Stress
(Updated December 2006)
Stress plays a major role in our everyday lives. Carol Mathews has compiled this list of books about living and coping with stress.
To order any of these titles, contact the library by email, mail or phone. You may also request these titles online through our OPAC. Happy Reading!
Anxiety and Panic Attacks: Their Cause and Cure: Five-Point Life-Plus Program for Conquering Fear by Robert Handly with Pauline Neff.
The author, who overcame his own agoraphobia, offers a simple program for conquering fears and thereby reducing or eliminating stress related illnesses, such as colitis and migraines. Explains how to use the unconscious mind and relaxation and visualization techniques to reprogram one's responses to life's stresses. RC 23842.
Beyond the Relaxation Response: How to Harness the Healing Power of Your Personal Beliefs by Herbert Benson, with William Proctor.
The author contends that a positive mental attitude, attained through his "relaxation response" for dealing with stress, can also help people increase their control over health and happiness. RC 22254.
The Female Stress Syndrome: How to Recognize and Live with It by Georgia Witkin.
A clinical psychologist zeroes in on the female mind and body, describing special stresses unique to women. Covers working, marriage, living alone, motherhood, hidden stresses, and being female after forty. Offers insight and self help exercises, relaxation techniques, and other methods for managing female stress syndrome. RC 21796.
The Female Stress Syndrome Survival Guide by Georgia Witkin.
Explains how women experience stress differently from men and provides techniques and problem solving skills to reduce it. Includes examples of dealing with family life, common work problems, sexual difficulties, and aging as well as other unavoidable everyday tensions. RC 51828.
Good Stress, Bad Stress: An Indispensable Guide to Identifying and Managing Your Stress by Barry Lenson.
Author distinguishes between two types of personal anxiety: potentially damaging "bad" stress and beneficial "good" stress, which helps individuals improve performance and accomplishment. Explains effects of stress on physical and mental well being and provides strategies for harnessing good stress. RC 58486.
Inner Joy by Harold H. Bloomfield and Robert B. Kory.
Provides case histories, helpful suggestions, and practical exercises to build the body's natural defenses against stress. Dr. Bloomfield believes that he can show the reader how to shake the daily doldrums and unlock inner joy. RC 22295.
The Joy of Stress by Peter G. Hanson.
A Canadian family practitioner tells how we can stop letting stress run our lives. People's lives, Hanson argues, are dependent upon financial sufficiency, personal happiness, sound health, and respect on the job. When people master all four areas, stress can be controlled. The author says to "learn to ignore what you can't control, and learn to control what you can." BR 6755.
Just Hand Over the Chocolate and No One Will Get Hurt by Karen Scalf Linamen.
Contributing editor for Today's Christian Woman magazine offers fifteen ways women can lift their spirits in times of stress that go beyond eating chocolate. Linamen focuses on emotional, physical, and spiritual health with these "warm fuzzies, quick fixes, good ideas, and long-term solutions." RC 57443.
The Male Stress Syndrome: How to Recognize and Live with It by Georgia Witkin.
A clinical psychologist offers timely advice to men on the causes of and cures for stress. The author contends that although men and women share many stresses, such as stress from job and family, each sex is likely to experience these situations differently. Includes profiles for self evaluation. RC 25829.
Relax--You May Have Only a Few Minutes Left: Using the Power of Humor to Overcome Stress in Your Life and Work by Loretta LaRoche.
Motivational speaker and stress management consultant featured on PBS outlines how to achieve peace and harmony by bringing laughter into every situation. Offers tips on eliminating stress and turning it into an opportunity for resiliency and humor. RC 50306.
The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson.
A hypertension specialist defines the risk of stress and explains how tensions can lead to strokes, heart failure, and high blood pressure. Dr. Benson offers simplified instructions in the use of Transcendental Meditation, Yoga, and traditional prayers of the Eastern and Western religions to cope with anxieties. RC 10647.
Self-Nurture: Learning to Care for Yourself As Effectively As You Care for Everyone Else by Alice D. Domar and Henry Dreher. Asserts that self nurturing, "the essence of effective stress management for women," is about self care, not selfishness. The director of a women's mind and body center presents a yearlong, season by season program to practice the skill. Each chapter includes steps for nurturing the body, mind, emotions, and spirit. RC 51391.
Stop Killing Yourself: Make Stress Work for You by Susan Seliger.
Guidance in achieving better health through self control, exercise, proper diet, and mental attitude. BR 6278.
Stress and Natural Healing by Christopher Hobbs.
Advocates the use of herbal medicine and natural therapies for common ailments caused by stress. Describes both medical and natural treatments for common stress related disorders such as depression, insomnia, and digestive problems. Includes an overview of major relaxing herbs. BR 12079.
Stress and Survival: The Emotional Realities of Life-Threatening Illness edited by Charles A. Garfield.
Essays on the importance of interpersonal relations presented by doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, and patients. The basic premise that a supportive human presence can markedly decrease the patient's level of stress while increasing the will to live and capacity to overcome illness is illustrated with concrete examples. BR 6189.
Stress Management: A Comprehensive Guide to Wellness by Edward A. Charlesworth and Ronald G. Nathan.
Two clinical experts identify symptoms and causes of stress and offer step by step physical and psychological relaxation techniques. They include chapters on assertiveness, time management, nutrition, and exercise. A comprehensive manual. RC 23203.
Stress Passages: Surviving Life's Transitions Gracefully by L. John Mason.
Divided into chapters on the major stressful stages of life: pregnancy, parenting, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and work, midlife transition, aging, and death. This book presents techniques and exercises that are designed to help people relax in order to more effectively handle these stages and stresses. RC 28955, BR 7755.
Stress Relief for Disasters Great and Small: What to Expect and What to Do from Day One to Year One and Beyond by Georgia Witkin.
The author offers solutions for coping with natural disasters and personal traumas. Also suggests methods for helping children. RC 55685.
Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers: A Guide to Stress, Stress Related Diseases, and Coping by Robert M. Sapolsky.
A science professor explains how stress affects the human immune, cardiovascular, digestive, and reproductive systems; the body's response to pain; its rate of growth; and the process of aging. Sapolsky treats the subject seriously but uses humor and unconventional examples. He advocates preventing psychological stress and avoiding simplistic, self help psychology. RC 40516.
The Work/Stress Connection: How to Cope with Job Burnout by Robert L. Veninga and James P. Spradley.
Explores the effect of unrelieved work related stress on performance, health, and personal life through a series of interviews with a wide variety of men and women. The authors offer two kinds of positive strategies to combat burnout: personal ones involving health, lifestyle, and attitudes; and organizational strategies which may result in a detached view of the job. RC 18778.
Your Life Is in Your Hands: The Path to Lasting Health and Happiness by Krishan Chopra.
An Indian physician's guide to achieving a balance in life in order to increase physical and mental well being. Offers advice on reducing stress through diet, exercise, and meditation. Explores the concept of karma and the power of prayer and self discipline. RC 48476.