New book

New book How to Find Mindfulness in Five Minutes a Day comes with the subtitle Inspiring Ideas to Help You Live in the Moment.

Published by Vie at £8.99 (hardcover), it comes from Joanne Mallon, aged 57, who lives in Brighton. She also has a podcast – 5 Minutes to Change Your Life: https://joannemallon.com/2022/02/03/5-minutes-to-change-your-life-the-podcast/

Joanne explains: “I’ve been interested in mindfulness for many years. Mindfulness has grown immensely in popularity in recent years as a way to deal with stress, improve mental health and become more focused.

“In the book I talk about it being the superpower you didn’t know you have as it’s been proven to help with anxiety, improve sleep, lower blood pressure and help in managing pain. It’s such a simple thing yet it has the potential to help with so much.

“And still I think mindfulness is a mystery to a lot of people who could benefit from it. Like, what exactly is it, and how do I do it? The book aims to demystify it and show how easy it is to add mindfulness to your life. It contains 66 tips and ideas on how to become more mindful, all of which can be done easily in five minutes or less.

“The book is structured across the course of a day so it starts with things you can do in the morning, then in the daytime, evening and finally longer lasting stuff that will have an impact in the future.

“Readers have told me that what they often do with my books is use it like a lucky dip and open up a page at random each day, then that tip becomes their focus for the day.

“This is the latest in a series of 5 Minutes books I’ve written over the last few years. The last one was about how to de-stress in five minutes a day, and before that I wrote about how to be calm and how to find joy.

“I also present a popular wellbeing podcast called 5 Minutes to Change Your Life which shares easy ways to change your life for the better, in short bitesize episodes. It has listeners all around the world and has had over 200,000 downloads.

“With the books and the podcast, my focus is on helping people change their lives for the better in small and manageable ways – it’s the small things that really do add up and make the biggest difference. And I like to keep things practical and down to earth and fun, which I think comes across in the book.

“My background is in coaching. I am one of the UK’s most experienced life and career coaches, helping people change their lives for 20+ years.

“I really enjoy writing these books and seeing them go out into the world. I love getting messages from readers all around the world who’ve been helped by them.

“And the publisher designs them beautifully – the mindfulness book is a lovely shade of purple – so people often give them as gifts to a friend.”

Joanne added: “This is actually my tenth book. They’re all self-help books of one sort or another. Probably the one that has had the furthest reach is a book I had published in 2012 called How to Overcome Fear of Driving. I still get messages from people thanking me for that one as it has helped them get back behind the wheel.

“I also love the fact that my book about How to Find Joy has been stocked by Boots for the last few years as part of its three-for-two Christmas gift offer. Boots only stocks a small number of books so I feel very honoured to be included and it always tickles me to see it on their shelves.

“I’ve always been a writer, going back to when I won a national poetry competition at the age of nine. I’ve written for many different publications and websites over the years and have now turned my hand to writing stand-up comedy.

“My writing style is quite down to earth and I can explain complicated stuff in a straightforward way. All of the tips in the books are under 100 words so you can’t be flowery with your language, you have to get straight to the point. I think readers appreciate that because it makes the books a quick and easy read that still has depth and a lot of solid science-backed advice.”