Staying in with Lana Grace Riva

Welcome to Linda’s Book Bag, Lana. Thank you for agreeing to stay in with me.

Thank you for inviting me, it’s lovely to be here.

Tell me, which of your books have you brought along to share this evening and why have you chosen it? 

I’ve brought my only book Happier Thinking. It’s a collection of tips and methods for looking after your mental health.

(I think we could all do with some of that advice at times Lana.)

What can we expect from an evening in with Happier Thinking?

It’s a short non-fiction read offering some options to try for exercising your mind. I know the word exercise is not always overly appealing. However, mind exercises at least don’t involve the effort of changing clothes, paying for equipment, risk of inflicting pain on originally perfectly pain free muscles… etc.

(Good point – and we still need to look after our minds as much as our bodies.)

In the same way there are many options for choice of physical exercise, there are many options for looking after your mental health – meditation, mindfulness, seeing a therapist, or smaller simple little exercises that you don’t need much training to try out yourself. This book focuses on the latter and concentrates on a different tip/exercise in each chapter. Different things work for different people so it might be a little presumptuous of me to tell you that every single chapter will benefit you greatly… but hopefully some will resonate with you.

(I’ll look forward to trying out your suggestions Lana and finding some that work best for me.)

Mental health is thankfully receiving more focus currently and I have spent a long time working out how I can look after mine. The result of that time is this book. Initially because if I didn’t write it down I would forget it. But later because I wanted to share it in case, even if in a small way, it might help another person.

(What a wonderful premise for Happier Thinking.)

What else have you brought along and why?

I’ve brought some hot chocolate because well… it’s chocolate. And that always makes my thinking happier. Plus it’s in warm comforting drinkable form, giving the effect of having a nice cup of tea at the same time. My perfect accompaniment to reading. I hope it might be yours too. Otherwise, I will force myself to drink your cup as well as mine as it would not be good to be wasteful 😊

(No chance of that! I love hot chocolate. Maybe we should try out some of your suggestions from Happier Thinking as we relax and drink it?)

Thank you for staying in with me to chat about Happier Thinking. I really hope the book does well for you and helps your readers along the way.

Happier Thinking

Changing how you think is possible. I wasn’t always so sure that was true until I experienced it myself, but I know now we don’t have to just accept unhappiness. Not always anyway. This book is my collection of tips and suggestions that have helped me achieve happier thinking. It’s sort of a gym for my mind. I’d love to tell you it was easier than the real gym but well… it’s not really. It takes time, effort, and practice but it’s absolutely well worth the rewards.

Happier Thinking is available for purchase here.

About Lana Grace Riva

Lana Grace Riva has always loved reading but is new to writing. Her book Happier Thinking is based on her personal experience of investigating how the mind works and finding ways to maintain good mental health. She loves to learn about mindfulness, meditation, mind and body health, and is always on the lookout for ways to challenge how she lives to make improvements for both herself and others. She is currently based in the UK.

You can visit Lana’s website.