Mental Health for all: World Mental Health Day 2020

Each year on the 10th October marks World Mental Health Day. This year’s theme is ‘mental health for all’. At Team Bookends, we have pulled together a list of books to help improve your mental wellbeing and to help you understand your own mental health.

 

A Toolkit for Modern Life: 53 Ways to Look After Your Mind by Dr Emma Hepburn

In this warm, wise book, clinical psychologist Dr Emma Hepburn (Instagram’s @thepsychologymum) introduces her proven and practical tools for taking care of your mental and emotional wellbeing every day.

 

Using her trademark illustrations, Dr Hepburn shines a welcome ray of light into the neglected corners of your brain. From identifying what triggers unhappy thoughts to overcoming the fear of making mistakes, A Toolkit for Modern Life will help you to cultivate positive habits and feel more confident, happier and in tune with yourself.

 

* Call out and manage feelings of imposter syndrome

* Answer back to your inner critic

* Become aware of and monitor your emotional capacity

* Spot unhelpful thoughts and develop more helpful patterns of thinking

* Understand how the emotions cycle affects you

* Identify what triggers anxiety for you and how to intercept it

* Overcome the fear of making mistakes

* Spot and call out your ‘catastrophizing’

* Identify and disarm social media comparisons

* Align your decisions and actions with your core values

* Assemble your own mental health toolkit for life

 

‘There isn’t another book out there like this and it should be a mandatory read for anyone with a brain.’ – Anna Whitehouse, founder of Mother Pukka

 

Paper, Pencil & You series by Dr Gareth Moore

Introducing Paper, Pencil & You: Calm, Mindfulness and Focus – Relaxing brain-training puzzles for Stressed-Out People

 

Over 300 pencil-ready puzzles to keep you calm, focused and mindful.

 

In Paper, Pencil & You: Calm the puzzles in this book are designed to foster calm in a stressed-out, busy world. It will take you on a journey through a wonderland of calming activites.

In Paper, Pencil & You: Focus each puzzle is designed to improve focus in a distracted world. You will learn to eliminate mental distractions, improve concentration and develop your powers of deduction.

In Paper, Pencil & You: Mindfulness the puzzles will encourage you to develop mindfulness skills to help relieve the stresses of modern-day living. Each one is designed to channel your mind away from distractions and to focus on the here and now.

 

So, sharpen that pencil, turn over the page and tap into mindfulness, feel calm and focused.

 

I Never Said I Loved You by Rhik Samadder

‘This mind-blowingly wonderful memoir had me convulsing with laughter even while my heart was breaking. It’s utterly effing BEAUTIFUL.’ Marian Keyes

 

‘I found myself blindsided by this extraordinary book … I was deeply moved by its capacity both to depict pain, and offer consolation. I loved it, and won’t ever forget it.‘ Sarah Perry

 

‘Both touching and funny’ the Telegraph

 

On an unlikely backpacking trip, Rhik and his mother find themselves speaking openly for the first time in years. Afterwards, the depression that has weighed down on Rhik begins to loosen its grip for a moment – so he seizes the opportunity: to own it, to understand it, and to find out where it came from.

 

Through this begins a journey of investigation, healing and recovery. Along the way Rhik learns some shocking truths about his family, and realizes that, in turn, he will need to confront the secrets he has long buried. But through this, he triumphs over his fears and brings his depression into the light.

 

I Never Said I Loved You is the story of how Rhik learned to let go, and then keep going. With unique humour and honesty, he has created a powerfully rich, funny and poignant exploration of the light and dark in all of us.

 

Mad Girl by Bryony Gordon

A new Sunday Times bestseller from Bryony Gordon, Telegraph columnist and author of the bestselling The Wrong Knickers. For readers who enjoyed Matt Haig’s Reasons to Stay Alive and Ruby Wax’s Sane New World, Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.

‘I loved it. A brilliant fast and funny and frank look at something that absolutely needs to be talked about in this way’ Matt Haig

Bryony Gordon has OCD.

It’s the snake in her brain that has told her ever since she was a teenager that her world is about to come crashing down: that her family might die if she doesn’t repeat a phrase 5 times, or that she might have murdered someone and forgotten about it. It’s caused alopecia, bulimia, and drug dependency. And Bryony is sick of it. Keeping silent about her illness has given it a cachet it simply does not deserve, so here she shares her story with trademark wit and dazzling honesty.

A hugely successful columnist for the Telegraph, a bestselling author, and a happily married mother of an adorable daughter, Bryony has managed to laugh and live well while simultaneously grappling with her illness. Now it’s time for her to speak out. Writing with her characteristic warmth and dark humour, Bryony explores her relationship with her OCD and depression as only she can.

Mad Girl is a shocking, funny, unpredictable, heart-wrenching, raw and jaw-droppingly truthful celebration of life with mental illness.

 

How to Build a Healthy Brain by Kimberley Wilson

A step by step programme, underpinned by the latest scientific evidence, to improve your mental resilience and protect your brain health for the long term.

 

A ground-breaking science-based guide to protecting your brain health for the long term.

Whatever your age, having a healthy brain is the key to a happy and fulfilled life. Yet, for both young and old, diseases of the brain and mental health are the biggest killers in the 21st century. We all know how to take care of our physical health, but we often feel powerless as to what we can do to protect our mental well-being too.

How to Build a Healthy Brain is here to help. Written by a passionate advocate for the importance of mental health, Chartered Psychologist Kimberley Wilson draws on the latest research to give practical, holistic advice on how you can protect your brain health by making simple lifestyle choices. With chapters on Sleep, Nutrition, Exercise and Meditation, Kimberley has written an empowering guide to help you look after both your physical and mental well-being.

 

Your Mental Health First Aid Kit by Zoë Aston

2020 has been a year of significant upheaval for many on a personal level. Our values and morals have been challenged, both internally and externally. Our ideas about who we are and our significance in the world have been destabilised, our boundaries have been questioned and our most intimate relationships – whether with ourselves or significant others – have become our only option to meet a variety of human needs. So it seems imperative to get some solution-based information to you now, so that you can recover from the rollercoaster we’ve all been riding and feel psychologically strong enough to embark on my five-week programme in Your Mental Health Workout™, publishing in May 2021.

Zoë Aston’s short ebook Your Mental Health First Aid Kit will support you to feel psychologically healthier using a range of therapeutic tools and solution-based actions, programmed in a way you may already be familiar with: a step-by-step workout.

 

‘Zoë’s techniques are easy and give great results. I highly recommend Your Mental Health Workout™ to anyone who has the desire to improve their emotional health.’ – Pixie Lott