On Depression By Nassir Ghaemi
On Depression isnt so much a how-to manual on how to manage depression. Instead, it provides readers a better, more holistic understanding of melancholy. Dr. Ghaemi makes a compelling case that the way we typically think about depression in our popular culture is overly simplistic and that we not only need to think of it in terms of biology and psychology, but also in terms of philosophy.
I found this book helpful because it offered a different framework to think about depression. While it might not be something we can cure because its just part of the human condition, we can take steps to manage it so that it doesnt get in the way of living a flourishing, meaningful life.
Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts
In Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts: A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts, Sally M. Winston and Martin N. Seif explore different types of disturbing and frightening thoughts.
They discuss how a person can control their mind and learn to cope and live with thoughts that may scare them.
The book has an average of 4.6 out of 5 stars on Amazon. People can buy the paperback version for about $10 and the Kindle and hardcover versions for between $10 and $25.
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone By Lori Gottlieb
Weve all heard the saying, never judge someone until youve walked a mile in their shoes.This candid memoir reveals Lori Gottliebs experiences as both a psychotherapist and patient, so she examines depression from all angles.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone dives into her own internal conflict and her patients experiences, which result in the exploration of some thought-provoking questions surrounding love, guilt, courage, hope and more. Check out Maybe You Should Talk to Someone here.
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Lincolns Melancholy By Joshua Wolf Shenk
In Lincolns Melancholy, Joshua Wolf Shenk gives readers a history of Abraham Lincolns lifelong battle with what wed now call depression. While this isnt a self-help kind of book, but rather a biographical one, its still quite valuable in contributing to the kind of context that will enhance your understanding of your own personal bout with the black dog.
Shenk shows how Lincolns melancholy was both a curse and a blessing. At some points in his life, depression drove Abe to the brink of suicide. But Shenk also makes a compelling case that Lincolns depression helped him develop coping strategies and a realism about life that would allow him to lead the Union through the Civil War.
Learning about Lincolns life provides a flesh and blood example of how you dont have to cure your depression in order to live a successful life. Lincoln didnt let his depression either define him or crush him, but instead mitigated, harnessed, and integrated the condition into something that made him a better leader and man.
I Had A Black Dog By Matthew Johnstone And Living With A Black Dog By Matthew And Ainsley Johnstone
For: A picture book which clearly explains the feelings and behaviours around depression.
In I Had a Black Dog, depression appears as the main character’s constant shadow and companion â an ever-changing black dog sometimes as big as an entire room â capturing the perceived inseparability between the person and their condition.
This picture book has clear language and imagery, and the World Health Organisation has turned the book into videos to educate people about depression and its symptoms.
“Doing anything or going anywhere with Black Dog required superhuman strength. If Black Dog accompanied me to a social occasion, he would sniff out what confidence I had and sniff it away,” writes Johnstone.
A follow-up book, Living with a Black Dog, shows what’s it like to live with someone who is experiencing depression, and how a carer can care for themselves while looking after another person.
Read Also: Is Zoning Out A Symptom Of Depression
Will Grayson Will Grayson By John Green And David Levithan
One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two teensboth named Will Graysonare about to cross paths. As their worlds collide and intertwine, the Will Graysons find their lives going in new and unexpected directions, building toward romantic turns-of-heart and the epic production of historys most fabulous high school musical.
Hilarious, poignant, and deeply insightful, John Green and David Levithans collaborative novel is brimming with a double helping of the heart and humor that have won them both legions of faithful fans.
Can Reading About Depression And Anxiety Actually Help You
I think this list of books will help you better understand depression and anxiety. But you might still be wondering: will they actually help me deal with my depression and anxiety?
Well, Id answer that with it depends.
I love books. I read them every single day. But if youre reading a book with the hopes that it will permanently fix you, then no, none of these books will help you.
Theres a fine line between reading a book to gain a new perspective on a problem and reading a book to simply avoid the problem by intellectualizing it.
You could read every single book ever published on money and personal finance. But if you dont apply that knowledge and save and invest your money, youll still be broke. Youll understand why youre broke really well, but youll still be broke.
This seems so obvious when it comes to more tangible outcomes like money or losing weight or whatever. But when it comes to our emotional and mental health, we often believe we can just think the problems away.
