Also the Ted Talk on Self-Compassion by Dr. Kristin Neff. I liked it because she gives some practical examples of how to practise self compassion.
I was so lost and unable to love myself. This helped me a little. It is just really an introduction although I dont think I fully grasped the concepts until years later. Still a great reminder and intro from a respected researcher who has some lived experience with struggle and challenge

Two books that I have been reading are The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk - it is all about the effects that trauma has on the mind and body and strategies to overcome it. I found it a bit full on at times and I had to put it down then come back to it later but overall it is very informative and helpful. I have also been reading Getting Past Your Past which is written by the therapist who invented EMDR therapy. It has lots of different strategies that you can use to help move on from past events.

Thank you Fred the Body Keeps the Score is truly a great book on trauma. Have heard of Getting Past Your Past, also - very interesting.
Anyone read The Happiness Trap? I've dipped into it and enjoyed.

LOVE Kristen Neff!
Thankyou Sleepy for putting her name on my thread, she has really helped me so much! And you have too...what's your book's name? And I'm not joking.

I sent the Happiness Trap to my bf in the U.S. and he loved it. Pretty cute book, I like it. My neighbour had about 8 copies and kindly let me borrow one 🤣😂 I'm loving emojis lol.

Last Sunday I bought "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. I read the whole book the same day, it's not long. LIKE it very much. I also bought the CDs and gave them to my eldest D who had thrown a tanty that weekend. She listens to podcasts etc alot and she was glad to have it.

You can get to a point, when reading alot of these types of books that they feel very repetitive - or repeating what you've already read elsewhere. Which is good I guess.

I AM LOVE LOVE LOVING "You are the Placebo" By Dr Joe Dispenza, seriously I CANNOT get enough of this man's work! OMG he explains the difficult time between leaving our mental health issues behind and becoming well. NO ONE else has been able to explain why I felt SO WEIRD recently, the intensive therapy and homework ugh is really working. Such a New World - pun intended lol.
Joe did.
And it can be so easy to slip back into the known.
Once my days were going well, my dreams or nightmares began - it was my body needing it's "fix".

But Dr Joe's Meditation CDs have worked really well here.

Love EM

GABOR MATE
"IN THE REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS"
covers addiction and it s link to tbe environments we are raised in including childhoid trauma.

GABOR MATE - also has doneTed and a great interview on Russell Brand's podcast.

JOHAN HARI
"LOST CONNECTIONS"
covers depression and reasons lack of community as a huge contributor.
Johan did a brilliant interview on Tripe R community radio Melbourne which you can access via podcast on the Triple R website from anywhere in the world.

CENTRE FOR CLINICAL INTERVENTIONS
A website for both individuals and professionals. Has some great modules covering all types of mental health issues. Theyre simple,logical, practical and
very accessible. All you need is to muster the comnttment to practice and finish the modules - the trickiest part.

"Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway" - Susan Jeffers

Very interesting book Doz, she is wise.

I've read this book recently and enjoyed it, too.

I have just read Mind Full by Dermot Whelan. He is an Irish Comedian turned mindfulness teacher. I guess I always felt that I would just be able to meditate when I was feeling overwhelmed but he shows why it's important to make mindfulness and mediation part of your everyday routine so you are better prepared for when the overwhelming times hit. I found his book funny and very helpful and I thought that some of you might to 😊

Beating The Blues was something i was told to read, it might help some. it has activities inside it too.

there's also some few mental health pages that are positive, such as positive quotes, on Facebook, i'm not sure if they're on other social media sites and have websites, and i can't remember the name, sorry.

i also found a channel on Youtube that also has a Facebook page called Psych2Go.

Cartier I will look that book up.

there are some nice ideas in Russell Brand's book on addiction:
Recovery: Freedom from our Addictions

i think it could apply widely and connect to ppl regardless of how they feel about or relate to addiction.

His two autobiographies are also interesting but maybe not super inspring in terms of overcoming Mental Health struggles.

To my fellow PTSD affected folks -

Trauma and Recovery, by Judith Herman

It is intense and heavy. But I leart from it a lot.

And to be honest, I like Dr. Ramani on youtube who talks about narcissism. I think she's a bit intense on this topic, but she gives some good educational talks, where she explains terms and concepts such as bread-crumbing love-bombing narcissistic supply and the different kinds of narcissists.
It's maybe pop psychology, and Kendall Jenner recently did an interview with her which didn't make her look, well, sciency - but overall i can always get into a Dr. Ramani video!

Youtube pop-psychology speaker - she is a psychologist but a bit of "famous" one (as you can see by her Kendall Jenner feature).

Hi Guys,

For anxiety I really recommend, Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway by, Susan Jeffers.

It such a great resource with those who have SA.

Regards,

CC

hi CalmCat, i like that book!

I also read her book Opening Our hearts to Men but found it very sexist.

Over the years I've amassed a small collection of helpful books.

The genius in all of us. David Shenk.

The winners bible. Dr Kerry Spackman

Changing Minds. Gardner.

educational psychology for teaching and learning. 3rd ed. Krause. Bochner. Duchesne. McMaugh.

Social Psychology. 10th ed. David Myers.

Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology. Weinburg. Gould.

Those are some highlights of one bookshelf.

Spackman is quite approachable and practical advice for living from a neuroscientist perspective - the daily affirmations through development of your own "winners bible" is actually a pretty cool method.

Myers is really quite fun reading for a uni textbook, so too educational psychology.

Gardner stands tall in the field.

howard gardner?

yep

A great self help book that assists with life and work place anxiety is called "The Obstacle is The Way" by Ryan Holiday. I highly recommend it!

