute story uses soft metaphor and calm dialogue to support anxiety, low mood, burnout, fear, and harsh inner self-talk-without diagnosing, instructing, or demanding change.

These stories don't try to fix the mind. Instead, they sit beside it. They remind the reader that thoughts are visitors, not rulers; that rest is productive; and that simply being here tonight is already enough. The pacing is intentionally slow, allowing pauses, rereading, or drifting off mid-page without guilt.

Whether read from beginning to end or opened at random on difficult nights, When the Mind Needs a Lamp is meant to be returned to again and again-a small, steady light for moments when the mind feels loud and the world feels quiet.

This book is not about becoming better.

It is about being kinder-especially at night.