Getting your emotional and mental shit together is a lived experience. You have to face and endure the pain, not rationalize it away. You can do it with a therapist or a family member or a good friend. In some cases, you might be able to do it alone. But no matter what, it has to be done, not simply thought about and analyzed.
Theyll make the work a bit easier. But you still have to do the work.
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What To Read If You Want To Understand Depression
Want to understand depression? Here are the ten books I recommend most strongly:
Happy reading!
The Mindful Way Through Depression By Mark Williams John Teasdale Zindel Segal And Jon Kabat
Mindfulness is well-known for helping enhance your overall well-being and this is especially true for people with depression. Using expert-backed mindfulness techniques, you can rewire your negative thinking patterns. This book combines Eastern meditative traditions and cognitive therapy to help you improve your mental habits and find inner peace. Check out The Mindful Way Through Depression here.
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The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A F*ck
While the previous selections offer a tranquil warmth and polite professionalism in their quest to defeat depression, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck utilizes a bolder, take-no-prisoners approach. Drawing from a successful blog, author Mark Manson presents a way to feel better without a focus on staying positive and looking on the bright side all of the time.
This book is based on the concept that life is a struggle that is tough to endure, and people should focus on becoming stronger and more resilient, rather than hoping for their situations to improve. If the reader can learn to handle defeat, face their fears, and accept their limitations, they can achieve the happiness they truly seek.
As the title suggests, this counterintuitive approach to living a good life is profane, rude, and vulgar, in the best ways possible. Manson trades flowery speech found in other texts for clear directives and humor at unforeseen turns.
Ways To Be Less Stressed
Feelings of anxiety and depression are often triggered and heightened by too much or poorly managed stress. Dr. Caroline Leaf is a neuroscientist and guru in mind and brain health. This book offers many strategies to experiment with and determine which ones are most helpful for each person.
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I Enjoyed It Because My Brain Sometimes Operates In The
But all of that aside, I think this book is the best demonstration of what it is to actually live with severe anxiety and still find a way to function and thrive in ones life. Wilson has suffered from bipolar disorder, eating disorders, manic episodes, and intermittent depression. But the anxiety has always been there. Intensely there. And shes somehow leveraged it to get her places. Ive always argued that the key to anxiety is not getting rid of it but merely directing it in more productive ways. The heart of First, We Make the Beast Beautiful is the same argument, demonstrated through a vibrant life that is unlike anything else Ive quite come across before.
Fans Of The Impossible Life By Kate Scelsa
Mira is starting over at Saint Francis Prep. She promised her parents she would at least try to pretend that she could act like a functioning human this time, not a girl who cant get out of bed for days on end, who only feels awake when shes with Sebby.
Jeremy is the painfully shy art nerd at Saint Francis whos been in self-imposed isolation after an incident that ruined his last year of school. When he sees Sebby for the first time across the school lawn, its as if hes been expecting this blond, lanky boy with mischief glinting in his eye.
Sebby, Miras gay best friend, is a boy who seems to carry sunlight around with him. Even as life in his foster home starts to take its toll, Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and impromptu road trips, designed to fix the broken parts of their lives.
As Jeremy finds himself drawn into Sebby and Miras world, he begins to understand the secrets that they hide in order to protect themselves, to keep each other safe from those who dont understand their quest to live for the impossible.
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Unlearning Anxiety And Depression By Joseph L Luciani
By viewing anxiety and depression through the lens of habits, you can find a way to break them. Author Joseph L. Luciani explains how to unlearn negative thinking patterns and rewire your brain to be happier. He shares a four-step approach he uses with his patients, which utilizes principles of neuroplasticity, cognitive behavioral psychological, and motivational coaching. This book will help you become more aware of your inner critic and stop the cycle of worrying. Check out Unlearning Anxiety and Depression here.
Find Solace And Healing In These Helpful Books By Mental Health Experts
Steven Gans, MD is board-certified in psychiatry and is an active supervisor, teacher, and mentor at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Our editors independently research, test, and recommend the bestproducts, and articles are reviewed by healthcare professionals for medical accuracy. Youcan learn more about ourreview process here.We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links.
Depression affects both the mind and the body and is much more than just feeling sad for a while. Depression squashes motivation for even the simplest of tasks and creates feelings of hopelessness and despair.
