Books To Help You De-Stress!

Good Morning you lovely lot! Hope your all well. First off I want to say like everyone in the world, I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear the talented and hilarious Matthew Perry had sadly passed away on Saturday, I grew up watching Friends and still watch it to this day whenever I need cheering up, he was my favourite character on the whole show, he had some great funny one-liners that still get used now. Because of his sudden passing the world is a little less humorous. Goodbye Matthew – you will always be remembered as the sarcastic-commenting and joke-filled Chandler Bing who brought laughter to so many peoples lives, may you Rest In Peace.

Other than hearing about Matthew, it has been a very stressful time for us. Firstly, our car (which we’ve not had for very long) has completely gone as the motor cap blew the engine, so since the weekend we’ve been looking for a new one that’s going cheap which hasn’t been an easy or fun task to do. Then my mum and I both had appointments on Friday that were a waste of time as my mum’s got rearranged and then cancelled just as she’d arrived at the practice, and then mine only lasted 2 minutes as the Doctor I saw at the hospital said what I need doing can easily be done at my Dentist so I didn’t need to come. So we’d had to travel all day for nothing which made the whole thing even more stressful. Speaking of stress brings me nicely to this weeks post…Reading is known to reduce stress and has been scientifically proven to be one of the best ways to calm and de-stress the brain. According to a study, sitting with a good book for even 6 minutes a day can reduce stress by up to 68%. So if you want to quickly reduce anxiety and stress by reading, why not try one of these books!

Managing anxiety and stress can be a daunting task, especially for those who do not have the skills or knowledge to understand where these emotional states are manifesting from. Anxiety and stress can interfere with an individual’s mental health and wellbeing. Fortunately, education on new techniques to help combat stress and anxiety can help. Stress and anxiety are emotional states that all of us experience at certain points in our lives. A person who is stressed typically knows what they are stressed about and understands where the changes in mood, emotions, and physical health are coming from. Stress occurs in response to external events (e.g., an upcoming presentation at work, a change in your family dynamic, or job loss) that are difficult to cope with. A person who is stressed typically knows what they are stressed about and understands where the changes in mood, emotions, and physical health are coming from. One important thing you can do if you are experiencing stress or anxiety is to understand what is causing it and what response the situation is eliciting. These books can provide strategies and techniques about how to relieve stress and how anxiety manifests, as well as the biological origins surrounding both emotional states.

The Power of Letting Go: How to Drop Everything That’s Holding You Back ~ John Purkiss

If you learn to let go, your life will take off.

When you let go, you live intuitively. Everything flows, because you are no longer attached to things being a certain way, to being a certain person or always being right. What a relief. The irony is that when you feel stuck in any area of your life – career, relationships, purpose, health or money – letting go can seem very hard. You cling on for dear life just at the moment you need to take the leap.

In The Power of Letting Go, John Purkiss explains why we should let go and how we can do it, using proven techniques to make things happen.

The stages of letting go:

• Be present and enjoy each moment.
• Let go of the thoughts that keep you stuck.
• Let go of the pain that runs your life.
• Surrender and tune in to something far more intelligent than your brain.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff… and It’s All Small Stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things From Taking Over Your Life ~ Richard Carlson

The premise of this book is simple: there is nothing worth worrying about that should ruin your life or drive you to a point where you are struggling to function. So many of us would like to live our lives in a calmer and less stressful way, and be able to let go of our problems.
Dr Richard Carlson teaches us, in his gentle and encouraging style, simple strategies for living a more fulfilled and peaceful life. Each chapter has a title centered on a suggestion (e.g., “Make Peace with Imperfection”) and aims to provide readers with advice about how to overcome stressful emotions.
We can all learn to put things in perspective, and by making the small daily changes he suggests, including surrendering to the fact that sometimes life isn’t fair, and asking yourself, ‘Will this matter a year from now?’, Dr Richard can help everyone to see the bigger picture.
Repackaged to inspire and guide a new generation, this is a Mind, Body and Spirit classic. This is the book that can show you how to stop letting the little things in life drive you crazy.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers ~ Robert M. Sapolsky

This book combines knowledge about stress-related conditions, such as addiction, personality disorders, and anxiety, with workable guidance to help control stress responses. It starts by describing the stress-related ailments that can wreak havoc on an individual’s mental and physical health. It uses real-world concepts and examples to explain more complicated medical issues that can emerge because of stress.

