We all know the importance of heart health. Eating those colorful fruits and vegetables, moving our bodies every day, getting a good night’s sleep, and keeping stress levels low all contribute to our heart health. But with everything going on these days, it can be hard to relax, even when we know we need to take a load off. If you’re craving some rest in the never-ending days, I hope you can find it with the help of one of these books that encourages you to take as many moments as you need for yourself.
Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.
Blending Eastern techniques of meditation with traditional Western solutions of diet and exercise, celebrated psychiatrist Dr. Henry Emmons offers a proven plan to combat anxiety—without medication—that has helped tens of thousands gain inner peace and start enjoying life.
Goodnight Mind: Turn Off Your Noisy Thoughts & Get a Good Night’s Sleep by Colleen E. Carney
Accessible, enjoyable, and grounded in evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), Goodnight Mind directly addresses the effects of rumination—or having an overactive brain—on your ability to sleep well. Written by two psychologists who specialize in sleep disorders, the book contains helpful exercises and insights into how you can better manage your thoughts at bedtime, and finally get some sleep.
The Stress Prescription: Seven Days to More Joy and Ease by Elissa Epel
In The Stress Prescription, Dr. Epel distills decades of research, infused with wisdom, into a practical yet transformative seven-day plan of science-based techniques that can help you harness stress through more positive challenge and purpose.
Mindfulness for Dummies by Shamash Alidina
A cutting-edge meditation therapy that uses self-control techniques, mindfulness has taken off across the globe as a way of overcoming negative thoughts and emotions and achieving a calmer, more focused state of mind. Written by a professional mindfulness trainer, this practical guide covers the key self-control techniques designed to help you achieve a more focused and contented state of mind, while maximizing the health benefits of mindfulness-from reducing stress, anxiety, and high blood pressure to overcoming depression and low self-esteem and battling chronic pain and insomnia.
Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily and Amelia Nagoski
With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in these pages—and will be empowered to create positive change. Emily and Amelia aren’t here to preach the broad platitudes of expensive self-care or insist that we strive for the impossible goal of “having it all.” Instead, they tell us that we are enough, just as we are—and that wellness, true wellness, is within our reach.
-Linnea
Read it or Weep 