5 Best Books for Dealing with Stress

An important aspect of leading a healthy, happy life is managing stress. The American workforce is generally higher in stress that any other country. In fact, 80% of American workers report feeling stress on the job, and almost half say they need help learning how to manage stress. Reading is an excellent way to manage your stress level through unplugging.

While taking time off or taking a vacation can manage stress, it’s not always possible. So, books are an easy, accessible way to learn to unwind without taking time off. Many stress-relieving books are written by experts and can be excellent at helping us deal with stress.

Declutter Your Mind: How to Stop Worrying, Relieve Anxiety, and Eliminate Negative Thinking
By S.J. Scott (@habitsguy)

This book is the number one book on Amazon for stress reduction — for good reason. Scott goes beyond the obvious stress-reduction techniques and explores a number of issues that can clutter the mind, like relationships, life obligations, and physical environment. This book is designed for the overwhelmed and overworked mind, giving specific meditation and mindfulness techniques to declutter the mind.

At just over 150 pages, this quick, but substantive read will provide you with strategies and tools necessary to declutter your mind and determine what’s important to you.

Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers: The Acclaimed Guide to Stress, Stress-Related Diseases, and Coping
By Robert M. Sapolsky, Ph.D

Spolosky, professor of biology and neurology at Stanford University, is an expert on the causes of stress. Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers addresses many informative topics, like how stress affects anxiety and addiction, how our body handles stress, and how prolonged stress can affect our health. Spolsky combines good humor and valuable advice to how stress can cause or intensity various health and mental conditions and how to control our stress responses.

Spolsky’s biology and neurology background allows him to explain the physical as well and mental effects on the body in crisp detail. This book is perfect for those looking for an explanation of stress.

From Stress to Stillness: Tools for Inner Peace
By Gina Lake (@GinaLake)

As we know, most stress is caused by how we think about things. So, getting into your thought process and reshaping it is essential to managing stress. From Stress to Stillness will guide you in examining your thoughts so that you can better control your stress. Lake covers many aspects of stress, ultimately honing in on methods to shut down our negative inner critic and relieving stress through meditation.

What makes this book unique is Lake’s ability to describe how to use mindfulness to quiet stress and get to that feeling of “stillness.” After reading this book, you will feel more centered and peaceful, even in a busy world.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff and its Small Stuff
By Richard Carlson, Ph.D

From the popular “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” series, Richard Carlson explores the nature of stress in this insightful book. This book contains many helpful insights, like thinking of your problems as “teachers,” handling only one thing at a time, sharing glory with others and learning to trust your intuitions. Rather than sharing detailed methods for dealing with stress, Carlson fills his pages with simple, doable advice.

Carlson’s advice is designed to help you put your thoughts in perspective and understand the hindrance stress and worry place on your productivity and well-being. This collection of small, daily changes anyone can make provide easy steps to becoming a calmer, less stressed person.

Manage Your Time to Reduce Your Stress: A Handbook for the Overworked, Overscheduled, and Overwhelmed
By Rita Emmett

This book takes a different approach to stress than the ones mentioned above. Instead of focusing on stress and stress management, Emmett focuses on productivity and time management as a means to combat stress. This unique approach provides for a unique take on managing all of the day-to-day obligations we have to fill. Emmett’s quick, easy-to-read tips are excellent for the overscheduled and overworked. The combination of good humor and applicable tips makes this a must-read for the stressed out.

After a little reading on the subject, hopefully you can better understand and handle your stress. Whatever you do, don’t let your stress levels go unmanaged. Regularly taking time to check-in on your mental health will make you more productive and allow you to lead a happy, healthy life.