As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear – and the ones that plague us now – are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal’s does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way – through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us literally sick.

Combining cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses.
Even though the book is extremely scientific and provides several research studies that back up its claims, it still integrates dry humor into its explanations, which makes it more accessible to individuals who may not specialize in medicine or psychology.

The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It ~ Kelly McGonigal

Over the years we’ve grown to see stress as Public Enemy No.1, responsible for countless health problems, relationship troubles, unhappiness and anxiety, and to be avoided at all costs. But what if changing your mindset about stress could actually make you healthier, happier and better able to reach your goals?
In this book, health psychologist Dr Kelly McGonigal reveals the new science of stress, showing that by embracing stress and changing your thinking, your stress response could become your most powerful ally. Although stress can be hard on the body, it can also help us grow and become more resilient. Stress has been found to have many benefits, such as giving individuals greater focus, strengthening personal relationships, and increasing resilience to challenging situations.

Drawing on the latest research and practical brain-training techniques, The Upside of Stress shows you how to do stress better, to improve your health and resilience, focus your energy, build relationships and boost courage. Rethink stress, and watch your life change for the better.
McGonigal focuses on helping readers retrain their mindset around stress and deemphasize the idea that ‘stress is harmful.’ McGonigal provides readers with several reflective exercises to assess and reframe their mindset around stress.

Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love and Wisdom ~ Rick Hanson with Richard Mendius

If you change your brain, you can change your life. This book presents an unprecedented intersection of psychology, neurology, and contemplative practice, and is filled with practical tools and skills that you can use every day to tap the unused potential of your brain and rewire it over time for greater well-being and peace of mind.
Descriptions of how each neurological system connects with relaxation and mindfulness practices provide evidence-based reasoning that details why these practices work and how they can help you manage stress.

This book provides guidance on how to engage in mindfulness and relaxation, and goes into detail about how these processes are connected to our neurological systems. For example, the breathing exercises that individuals engage in during their mindfulness practice are connected to the parasympathetic system, responsible for producing a balanced and peaceful state.

By combining breakthroughs in neuroscience with insights from thousands of years of mindfulness practice, you too can use your mind to shape your brain for greater happiness, love, and wisdom. Buddha’s Brain draws on the latest research to show how to stimulate your brain for more fulfilling relationships, a deeper spiritual life, and a greater sense of inner confidence and worth. Using guided meditations and mindfulness exercises, you’ll learn how to activate the brain states of calm, joy, and compassion instead of worry, sorrow, and anger.
Most importantly, you will foster positive psychological growth that will literally change the way you live in your day-to-day life.

The Stress-Proof Brain: Master Your Emotional Response to Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroplasticity ~ Melanie Greenberg

Modern times are stressful – and it’s killing us. Unfortunately, we can’t avoid the things that stress us out, but we can change how we respond to them. In this breakthrough book, a clinical psychologist and neuroscience expert offers an original approach to help listeners harness the power of positive emotions and overcome stress for good.

Stress is, unfortunately, a natural part of life – especially in our busy and hectic modern times. But you don’t have to let it get in the way of your health and happiness. Studies show that the key to coping with stress is simpler than you think – it’s all about how you respond to the situations and things that stress you out or threaten to overwhelm you.

The Stress-Proof Brain offers powerful, comprehensive tools based in mindfulness, neuroscience, and positive psychology to help you put a stop to unhealthy responses to stress – such as avoidance, tunnel vision, negative thinking, self-criticism, fixed mindset, and fear. Instead, you’ll discover unique exercises that provide a recipe for resilience, empowering you to master your emotional responses, overcome negative thinking, and create a more tolerant, stress-proof brain.

This book will help you develop an original and effective program for mastering your emotional brain’s response to stress by harnessing the power of neuroplasticity. By creating a more stress tolerant, resilient brain, you’ll learn to shrug off the small stuff, deal with the big stuff, and live a happier, healthier life.

The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook ~ Martha Davis, Elizabeth Robbins Eshelman, and Matthew McKay

The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook broke new ground when it was first published in 1980, detailing easy, step-by-step techniques for calming the body and mind in an increasingly overstimulated world. This workbook introduces clinically proven strategies to help readers engage in stress management and relaxation techniques.
The seventh edition includes powerful self-compassion practices, fully updated chapters on the most effective tools for coping with anxiety, fear, and panic-such as worry delay and diffusion, two techniques grounded in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)-as well as a new section focused on body scan.

