distracting audiobooks

[ioyo]

Hi, I'm pregnant with my first and have been doing an amazing hypnobirthing course which has already helped dispel some of my fears/preconceptions about labour. The other day we did an exercise where you hold an ice cube for a minute and think about it, and then compare that to holding an ice cube for a minute while listening to an evocative description of a sunny day walk etc etc. The difference in how much I felt the pain was noticeable. So it got me wondering about whether it would be worth finding a really immersive audiobook (or several) to have as an option to listen to during labour.

Does anyone have any recommendations for immersive, descriptive, transportative books that I could look for as audiobooks? Could be nature/travel writing, or just beautiful prose, any suggestions really. Preferably ones that don't have any scary/horrible bits in though...!

Thanks for your thoughts.

Don’t know if this helps, but I created my own “scene” in my head and just kept focussing on that. Became quite fixated on it, but it really helped.

With contractions only a minute long and so completely preoccupying, I don’t think I’d have had the focus to listen to an external stimulus, but found retreating to my internal scene really helped.

Ah thanks, that is helpful actually. I guess never having done it before I have no idea and could actually imagine a book getting annoying! Will have a think about scenes...