In Own It: Make Your Anxiety Work For You, Caroline Foran aims to help you change your relationship with anxiety so that rather than trying to avoid it you can own it. The book isn’t preachy at all, and feels like a chat with a good friend. The author takes a no-bullshit tone, and assures […]
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Escaping the Emotional Roller Coaster by Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona draws upon acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) techniques to help “super-feelers” work with their emotions more effectively. What is a super-feeler? It’s someone who struggles with emotional regulation, meaning they experience intense emotions and strong emotional reactions. The book focuses on emotional sensitivity; this is
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Swinging Sanity is the first book of poetry by N.F. Mirza, who you may know from her blog, Stoner on a Roller Coaster. The book is organized according to five themes, beginning with screaming numbness and ending with random reflections. Each section begins with an illustration depicting different facets of the author along with a
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How To Be Miserable: 40 Strategies You Already Use by psychologist Randy J. Paterson challenges us to make our lives more miserable than they already are. The sneaky bit? He’ll make us realize that we’re already doing a lot of those things inadvertently. The book consists of 40 lessons. These are divided into four cheekily
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Resilient by psychologist Rick Hanson looks at how to build resilience given what we know about the neuroscience of learning. Despite being grounded in science, it’s refreshingly practical and simple. The book begins by identifying three basic human needs (safety, satisfaction, connection) and ways to meet those needs (recognizing, resourcing, regulating, relating). These are set
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Bipolar Me by Janet Coburn explores her journey with bipolar II disorder. The book is made up of blog posts, which are divided into chapters based on theme. The chapters cover topics like the symptoms of bipolar disorder, the “med-go-round”, times of struggling, dealing with social situations, and broader societal issues. Each post is pretty
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The Handbook for Highly Sensitive People is written by Mel Collins, who describes herself as a counsellor, spiritual healer, and reiki master, as well as a highly sensitive person (HSP). The book begins with a description of the characteristics of HSPs. The author explains that they process emotions on a deeper level than others, and tend
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My Bipolar Mind by Samantha Steiner is written as a series of blog posts that capture her recovery from addiction while living with the effects of bipolar disorder. The story begins in April 2017 she hit her personal rock bottom, and from there began her slow journey towards recovery. Of course, the full story began
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I was inspired to write this post after reading the book The Stigma Effect by psychologist Patrick Corrigan. The book looks at what research has to say about what works and what doesn’t to fight stigma. Corrigan is a prolific stigma researcher, and I first encountered his work when I was doing my master’s thesis.
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My Brother’s Journey: From Genius To Simpleton by Marie Abanga is a moving tribute to her younger brother Gabriel, whose life was taken away far too soon by mental illness. It includes not only Marie’s words, but also the words of others who knew and loved her brother. In the book she shares what a kind person
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