In the workbook, you’ll explore your own stress triggers and symptoms, and learn how to create a personal action plan for stress reduction. Each chapter features a different method for relaxation, explains why the method works, and provides on-the-spot exercises you can do when you feel stressed out, as they give readers the opportunity to analyze the situations that cause them the most stress and their personal responses to stress. The result is a comprehensive yet accessible workbook that will help you to curb stress and cultivate a more peaceful life.

After readers complete this assessment, they can determine which chapters will be most useful for their specific situation and personality.
Coping strategies in the chapters range from relaxation exercises, time management, diet and exercise, and environmental and interpersonal stress.
This allows readers to educate themselves in a variety of domains to better cope with their individual situations.

The Seven-Day Stress Prescription ~ Dr Elissa Epel

Our lives have become increasingly stressful. Whether it’s our to-do lists, deadlines, difficult conversations or crises small or large, our waking hours are filled with constant stressors. We can’t eliminate stress – it will always be woven into our lives and part of everything from parenting and careers, to reaching big life dreams. However, this book will help you to ‘stress better’ and become more resilient.
World-renowned psychologist, Dr Elissa Epel, distils her years of research into a practical seven-day plan to transform our relationship with stress in just seven days. The secret to tackling stress is not to avoid it but to experience it differently. She offers simple, actionable, science-based techniques that offer immediate relief, such as how to:

· Expect the unexpected and learn to be flexible
· Control what you can and put down the rest
· Meet challenges with excitement
· Harness your stress response for resilience, better health, and longevity
· Gain perspective and let nature shrink stress
· Find deep rest and regenerative energy
· Discover and capture what brings you joy

Ultimately, stress is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to wear us down. The Seven-Day Stress Prescription will equip you with a healthier mindset and the resources you need to turn stress into strength and a tool that helps us to grow.

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?  ~ Dr Julie Smith 

Drawing on years of experience as a clinical psychologist, online sensation Dr Julie Smith shares all the skills you need to get through life’s ups and downs.
Filled with secrets from a therapist’s toolkit, this is a must-have handbook for optimizing’s your mental health. Dr Julie’s simple but expert advice and powerful coping techniques will help you stay resilient no matter what life throws your way.

Written in short, bite-sized entries, you can turn straight to the section you need depending on the challenge you’re facing – and immediately find the appropriate tools to help with . . .

– Managing anxiety
– Dealing with criticism
– Battling low mood
– Building self-confidence
– Finding motivation
– Learning to forgive yourself

This book tackles the everyday issues that affect us all and offers easy, practical solutions that might just change your life.

The Art of Positive Thinking: Eliminate Negative Thinking I Emotional Intelligence I Stop Overthinking ~ Elizabeth R. Brown

A Self Help Book to Developing Mindfulness and Overcoming Negative Thoughts

This book presents the benefits of positive thinking and how to slowly change a negative thought pattern so that you can be happier. Discover effective ways to alter a negative thought pattern so that you can have a more positive outlook on life. Do you know someone who seems well put-together and balanced and wonder what they are doing differently? Have wanted to find a way to reprogram how you think so that you don’t focus on the negatives?
The solution to both of these questions is to actively work on developing a positive thought pattern. It will take some work because our thought patterns are developed over years – or decades – so changing them is going to take time. If you want to improve your outlook and experience a wide range of positive health benefits that come with positive thinking, it is well worth the effort. The Art to Positive Thinking can help you start a shift in thinking that will help you lead a better, healthier life.
Negative thinking is incredibly common, with things like social media and new cycles reflecting what people want to see. The things that are more likely to get clicks and a wider audience tend to create negative emotions and result in negative thoughts. The secret is to know how to counter those thoughts with things that are positive in your life. This book provides an overview of what tends to generate negative thinking and the tools that you need to develop a pattern of positivity in your thought process. This starts with knowing the benefits to help motivate you to start down the journey to improving how you think.
This book breaks down the concepts, patterns, and activities you can do to start developing positive thinking every day. Expect to explore the following chapters:

• Benefits of Positive
• Learning about Mindfulness
• Understanding and Developing Emotional Intelligence
• Understanding Your Own Mindset
• Easy Actions to Increase Positive Thinking
• Spreading the Positivity
• Practicing Gratitude to Improve Positive Thinking
• Becoming More Aware of Negative Thinking
• Maintaining Positive Thinking in Chaos and Rougher Times
• Tips and Tricks to Keep You Going

It’s no secret that we live in an increasingly stressful world. Between the cost-of-living crisis, climate change, and the blurring of boundaries between work and home life, it’s hardly a surprise that people are feeling more stressed and burned out than ever. Sometimes all you want is a book to help you relax and unwind in the bath or perhaps before bed. A book with a strong narrative arc can make time “slow down,” and these relaxing novels certainly fit the bill. If you haven’t read them yet, don’t move on without giving them a try.