Depression is like a barometer: it tells us that something is wrong, but it doesnt tell us what is wrong. Complicating the condition is the fact that it is experienced differently by each person, so an individualized treatment plan is essential for recovery.
Self-help books can be a useful tool in the overall picture of successful treatment. They can be used alone but shouldn’t substitute for treatment options like talk therapy and medication. Self-help books can even help to speed up the positive effects of talk therapy as self-study efforts provide added topics for processing in the therapy room.
Here is a list of the best books for depression, according to experts.
Also Check: How To Find Angle Of Depression
So Instead I Will Send Them Here To These Books
Ive read a lot of books about anxiety and depression over the years and these are some of the best ones Ive come across. Theyre way more qualified than I am to help you through whatever suckage youre
https://markmanson.net/5-books-for-dealing-with-anxiety-and-depression 2/12
steaming pile of dogshit, you can blame them and not me.
Your Happiness Toolkit: 16 Strategies For Overcoming Depression And Building A Joyful Fulfilling Life
A lot of the confusion surrounding depression is about not knowing what to do about it. This book is exactly what the title suggests: a toolkit of options for various situations and feelings that arise. With techniques included for people in drug and alcohol recovery, this book focuses on drug-free methods to decrease feelings of despair and even panic when unexpected problems are presented and works to develop skills to help prevent feelings of depression in the future.
Also Check: I Am Depressed And No One Cares
Dennis Greenberger And Christine Padesky
Mind Over Mood is a longtime bestseller about one of the most sought-after ways to overcome depression. Authors Dennis Greenberger and Christine Padesky, both Ph.D.s, provide the reader with clinically proven strategies that can help one learn to manage their mind, control their negative thoughts, and end for good the distress of depression.
Eyes Too Dry: A Graphic Memoir About Heavy Feelings By Alice Chipkin And Jessica Tavassoli
For: An exploration of depression, friendships, and relationships in graphic novel form, set in Melbourne.
Friends Alice Chipkin and Jessica Tavassoli are both artists and educators.
They spent 27 days in Canada drawing cartoons “to” each other, to recount a period that spans Tavassoli’s first experience of depression in Melbourne, Chipkin’s subsequent realisation that she also has mental health issues, and the time after all this where “some of the intensity has subsided” and a sense of stability returns.
With alternating sections told and drawn in each artist’s unique style, the reader is privy to the complicated ups and downs experienced by both parties whether they’re in care-giving or care-receiving modes.
The book is rich with meaning, from detailed and heartfelt descriptions of the pits of despair and “all the thoughts I could usually contain, unravelled” to ruminations on what it means to be well.
Read Also: How To Get Someone To Get Help For Depression
The Memory Of Light By Francisco X Stork
16-year-old Vicky Cruz wakes up in a hospitals mental ward after a failed suicide attempt. Now she must find a path to recoveryand perhaps rescue some others along the way.
When Vicky Cruz wakes up in the Lakeview Hospital Mental Disorders ward, she knows one thing: After her suicide attempt, she shouldnt be alive. But then she meets Mona, the live wire Gabriel, the saint E.M., always angry and Dr. Desai, a quiet force. With stories and honesty, kindness and hard work, they push her to reconsider her life before Lakeview, and offer her an acceptance shes never had.
But Vickys newfound peace is as fragile as the roses that grow around the hospital. And when a crisis forces the group to split up, sending Vick back to the life that drove her to suicide, she must try to find her own courage and strength. She may not have them. She doesnt know.
Inspired in part by the authors own experience with depression, The Memory of Light is the rare young adult novel that focuses not on the events leading up to a suicide attempt, but the recovery from oneabout living when life doesnt seem worth it, and how we go on anyway.
This Seems So Obvious When It Comes To More Tangible Outcomes Like
Getting your emotional and mental shit together is a lived experience. You have to face and endure the pain, not rationalize it away. You can do it with a therapist or a family member or a good friend. In some cases, you might be able to do it alone. But no matter what, it has to be done, not simply thought about and analyzed.
https://markmanson.net/5-books-for-dealing-with-anxiety-and-depression 10/12
perspective on what your depression and anxiety really are and where they come from. They will show you that youre not alone, and that others have gone through what youre going through. They will show you that, yes, you can come out the other side a happier, stronger person.
Theyll make the work a bit easier. But you still have to do the work.
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