I really enjoyed the book 'The Art of Not Giving a F' (I'm not going to type out the full word but I hope that you know which book I am talking about!)

I highlighted some passages as it really related to me, I always have lived life wanting everything to be perfect so when anything goes wrong I spiral. This book really taught me that this is not sustainable to live this way.

Has anyone else read this? I found it refreshing with regards to mental health!

God, I wish I had found this thread earlier. Books are life.

Completely agree with missep123's recommendation of Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***. There is also another book written in a similar style called F*** No - How to stop saying yes when you can't, you shouldn't or you just don't want to by Sarah Knight. It has a hilarious flowchart in it that ends up getting you to "no" even when you feel guilty and should say yes.

Here are another heap of my must-buys:

1. Perfectly Hidden Depression by Dr Margaret Robinson Rutherford. It focusses on perfectionism and how you can keep a cycle of achieving and achieving to mask your depression. I read it and was like "holy shit, this is me in a book".
2. Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig. This book changed my life. I bought it and it sat on my bookshelf unread for years. Then, during a horrendous bout of anxiety and depression, I grabbed it off the bookshelf and took it to hospital with me. Holy shit - it was just the right book at the right time.
3. The Body Keeps the Score - Mind, brain and body in the transformation of trauma -by Bessel Van Der Kolk. It's a very thick book with small text and A LOT of information, but definitely worth a read [possibly a book to read when in a good headspace].
4. Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents - Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries and Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy by Lindsay C Gibson. This one is really highly rated, so I bought it to give it a try. I'm not going to lie, difficult to read in places and definitely brought somethings to the surface, but there are some really good tips about establishing boundaries.
5. The Things You Can See When You Slow Down - How to be calm in a busy world by Haemun Sunmin. Written by a Buddhist Monk, it is a beautifully written book on finding joy in being calm.
6. How to Survive the End of the World (when it's in your own head) by Aaron Gillies. This is part autobiographical, part satire, part tips. It's an easy read and is considered a more light and comical anxiety survival guide. Definitely recommend for when you need something lighter. I know I felt deep relief in parts and could laugh and go "omg, thank you, it's not just me". He takes you through some his anxious thought spirals in a light-hearted way that allows you to step back and see the cyclic thinking of anxiety and where you can try to jump in and challenge those thoughts.

Happy reading all!

For LGBTI peps I really recommend 'The Velvet Rage' by Alan Down. This book is great way to navigate your LGBTI community helping your peace of mind immensely!

Hey guys,

A great tool that I personally use on a daily basis is podcasts. My favourite podcast is by Jay Shetty and its called on purpose. The podcast provides great advice about many different topics including mental health such as managing/navigating through anxiety, depression and trauma as well as other useful topics such as improving relationships, taking control of your personal and work life and making it better. I believe this podcast is very motivational and it provides useful advice that can improve everyone's day to day life. Hope everyone is well.

All the best.

hi merna, welcom to the forums, lovely to hear ur story, welcome to this communal space and hope it is helpful and cosy for u :)

Hello everyone, I loved reading everyone's recommendations so much!
I put some titles of books and podcasts in my Noted section lol... my WISH list of stuff.

Thankyou.

Welcome to the forums Merna, so great to have you here.

I put your rec of Jay Shetty podcast on my list lol.

I've been listening to Duncan Trussell's podcast on and off... well tbh I loved the first one I heard with Benjy Epstein, that I keep going back to the same one, I want to absorb and learn it all!
The one with James Bashara is awesome too.

I know it's "not for everyone" but what is lol.

Sharing what's helped or helping US is really helpful!

Thankyou again
Love EM

This will show my age but do you need an app to listen to a podcast or can I listen or my
I pad. Are all podcasts for sale or are some free?

Thanks for all the recommendations.

hi all,

glad to be part of this inspiring convo.

hi quirky i had not listened to a podcast until about 2 years ago, and asked someone the same question. I could be really incorrect here, please tell me if i've made a mistake, but i think that most podcasts are free, and that ones which you need to pay for are the exception. Some podcasts have ads which make it profitable.

When do u guys listen to ur podcasts, in the car, or while dong housework? i find it hard to focus-but-not-really-focus on podcasts, and tend to listen to them like a show - with full attention and while i'm doing nothing else.

Hey quirky

Not silly to ask, it's awesome! Podcasts are good to listen to when we want to be busy with our eyes elsewhere, like cooking or gardening lol.

Not all podcasts are the same (they may use one or several ways you can access them).

What you can do is Google Search the NAME of the person who did the Podcast.
Then next to their name write the word PODCAST.

eg Brene Brown podcast.

This will show you whether you can access it directly from your search or it's streamed via another "app".

I access Duncan Trussell podcast directly this way.

ALL the different "interviews" he's does come up in a line.
You can choose one and press the > button to play it.

Hope this makes sense.

PS: There's a really cute and quizzical podcast by "The QI elves"! lol so interesting and varied in content but really entertaining I found.

EMxxxx

I think Taryn Brumford (?)'s Embrace (book and movie) are pretty lovely and a good starting point on body image.

Hi quirkywords!

That's not a silly question at all! Even I've struggled to figure it out in the beginning and I like to think of myself as tech savvy haha!

I like to use Spotify! I find easy there to make a playlist of podcasts I want to listen to! On the app I believe from memory they have a section you click on for all their podcasts.

Very good book on Mental ill-health.

Explains succinctly, in clear language how you can arrive at anxiety

and depression and how to heal. Best book.

Doctor Clair Weekes: "More help for your nerves, Recovery from nervous suffering through understanding nervous fatigue (1984), Angus and Robertson.

Cheers B