I'm not sure if I have ever read actively before, certainly not properly. I have definitely underlined lots in books I have never gone back to but not sure that really counts.

My health conditions mean that reading is particularly difficult for me and has a toll that I have to factor in. But I also understand it is a key component of studying and that's not lessened in an arts degree.

So I am taking time to try and figure out a way that I can actively read and use my reading without it having such debilitating consequences. I have had conversations with my mentor on this and also booked a one hour with our OCA dedicated librarian, Helen Barrett. Both have been kind of useful but no specifics that I could take into action.

I have been given bespoke Irlen reading glasses tailored to my needs. But using them means swapping glasses and I'm always resistant to that. Coming from varifocals, I find the fixed viewing distance difficult too so in short, I haven't made best use of them.

Dealing with constant fatigue means that the thought of moving to a new position or place is less that ideal. So I try to do as much as I can from my position on the sofa. However I appreciate this is not good from a body posture point of view nor from a bad habits viewpoint so making a conscious effort to work at my desk more. Its set up pretty well now but just needs a better chair that suits where I am working.

I have bought a new light though, one with two arms that can be positioned in different positions and each light can be independently controlled in one of four brightnesses. That helps for sure. I found today trying to read on the sofa that there was not enough natural light even at lunchtime as its British winter now and even putting on the main room light didn't give 'good' light.

So I have set myself up today to try and figure out some of the problems I am having and put in new practices so I can at least try and keep up with required reading and research.

I started by setting myself a 15 minute max time to read for and swapped out my glasses. That certainly helped but was struggling by the end of the session. I put that down to poor light so for the next session 30 minutes later I added in the room light but wasn't sufficient.

I moved to my desk, cleared a space and turned on my reading lamp. So glasses on I tried again but still struggling. Something I tried whilst reading on the sofa was listening to white noise via Spotify. Kind of helped but the ads were too big an interruption. For this session I found Pink Noise on YouTube and this, according to the comments, was ad free once it started playing. Might be early to say but I think its helping. I do find though that listening via headphones is preferable to having played over speaker as ambient noise in the room. Through headphones it feels more enveloping.

So today has been semi-successful. As always I didn't manage as much as I would have liked but I did figure out the following:

• Set up a dedicated reading space
• Set up a dedicated reading time and set a timer so not to overdo it. 15 minutes seems to be a sweet spot at the moment.
• Make sure reading space is adequately lit.
• Put Pink Noise on via headphones
• Use Irlen glasses.
• Read relaxed

So as I said I didn't manage as much as I would have liked but that's par for the course with me but I did manage to read through a whole chapter, foreword and introduction to British Poster by Catherine Flood. That's a massive achievement and whilst I don't think I could take a test on what I have read, I have a better understanding of the text on first read for using the above strategies.

Tomorrow I intend to read the text again and to notate the significant pieces I need or want to explore further. Feels painfully slow but also doesn't feel like I am wasting time by just reading the words but retaining, learning or absorbing anything from it.