Review: You Can Stop Now by Amogh Swamy

You Can Stop Now: Tiny Truths For A Noisy Mind
by Amogh Swamy

My Rating: 4 stars
Genre: Nonfiction/ self help/ mindfulness

Blurb:
You’re tired. Not broken—just tired.

Life keeps telling you to do more, try harder, stay “on.” Inside, something small keeps whispering: you can stop now.

You Can Stop Now is a small book of short, soothing pages you can read in under a minute. It helps with overthinking, burnout, anxiety, and doom-scrolling—without apps, hacks, or pressure.

This book is for you if you:
– overthink until your chest tightens
– feel guilty for resting
– carry everything alone
– scroll to escape your own mind
– are exhausted from trying to be “fine”

You don’t need another productivity trick. You need a pause.

Inside you’ll:
– slow down your thoughts
– take real emotional breaths
– let go of guilt
– soften self-pressure
– feel like yourself again

These aren’t instructions. They’re tiny truths for a noisy mind—a gentle place to rest when the world feels too loud.

Open it when you’re overwhelmed. Open it when nothing helps. Open it when you forget you deserve ease.

If one line softens your breath, that’s enough.
You’re allowed to pause.
You’re allowed to rest.
You can stop now.

My Review

I received a free copy from the author through Netgalley and voluntarily reviewed it.

You Can Stop Now caught my eye when I saw it on Netgalley, the blurb, cover and title made me curious and I wanted to know what this book contained. I am glad I got approved for it. It was a wonderful read, some parts really resonated with me and encouraged me to try and be gentler with myself and other parts made me realize how much progress I had already made on that front.

This book is broken up in short chapters and each chapter has a poem-like feel with the way the text is presented on the page. Each chapter is about a page or two long and it was easy to pick this book up and read a chapter or a few. I liked how each chapter ended with the phrase You can stop now. It felt like a powerful way to reinforce the book’s message and title. And it also gave me that moment to pause, take a breath and decide whether to stop reading the book there or continue for another chapter. I am not sure if this was the intended effect, but it worked quite well to make myself mindful of whether I wanted to continue reading or not.

This book felt very accessible, the way the chapters are written and their short length makes it very easy to read. There are messages around being mindful, taking breaks and being gentle for yourself and I felt the way it was presented was very approachable. There are no long paragraphs of text or exercises, just a gentle invite to think, take a breathe and relax and be gentle with yourself. All you have to do is read the text. It’s also not a very long book, I like how condensed it feels, with every word and sentence packing a lot of weight and meaning. And at the same time feeling easy enough to pick up and read.

I really liked this vibe and the writing style of this book. There were parts that really hit me or resonated with me. It was easy to tell the areas were I could still make progress or the parts I still struggled with. And other parts that made me feel happy of how far I’ve come, like the sections about social media, I have a much healthier relationship with social media nowadays than I used to. And it was nice to realize how far I’ve come.

To summarize: I am really glad I picked up this book. I feel like it’s an easy book to pick up with the short chapters that really pack a punch. It makes you think and reflect and hopefully take a breathe and be gentler for yourself. I think this book is very accessible and approachable in the way it’s written. I liked reading a few chapters now and then and letting the words sink in, seeing what resonated with me, what hit me in the feels and which sections made me realize how far I’ve come. I can definitely recommend this book and am glad I read it.

Here are some of my favorite quotes:
“Running feels safer than stopping”

“You call it planning, it’s really fear wearing running shoes.”

“The past isn’t a project that you can keep improving. It’s a story that already ended.
You don’t have to stand forever in the doorway of that old room to prove you’re sorry.”

“Peace doesn’t arrive when everything is fixed.”

“Self respect is never selfish. Every yes that hurts is a quiet no to yourself”

“Speed isn’t always progress, sometimes it’s panic with good branding.”

“Real strength is self compassion- knowing you can walk into a room and not abandon yourself there.”

Links:
– Goodreads
– Bookbub
– Amazon

You can also read my review on Goodreads and Bookbub.