Exercise for Mood and Anxiety

Exercise has long been touted anecdotally as an effective tool for mood improvement, but only recently has rigorous science caught up with these claims. There is now overwhelming evidence that regular exercise can help relieve low mood-from feelings of stress and anxiety to full depressive episodes.

With Exercise for Mood and Anxiety, Michael Otto and Jasper Smits, well-known authorities on cognitive behavioral therapy, take their empirically-based mood regulation strategy from the clinic to the general public. Written for those with diagnosed mood disorders as well as those who simply need a new strategy for managing the low mood and stress that is an everyday part of life, this book provides readers with step-by-step guidance on how to start and maintain an exercise program geared towards improving mood, with a particular emphasis on understanding the relationship between mood and motivation. Readers learn to attend carefully to mood states prior to and following physical activity in order to leverage the full benefits of exercise, and that the trick to maintaining an exercise program is not in applying more effort, but in arranging one’s environment so that less effort is needed. As a result readers not only acquire effective strategies for adopting a successful program, but are introduced to a broader philosophy for enhancing overall well-being. Providing patient vignettes, rich examples, and extensive step-by-step guidance on overcoming the obstacles that prevent adoption of regular exercise for mood, Exercise for Mood and Anxiety is a unique translation of scientific principles of clinical and social psychology into an action-based strategy for mood change.

Spent

Today, Americans are saving less, carrying larger debt loads, losing their homes to foreclosure, and filing bankruptcy in record numbers. People are spending more than they can afford, and many feel guilty, anxious, and overwhelmed as a result.

Moving beyond the advice of financial planners who only treat the symptoms of overspending, in Spent Sally Palaian offers proven plans for taking on a range of personal issues with money by examining those underlying emotional, familial, and societal factors that trigger spending behaviors.

Spent teaches readers to control shopping, pay off debt, develop budgets, and become financially competent through:

• Easy-to-use assessment tools designed to pinpoint the severity of a problem
• Questionnaires that facilitate the exploration of the root causes of unhealthy financial behaviors
• User-friendly exercises created to influence change from within

Palaian’s system for financial recovery is designed to not only help excessive spenders overcome their spending habits, but also to help hoarders, financial codependents, and underachievers let go of fears, take responsibility for their actions, and break unhealthy cycles. Spent empowers people in every financial predicament to disentangle their financial messes to achieve lasting, positive change and a healthy view of one’s true value in life.

The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety

Anxiety is not your fault. There are many factors that contribute to developing a mind that is prone to intense anxiety, and if you have such a mind, there are many things you can do to change the way it works. Research has shown that practicing kindness and compassion soothes experiences of fear, while self-critical thoughts tend to intensify them. If you become frustrated with your anxious reactions or consistently try to talk yourself out of your anxiety, it may be time to try a different approach.

The compassion-focused therapy (CFT) based program in The Compassionate-Mind Guide to Overcoming Anxiety will help you learn to be kinder to yourself while you soothe your anxious impulses. Complete with worksheets, exercises, and meditation practices, this book includes everything you need to learn mindfulness and compassion-focused skills for redirecting your anxious thoughts and allowing yourself to enjoy a more peaceful life.

By learning to be a compassionate witness to your own pain, you will also learn to be fully present in the moment, and develop healthier, more fluid ways of responding to life’s struggles. This resourceful guide aims to help you understand the nature of your anxiety, the best ways of dealing with it, and how your mind can help you cope with it.

Take Control of OCD

Take Control of OCD: The Ultimate Guide for Kids With OCD is a unique guide just for kids ages 10–16 with obsessive compulsive disorder to help them take control of their disorder and find success in school and in life. Using a cognitive-behavioral therapy method to challenge obsessive thinking patterns and promote gradual exposure, the book takes kids step-by-step through a ladder-based process to conquer their fears and demolish their worries.

Focusing on helping kids change their obsessive thoughts, tolerate uncertainty, develop positive self-talk and stress management, advocate for their needs in school, find successful relaxation procedures, and face their fears, the book includes workbook-style pages for kids to complete. Along with sharing the thoughts and worries of real-life kids with OCD, the author also provides tons of advice, information, and ideas perfect for kids and teens wanting to overcome OCD. This handy guidebook is sure to help children with OCD change their behaviors and conquer their worries, discovering a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

Mind-Body Workbook for PTSD

It may not seem possible at first, but you can make a full recovery after trauma.

Many traumatic experiences naturally heal with time and become part of your past, like old scars. But when you have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumas flare up in your life again and again, causing stress and making it difficult to focus on the here and now. Months and even years may pass, but the memories don’t fade and let you move on.

A clinically proven therapeutic method called mind-body bridging can help you to finally heal and recover from these difficult experiences. Mind-Body Workbook for PTSD is a straightforward, self-guided mind-body bridging program that you can complete in ten weeks. You’ll use your body to settle your mind, develop the skills you need to recover from PTSD, and start to feel connected, confident, and in charge of your life.

• Stop feeling detached and numb and start feeling alive again
• Notice the tension in your body and experience it melting away
• Reduce flashbacks, nightmares, insomnia, and restlessness
• Keep track of your progress as you move toward making a full recovery

Yoga for Anxiety

Many of us face daily demands and overwhelming difficulties that cause seemingly uncontrollable feelings of anxiety and fear. When you feel this way, it’s healing to calm yourself and to reclaim your sense of innate goodness and well-being. For centuries, yoga has offered a quiet retreat away from life’s pressures and has enabled us to reconnect to our inner wisdom and peace.

Regular yoga practice has been proven to calm stress, enhance concentration, and reduce the symptoms of anxiety. This book offers meditations, mindfulness practices, self-inquiry exercises, and yoga poses that soothe anxious feelings and develop mental clarity. Before long, you’ll free yourself from the anxiety and fears that hold you back and learn to live with a more open heart and resilient mind. Just as yoga helps you feel more at home in your body, the mental and physical practices in Yoga for Anxiety help you increase your sense of contentment in life.

Uninvited

The enemy wants us to feel rejected . . . left out, lonely, and less than.
In Uninvited, Lysa shares her own deeply personal experiences of rejection from the perceived judgment of the perfectly toned woman one elliptical over to the incredibly painful childhood abandonment by her father. She leans in to honestly examine the roots of rejection, as well as rejection’s ability to poison relationships from the inside out, including our relationship with God.

With biblical depth, gut-honest vulnerability, and refreshing wit, Lysa will help you:

• Stop feeling left out by believing that even when you are overlooked by others you are handpicked by God.
• Change your tendency to either fall apart or control the actions of others by embracing God-honoring ways to process your hurt.
• Know exactly what to pray for the next ten days to steady your soul and restore your confidence in the midst of rejection.
• Overcome the two core fears that feed your insecurities by understanding the secret of belonging.

Urges

Trichotillomania has been part of the life of Gary Hennerberg since the age of six. His personal story takes you deeply into his thoughts as he searches for ways to cope with the baffling urge to pull his hair. In this book, Gary reveals three ways he has learned to co-exist with trichotillomania: his faith, self-acceptance, and discovering his gifts and talents. This is a book of hope, inspiration and encouragement for people who feel isolated and powerless over trichotillomania and other mysterious compulsive disorders. As a child, Gary believed he was the only person in the world who pulled his hair and he kept his hair pulling urge a secret. Today we know trichotillomania (also called trich or TTM) is silently suffered by as many as 10 million people. Compulsive hair pulling creates deep shame and loss of self-esteem. While his prayers to stop the urge to pull his hair were never seemingly heard or answered, Gary later recognizes that his prayers were answered in unexpected ways.