The Keeper of Lost Things ~ Ruth Hogan

Meet the ‘Keeper of Lost Things‘…
Once a celebrated author of short stories now in his twilight years, Anthony Peardew has spent half his life collecting lost objects, trying to atone for a promise broken many years before.

Realizing he is running out of time, he leaves his house and all its lost treasures to his assistant Laura, the one person he can trust to fulfil his legacy and reunite the thousands of objects with their rightful owners.

But the final wishes of the ‘Keeper of Lost Things’ have unforeseen repercussions which trigger a most serendipitous series of encounters…

This is a novel filled with quirky characters who go through love, friendships, loss, and redemption. The first is where the middle-aged Laura inherits a house full of lost objects which she sets out to reunite with their owners. The other story is about the unlikely friendship between Eunice and Bomber. Two stories run together… and meet in the pages at the end.

A Man Called Ove ~ Fredrik Backman

Meet Ove. He’s a curmudgeon, the kind of man who points at people he dislikes as if they were burglars caught outside his bedroom window. He has staunch principles, strict routines, and a short fuse…

Ove is almost certainly the grumpiest man you will ever meet. He thinks himself surrounded by idiots – joggers, neighbors who can’t reverse a trailer properly and shop assistants who talk in code.

But isn’t it rare, these days, to find such old-fashioned clarity of belief and deed? Such unswerving conviction about what the world should be, and a lifelong dedication to making it just so?

In the end, you will see, there is something about Ove that is quite irresistible . . .

The million-copy bestselling phenomenon: a funny, moving, uplifting tale of love and community that will leave you with a spring in your step. AND NOW A MAJOR FILM STARRING TOM HANKS!

The Rosie Project ~ Graeme Simsion

Love isn’t an exact science – but no one told Don Tillman.

A thirty-nine-year-old geneticist, Don’s never had a second date. So he devises the Wife Project, a scientific test to find the perfect partner.

Enter Rosie – ‘the world’s most incompatible woman’ – throwing Don’s safe, ordered life into chaos.

But what is this unsettling, alien emotion he’s feeling? . . .

And if you loved The Rosie Project, read on to find out what happens next in The Rosie Effect and The Rosie Result!

The Alchemist ~ Paulo Coelho

A global phenomenon, The Alchemist has been read and loved by over 62 million readers, topping bestseller lists in 74 countries worldwide. Now this magical fable is beautifully repackaged in an edition that lovers of Paulo Coelho will want to treasure forever.

Santiago, a young shepherd living in the hills of Andalucía, feels that there is more to life than his humble home and his flock. One day he finds the courage to follow his dreams into distant lands, each step galvanized by the knowledge that he is following the right path: his own. The people he meets along the way, the things he sees and the wisdom he learns are life-changing.

With Paulo Coelho’s visionary blend of spirituality, magical realism and folklore, The Alchemist is a story with the power to inspire nations and change people’s lives.

Red, White, & Royal Blue ~ Casey McQuiston

What happens when America’s First Son falls in love with the Prince of Wales?

Alex Claremont-Diaz is handsome, charismatic, a genius – pure millennial-marketing gold for the White House ever since his mother first became President of the United States. There’s only one problem. When the tabloids get hold of a photo involving an altercation between Alex and Prince Henry, U.S./British relations take a turn for the worse.

Heads of family and state devise a plan for damage control: stage a truce. But what begins as a fake, Instagrammable friendship grows deeper, and more dangerous, than either Alex or Henry could have imagined. Soon they are hurtling into a secret romance that could derail the presidential campaign and upend two nations.

*Now a Prime Original movie starring Nicholas Galitzine and Taylor Zakhar Perez.*

The Authenticity Project ~ Clare Pooley

Six strangers with one thing in common: their lives aren’t always what they make them out to be.
What would happen if they told the truth instead?

