The Upside of Stress


Book Description

Drawing from groundbreaking research, psychologist and award-winning teacher Kelly McGonigal, PhD, offers a surprising new view of stress—one that reveals the upside of stress, and shows us exactly how to capitalize on its benefits. You hear it all the time: stress causes heart disease; stress causes insomnia; stress is bad for you! But what if changing how you think about stress could make you happier, healthier, and better able to reach your goals? Combining exciting new research on resilience and mindset, Kelly McGonigal, PhD, proves that undergoing stress is not bad for you; it is undergoing stress while believing that stress is bad for you that makes it harmful. In fact, stress has many benefits, from giving us greater focus and energy, to strengthening our personal relationships. McGonigal shows readers how to cultivate a mindset that embraces stress, and activate the brain's natural ability to learn from challenging experiences. Both practical and life-changing, The Upside of Stress is not a guide to getting rid of stress, but a toolkit for getting better at it—by understanding, accepting, and leveraging it to your advantage.




Stress R Us


Book Description

This book is a compilation of what a neuropsychiatrist learned about the causes and cures of human diseases in his 41 year medical practice. I treated 25,000 of my fellows and wrote 1,000,000 Rx in the process. The book is divided into 51 Topics (chapters) and contains over 100 references. It serves as an historical review of the field of stress research as well as animal crowding research, as the two morphed together in my theory of "population density stress". Human overpopulation is a fact, as we have far exceeded the earth's carrying capacity for our species and mother nature is attempting to cull our numbers through our multitude of "diseases of civilization". Our hunter-gatherer contemporaries, living in their traditional manner in their clan social groups widely distributed in their ecosystem, have none of our diseases. As our extreme gene based altruism has brought us tremendous compassion and technological advances in caring for the diseases of our fellows, it has also brought us tremendous overpopulation and brought us near to ecological collapse. We must face our need to restrict our reproduction or mother nature will do it for us. A case in point: infertility in America has increased 100% in just 34 years, from 1982 to 2016. During the same period, our sperm counts have fallen 60%. No-one is willing to look at the obvious cause: neuro-endocrine inhibition of human reproduction resulting from population density stress. If any of this touches a nerve, please find the time in your busy, stressful day to stop for an hour and read this ground-breaking book. You may never have heard any of this information from any of your healthcare providers or the mass media. Big Pharma rules the minds of your healthcare providers and the mass media. At the end of my career as a practicing psychiatrist, I had become little more than a prescription writing machine and was actually instructed to "stop wasting time talking to your patients and just write their prescriptions". So, I retired and spent the next 5 years writing this book. I hope you find it as illuminating as I did doing the research on our epidemic of stress diseases. No wonder that we are ever more anxious and depressed, in spite of taking our 4,300,000,000 Rx every year! The real cure for our diseases of civilization must be a worldwide reduction in family size and a concerted effort to increase the opportunities for women to access education and work, as well as birth control. The alternative is increasing human disease and infertility from population density stress. Please read this book and tell me if you don't agree with my surprising conclusions. Good luck and God bless us one and all!




Is Work Killing You?


Book Description

From the bestselling author of Authenticity and The Little Book of Stress Relief comes the definitive guide to treating — and eliminating — excessive stress in the workplace. Dr. David Posen, a popular speaker and a leading expert on stress mastery, identifies the three biggest problems that contribute to burnout and low productivity: Volume, Velocity, and Abuse. He shares revealing anecdotes and offers clear descriptions of the biology of stress to illustrate how downsizing, economic uncertainty, and technology have made the workplace more toxic than ever. Most importantly, he offers practical advice and easy techniques for managing the harmful symptoms and side effects of stress. Witty, engaging, and accessible, Is Work Killing You? touches on everything from meetings to tweeting, from fake work to face time, from deadlines to dead tired, and more. With this book, Dr. Posen gives us the tools to stop harming our most valuable resource — ourselves.




Dying for a Paycheck


Book Description

"In this timely, provocative book, Jeffrey Pfeffer contends that many modern management commonalities such as long hours, work-family conflict, and economic insecurity are toxic to employees--hurting engagement, increasing turnover, and destroying people's physical and emotional health--while also being inimical to company performance. He argues that human sustainability should be as important as environmental stewardship. You don't have to do a physically dangerous job to confront a health-destroying, possibly life-threatening workplace....In "Dying for a Paycheck", Jeffrey Pfeffer marshals a vast trove of evidence and numerous examples from all over the world to expose the infuriating truth about modern work life: even as organizations allow management practices that actually sicken and kill their employees, those policies do not enhance productivity or the bottom line, thereby creating a lose-lose situation. Exploring a range of important topics, including layoffs, health insurance, work-family conflict, work hours, job autonomy, and why people remain in toxic environments, Pfeffer offers guidance and practical solutions that all of us--employees, employers, and the government--can use to enhance workplace well-being. We must wake up to the dangers and enormous costs to today's workplace, Pfeffer argues. "Dying for a Paycheck" is a clarion call for a social movement focused on human sustainability. Pfeffer makes clear that the environment we work in is just as important as the one we live in, and with this urgent book he opens our eyes and shows how we can make our workplaces healthier and better."--jacket flaps




