Stressilient
How to Beat Stress and Build Resilience
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- €4.49
Publisher Description
’…short, sharp guide to managing your mind.’ THE SUNDAY TIMES STYLE
‘If I could inject it, I would.’ REFINERY29
‘Brilliant’ THE TELEGRAPH
Manage your mind. Handle your emotions. Concentrate on what matters in life.
So many of us feel stressed in our daily lives but lack the ability to respond to life’s hurdles effectively and overcome these challenges. We can build resilience to stress by taking action to live our lives in a more meaningful way.
The answer is to become stressilient.
Dr Sam Akbar will show you how. As a clinical psychologist with over ten years of experience, Dr Sam draws from her own professional expertise to provide sensitive and realistic guidance to feel calmer, less stressed, and more resilient to life’s challenges.
From understanding how your brain works, managing your emotions and challenging your thought-processes, to opening up your perspective and having more self-compassion, Stressilient offers an indispensable, easy and effective go-to guide to help you get from surviving to thriving.
Reviews
‘Hence her short, sharp guide to managing your mind — Stressilient: How to Beat Stress and Build Resilience — is pointedly written by a woman for women…[Akbar’s] methods actually work and she explains them really well… Stressilient is a zippy read but it is grounded in robust scientific study… Akbar, 46, is instantly recognisable as a lovely person. In the book she quotes Charlie Brown alongside Greek philosophy, the Auschwitz survivor and psychologist Victor Frankl and the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir.’ THE SUNDAY TIMES STYLE
“The chapters touch upon tips for managing emotions, challenging negative thought processes and encouraging more self-compassion without being overly preachy. If I could inject it, I would.” REFINERY29
“a new and brilliant book” THE TELEGRAPH
‘Now, clinical psychologist Dr Sam Akbar shows us how to become “stressilient” with this fascinating and helpful book. Our tester found the practical guidelines exceptionally helpful, and liked the science-backed approach of the book.’INDEPENDENT
About the author
Dr Sam Akbar is a clinical psychologist specialising in treating refugees who have survived torture, war or sexual violence; she also teaches and trains other psychologists across the world from Ireland to the refugee camps of northern Iraq on how to work with trauma. Sam has a degree in Classics from Oxford University and a doctorate in clinical psychology from University College London. She lives in London with her family. This is her first book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Readers can develop psychological flexibility by "turning toward, not away, from emotions" during moments of stress, psychologist Akbar proposes in her smart debut. The human brain is wired to protect itself from danger at all costs, which is "great when chased by tigers" and less helpful when handling modern threats or stresses, such as fears of public speaking or anxieties about a relationship crisis. But avoiding painful emotions is ultimately detrimental, according to Akbar, who draws a comparison to how forcing a beach ball underwater will cause it to shoot out again with astonishing force. Suggesting that readers can improve their relationship with their thoughts ("you can have a thought without buying into it"), Akbar offers strategies for "defusing" them, such as singing the thought aloud to strip away some of its power. Readers can also cultivate a clearer sense of perspective by distinguishing their "observing self" from thoughts themselves ("you can let thoughts and feelings be present and run through you, but you don't need to get caught up in the battle"). Akbar draws usefully on her clinical experience, cogently outlines lessons without dumbing them down, and keeps her tone light and conversational. Those seeking friendly counsel on how to better manage their stress need look no further.
