Me vs Brain: An Overthinker’s Guide to Life – the instant Sunday Times bestseller!

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Weirdly, I found that if I’m awake before I feel the rest of the world is awake, I’m more productive. I was waking up as early as possible to start writing a chapter, and then when I knew people started at work at 9am, for some reason my productivity stopped. I really don’t know what it was. It was almost like the peace of the world made me feel like I could just dive into it. I’d usually write until 9am, and then edit what I had. The best time I wrote was around 5 or 6am until 9am, which… I will never get up at 5am again. It just made sense to me, because I think you have to write what you know. I always knew it would be called Me vs Brain , but I wasn’t entirely sure what I would include in there. But every time I was writing something I was like, ‘right, this is the topic I really think it’s important to talk about’, and then I just wrote what I knew, and then it all kind of slotted into place. I think that is the hardest part, especially at the beginning. But I don’t really use social media for personal use anymore. And I don’t use social media on weekends. It’s a really strict thing for me, because that is work. You have to have really clear boundaries, which is really tough, because it’s such a reflex to go on them. Olivia Emily: I’ve been reading Me vs Brain , and I’m loving it. It’s so funny! Can we start by giving our readers an elevator pitch of what they can expect from the book? Absolutely. And I feel like now it actually helps me with the sketches I do. Now I can understand what people are looking at critically with my work, and I try to apply that to the sketches, or anything else I do.

In this book, I've overthought absolutely everything so you don't have to. I'll be talking about everything from dating to discharge, mental health to menstrual cups. I might not be able to banish your anxiety or make you feel 100% comfortable in your skin, but I hope I can at least give you a break from the constant brain chatter and we can rejoice and laugh at how similar we actually all are. Tegelikult - kas Ethan Krossi "Vadin. Hääl meie peas ja kuidas seda kasutada" on loetud? Kui ei, siis lugege, ma ootan seni. A fresh, laugh-out-loud take on 21st-century high-functioning anxiety, Hayley Morris's honest and easy-to-read debut is a joy. It's a zeitgeist novel for our times, exposing just how normal it is to feel abnormal... Morris' insightful narrative to modern life feels like confessing to a best friend. Hayley Morris is most definitely an author to watch. Press Association

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Hello! Hayley Morris here. You might have seen me on your feed dressed up as a vagina. People seem to find me quite funny. I'm on a mission to prove once and for all that You. Are. Not. A. Weirdo... Or, maybe, We. Are. All. Weirdos. Yes, you're not the only one whose body does that gross thing you've never even told your mum about. And yes, we're all walking around saying embarrassing things constantly and waking up in a cold sweat at 3am thinking about them. So we might as well have a laugh about it, right? Currently, the biggest career goal is to be in a series on HBO Max, very specifically The White Lotus . But anything on HBO. I’m obsessed. I feel like they just create some of the best shows. And they’re different – not like everything else you see. That’s what I love. I am such an over-thinker as well, so when I started reading the book, I found it really refreshing how open you are! You say at the start that you found writing a book daunting – how did you find the process after getting over that initial jump? I actually found it really helpful. As I said, you get really attached to things you’ve written, so you are challenged on things. In your head, you’re always like, ‘this makes sense to me’. But then someone else reads it and it doesn’t. I really liked that. Criticism is often difficult, especially for your ego, but I really enjoyed having someone critically go through what I’d written and guide me in the right direction. So yeah, that was actually quite a fun part of it.

To me, this means things like lying in bed of a night time replaying the day’s events or more worryingly running through scenarios in your head of things that most likely will never happen. Such as, if I let my child go into town on their own this weekend will someone hurt them, or take them? And then thinking about all things to do with that for the next few hours, kind of scenarios.And you say in the introduction that you didn’t know what you wanted your book to be about at the start. I was wondering how you came to land on overthinking as a general theme?

An insightful, intimate account of modern life that is a joy to read, with shades of Dolly Alderton's Everything I Know About Love.' - Scarlett Sangster, iNews Probably just be comfortable being you. And that also means not worrying so much about what the outside world is thinking about you. Live for yourself. That’s probably quite a generic piece of advice, but I think it’s the one thing that we all suffer with. Yeah, you have to kill your darlings! You may love it, but sadly it’s exactly the same thing without that line that you think is really clever and witty.Band/singer I always have on repeat… A lot of Miley Cyrus at the moment, which is unusual for me but I love her new song. Other than that, the Beach Boys. Hayley Morris: If anyone’s reading it that has watched any of my sketches before, it’s going to be similar to that – but a lot more vulnerable, honest, open. It has some of the things that I have touched on in sketches before, but I’ve gone much deeper into it. I’ve tried to do it in a comedic way, but there are also very vulnerable moments: talking about my dad’s death, talking about intrusive thoughts, health anxiety – and things that I’ve done that I think make me sound a little bit unhinged. Me vs Brain: An Overthinker’s Guide to Life is more small thoughts in different situations. Like when you are at the hairdresser’s and you look at all your imperfections in the mirror that highlights everything. Wow, my eyes are not quite level, is my nose really that wide, etc? To me, these are just random thoughts, not overthinking.

Honestly, I think YouTube just wasn’t the right platform. But if I didn’t do the work I did on YouTube, I wouldn’t have known what I knew to do TikTok. It helped me find my voice in comedy, and it helped me fail. I failed a lot on YouTube! I learned a lot from my mistakes. And then when TikTok appeared, it was the perfect time to do comedy. Ultimately, it was the right place, right time. It sounds so cringey, but I feel so grateful to past me for not giving up, because I would have slogged for years and never seen any of the reward had I just been like, ‘Oh, it’s just not happening’. I think you do have to do it because you love it.

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What I’m most looking forward to seeing… More female written TV shows and films. Written, directed, and just completely produced by women. The only song I had in the writing playlist – which was my most played on my Spotify Wrapped – is from The Theory of Everything , and it’s called ‘Cambridge, 1963’. I looked at my Spotify Wrapped, and I was like, OK… Do I share this…?’. But it’s just such a nice piece of music.