The Stress-Proof Brain


Book Description

“For people suffering from stress, this book is a godsend.” —Kristin Neff, PhD, author of Self-Compassion "Highly recommended for mental health professionals and consumer health readers looking to manage stress." —Library Journal (starred review) Modern times are stressful—and it’s killing us. Unfortunately, we can’t avoid the things that stress us out, but we can change how we respond to them. In this breakthrough book, a clinical psychologist and neuroscience expert offers an original approach to help readers harness the power of positive emotions and overcome stress for good. Stress is, unfortunately, a natural part of life—especially in our busy and hectic modern times. But you don’t have to let it get in the way of your health and happiness. Studies show that the key to coping with stress is simpler than you think—it’s all about how you respond to the situations and things that stress you out or threaten to overwhelm you. The Stress-Proof Brain offers powerful, comprehensive tools based in mindfulness, neuroscience, and positive psychology to help you put a stop to unhealthy responses to stress—such as avoidance, tunnel vision, negative thinking, self-criticism, fixed mindset, and fear. Instead, you’ll discover unique exercises that provide a recipe for resilience, empowering you to master your emotional responses, overcome negative thinking, and create a more tolerant, stress-proof brain. This book will help you develop an original and effective program for mastering your emotional brain’s response to stress by harnessing the power of neuroplasticity. By creating a more stress tolerant, resilient brain, you’ll learn to shrug off the small stuff, deal with the big stuff, and live a happier, healthier life.




This City Is Killing Me


Book Description

Jonathan Foiles weaves together psychology and public policy, exploring the trauma underlying urbanization in a book Kirkus Reviews calls an "urgent call for reform." When Jonathan Foiles was a graduate studen




Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You


Book Description

Stop running. Nothing is chasing you. Thanks to technology, today’s world is more comfortable than ever, but our survival instinct that evolved to protect us from danger is on high alert. Though mild discomforts such as work demands, traffic jams, family conflict, or having to perform under pressure are not life threatening, they can still trigger the brain’s fight or flight fear reaction. And this response can lead to a reliance on drugs, alcohol, overeating, insomnia, phobias, chronic pain, illness, or just losing our temper for no apparent reason. In this eye-opening book, psychologist Dr. Marc Schoen offers practical strategies to tame your overly reactive survival instinct and conquer fear, build resilience, boost decision-making, and improve every aspect of your life.




Gender and Stress


Book Description

In this volume the authors examine the variety of ways in which gender affects the stress process.




Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers


Book Description

Renowned primatologist Robert Sapolsky offers a completely revised and updated edition of his most popular work, with over 225,000 copies in print Now in a third edition, Robert M. Sapolsky's acclaimed and successful Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers features new chapters on how stress affects sleep and addiction, as well as new insights into anxiety and personality disorder and the impact of spirituality on managing stress. As Sapolsky explains, most of us do not lie awake at night worrying about whether we have leprosy or malaria. Instead, the diseases we fear-and the ones that plague us now-are illnesses brought on by the slow accumulation of damage, such as heart disease and cancer. When we worry or experience stress, our body turns on the same physiological responses that an animal's does, but we do not resolve conflict in the same way-through fighting or fleeing. Over time, this activation of a stress response makes us literally sick. Combining cutting-edge research with a healthy dose of good humor and practical advice, Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers explains how prolonged stress causes or intensifies a range of physical and mental afflictions, including depression, ulcers, colitis, heart disease, and more. It also provides essential guidance to controlling our stress responses. This new edition promises to be the most comprehensive and engaging one yet.




Stress-Proof


Book Description

Discover simple, science-based strategies for beating stress at its own game When’s the best time to exercise – and how much is too much? Which foods fortify the brain, and which do the opposite? How can we use music, movement, and motivation to boost our rational brain and keep our cool no matter what life throws our way? Short bursts of stress are an inevitable part of modern life. But how much is too much? Research is uncovering the delicate balance that can turn a brief stressful episode into systemic overload, eventually leading to inflammation, anxiety, depression, and other chronic health issues. This practical and groundbreaking guide reveals seven paths to fighting the effects of stress--to strengthen our natural defenses so that our minds remain sharp, and our bodies resilient, no matter what life throws at us. Each chapter examines a common stress agent—including inflammation, an out-of-sync body clock, cortisol levels, and emotional triggers—and presents simple ways to minimize its harmful effects with changes in diet, exercise, and other daily habits—including surprising hacks involving music, eye movements, body temperature, daily routine, and more. Translating cutting-edge scientific findings into clear and simple advice, Stress-Proof is the ultimate user’s guide for body, mind and well-being. **Winner, Best Stress Management Books of All Time, BookAuthority**