Julian Jessop is tired of hiding the deep loneliness he feels. So he begins The Authenticity Project – a small green notebook containing the truth about his life.

Leaving the notebook on a table in his friendly neighbourhood café, Julian never expects Monica, the owner, to track him down after finding it. Or that she’ll be inspired to write down her own story.

Little do they realise that such small acts of honesty hold the power to impact all those who discover the notebook and change their lives completely.

The Midnight Library ~ Matt Haig

What if you could get a do-over in life? That’s the premise of this fantastical tale.
Somewhere out beyond the edge of the universe there is a library that contains an infinite number of books, each one the story of another reality. One tells the story of your life as it is, along with another book for the other life you could have lived if you had made a different choice at any point in your life. While we all wonder how our lives might have been, what if you had the chance to go to the library and see for yourself? Would any of these other lives truly be better?

In The Midnight Library, Matt Haig’s enchanting blockbuster novel, Nora Seed finds herself faced with this decision. Faced with the possibility of changing her life for a new one, following a different career, undoing old breakups, realizing her dreams of becoming a glaciologist; she must search within herself as she travels through the Midnight Library to decide what is truly fulfilling in life, and what makes it worth living in the first place.

The Song of Achilles ~ Madeline Miller

Greece in the age of heroes. Patroclus, an awkward young prince, has been exiled to the court of King Peleus and his perfect son Achilles. Despite their differences, Achilles befriends the shamed prince, and as they grow into young men skilled in the arts of war and medicine, their bond blossoms into something deeper – despite the displeasure of Achilles’s mother Thetis, a cruel sea goddess. But when word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped, Achilles must go to war in distant Troy and fulfill his destiny. Torn between love and fear for his friend, Patroclus goes with him, little knowing that the years that follow will test everything they hold dear.

A tale of gods, kings, immortal fame, and the human heart, The Song of Achilles is a dazzling literary feat that brilliantly reimagines Homer’s enduring masterwork, The Iliad. An action-packed adventure, an epic love story, a marvelously conceived and executed page-turner, Miller’s monumental debut novel has already earned resounding acclaim from some of contemporary fiction’s brightest lights—and fans of Mary Renault, Bernard Cornwell, Steven Pressfield, and Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series will delight in this unforgettable journey back to ancient Greece in the Age of Heroes.

Where the Crawdads Sing ~ Delia Owens

NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE – A Number One New York Times Bestseller, with more than 18 million copies sold, hailed as “a painfully beautiful first novel that is at once a murder mystery, a coming-of-age narrative and a celebration of nature.”

For years, rumors of the ‘Marsh Girl’ have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life – until the unthinkable happens.

Where the Crawdads Sing is at once an exquisite ode to the natural world, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story, and a surprising tale of possible murder. Owens reminds us that we are forever shaped by the children we once were, and that we are all subject to the beautiful and violent secrets that nature keeps.

Three Men in a Boat ~ Jerome K. Jerome

Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, became an instant success and has never been out of print.
The classic and timeless humorous story, Three Men in a Boat begins with the eponymous three men sitting around discussing the different needs in their lives. Our heroes conclude that they are indeed overworked and a holiday is in due order. Their brainstorming bore no fruit until they hit upon the idea of taking a boating holiday up the River Thames. Thus begins the famous journey whose lore has now spanned three centuries. Lest we never fail to mention their most trustworthy companion—their dog Montmorency!
The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who went on to become a senior manager in Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, “as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog.” The trip is a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff.

Final Note:

Stress and anxiety are emotional states that all of us experience at certain points in our lives. Some stress is actually helpful as it can help us perform better on tests, when giving presentations, or preparing for a big event. But too much stress, or chronic stress, can be detrimental to our health, relationships, self-image, and quality of life. Long-term or prolonged stress can have detrimental effects over time. Because stress is an inevitable part of life, we could all benefit from a consistent stress management routine. There are many options, techniques, and daily routines we can choose from and even combine together to create an individualized and beneficial stress management routine that works. In reality, stress is not the problem, but rather the lack of ability to cope or manage the stress. Mindfulness for Stress Management is a good place to start to explore what techniques work best for you and what aspects of your life are creating the most stress.

Thank you for coming to my blog and reading today’s post, I hope you all have a lovely week and I shall see you next Wednesday!