Your Mental Health Matters: Books Recommendations For Returning to Work

Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Workplace: A Practical Guide for Employers and Employees

Gill Hasson and Donna Butler

The importance of good mental health and wellbeing in the workplace is a subject of increased public awareness and governmental attention. The Department of Health advises that one in four people will experience a mental health issue at some point in their lives. Although a number of recent developments and initiatives have raised the profile of this crucial issue, employers are experiencing challenges in promoting the mental health and wellbeing of their employees. Mental Health & Wellbeing in the Workplace contains expert guidance for improving mental health and supporting those experiencing mental ill health. (Credit: Capstone)

It’s Not OK to Feel Blue (and other lies)

edited by Scarlett Curtis

Following from the massive success of Feminists Don’t Wear Pink (and Other Lies), Scarlett Curtis brings together more high profile figures to talk about their experiences of mental health and the stigma surrounding the issue. Outspoken, provocative and impassioned, It’s Not Ok to Feel Blue is a blistering collection that seeks to shed light on a hugely important topic. (Credit: Waterstones)

The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help you Deserve

by Rheeda Walker

We can’t deny it any longer: there is a Black mental health crisis in our world today. Black people die at disproportionately high rates due to chronic illness, suffer from poverty, under-education, and the effects of racism. This book is an exploration of Black mental health in today’s world, the forces that have undermined mental health progress for African Americans, and what needs to happen for African Americans to heal psychological distress, find community, and undo years of stigma and marginalization in order to access effective mental health care. (Credit: New Harbinger Publications)

Black Women’s Mental Health: Balancing Strength and Vulnerability

Edited by Nsenga K. Burton, Kanika Bell, Stephanie Y. Evans

This book offers a unique, interdisciplinary, and thoughtful look at the challenges and potency of Black women’s struggle for inner peace and mental stability. It brings together contributors from psychology, sociology, law, and medicine, as well as the humanities, to discuss issues ranging from stress, sexual assault, healing, self-care, and contemplative practice to health-policy considerations and parenting. Merging theory and practice with personal narratives and public policy, the book develops a new framework for approaching Black women’s wellness in order to provide tangible solutions. The collection reflects feminist praxis and defines womanist peace in terms that reject both superwoman stereotypes and victim caricatures. Also included for health professionals are concrete recommendations for understanding and treating Black women. (Credit: State University of New York Press)

The Art of Rest: How to Find Respite in the Modern Age

by Claudia Hammond

Today busyness has become a badge of honour. We want to say we’re busy, yet at the same time we feel exhausted. Instead, we should start taking rest seriously as a method of self-care and this book can help us to work out how.

The Art of Rest draws on ground-breaking research Claudia Hammond collaborated on–‘The Rest Test’ the largest global survey into rest ever undertaken, which was completed by 18,000 people across 135 different countries. Much of value has been written about sleep, but rest is different; it is how we unwind, calm our minds, and recharge our bodies. And, as the survey revealed, how much rest you get is directly linked to your sense of well-being. (Credit: Canongate Books)

Self-Care for Tough Times: How to Heal in Times of Anxiety, Loss & Change

by Suzy Reading

In Self-care for Tough Times, Suzy Reading shows the reader how to be their own safe place during periods of stress, grief, loss or change. A gentle yet powerful process is included for developing a self-care toolkit to call on during difficult periods, such as relationship breakdown, illness or death in the family, financial strain or simply feeling completely exhausted by life. (Credit: Aster)

Reasons to Stay Alive

by Matt Haig

Like nearly one in five people, Matt Haig suffers from depression. Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt’s inspiring account of how, minute by minute and day by day, he overcame the disease with the help of reading, writing, and the love of his parents and his girlfriend (and now-wife), Andrea. And eventually, he learned to appreciate life all the more for it. Everyone’s lives are touched by mental illness: if we do not suffer from it ourselves, then we have a friend or loved one who does.

Matt’s frankness about his experiences is both inspiring to those who feel daunted by depression and illuminating to those who are mystified by it. Above all, his humor and encouragement never let us lose sight of hope. Speaking as his present self to his former self in the depths of depression, He is adamant that the oldest clich is the truest–there is light at the end of the tunnel. He teaches us to celebrate the small joys and moments of peace that life brings, and reminds us that there are always reasons to stay alive.

First, We Make the Beast Beautiful: A New Story About Anxiety

by Sarah Wilson

In First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, Wilson directs her intense focus and fierce investigating skills onto her lifetime companion, looking at the triggers and treatments, the fashions and fads. She reads widely and interviews fellow sufferers, mental health experts, philosophers, and even the Dalai Lama, processing all she learns through the prism of her own experiences. (Credit: Dey Street Books)

Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions

by Johann Hari

The New York Times bestseller from the author of Chasing the Scream, offering a radical new way of thinking about depression and anxiety. (Credit: Bloomsbury Publishing)

The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World

by Haemin Sunim

The world moves fast, but that doesn’t mean we have to. This bestselling mindfulness guide by Haemin Sunim (which means “spontaneous wisdom”), a renowned Buddhist meditation teacher born in Korea and educated in the United States, illuminates a path to inner peace and balance amid the overwhelming demands of everyday life. (Credit: Penguin Life)