Help Me Find a Good Stress Management Book / Technique

November 19, 2006 12:55 PM

What book should I buy to learn how to manage stress in my life, mostly from work?

The universe of "stress management" books seems enormous, and I'm looking for one containing a technique that actually works. Most of my stress seems to come from work, with some home-related stress sprinkled in here and there. I'd like to find the current "it" book dealing with stress, i.e., the stress equivalent of Getting Things Done, if such a book exists.

posted by dshargel to Health & Fitness (10 answers total)

This might be out of left-field, but have you considered the possiblity that the key here might be reducing the stress rather than managing it? I've never read a stress management book, but I would think that all these books would be about trying to minimize stress by changing how you think about it, which seems like a very stop-gap kind of solution.

Maybe the key here is actually books like GTD and the one-minute manager, that try and reduce the stress rather than sweep it under the rug!

Having said that, I have heard good things about 'Don't sweat the small stuff', but I've never read it myself..
posted by ranglin at 2:23 PM on November 19, 2006

I would very much recommend the GTD books in terms of stress management. The concept of the 'inbox' and the lists means that you don't spend time thinking about all those things you need to keep track of.

So you will not only get more done, but you won't think about it as much when you're not doing it.

Now if the stress is from something other than too much to do and keep track of (annoying coworkers, irrational boss) then this probably won't work, but it might be good to implement anyway.
posted by cschneid at 3:17 PM on November 19, 2006

How about "The Atr of Happiness" by HH Dalai Lama?

Not specifically about stress, but really grokking what he has to say couldn't help but reduce stress as a byproduct.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:43 PM on November 19, 2006

Don't Sweat the Small Stuff at Work
posted by cholly at 4:41 PM on November 19, 2006

Getting things done hasn't honestly made my life less-stressful, but I had issues leaving work at work, and would often think over problems over and over at home.

Such as (for example), I need Verizon to come install a T1, I need to order that 1700 with a WIC for the T1, I hope my reseller wont screw up the install, do I need a certain amount of ram in the used 1700 I buy, the site will have a subnet of x.x.x.x/24. I wonder what version of IOS I need, I wonder how much ram I need, I need to call them about the T1, and I need to get that cisco... etc ... etc

The biggest thing I learned from GTD was to structure my Outlook tasks list with the VERY NEXT STEP that has to be completed. I do this by adding the 'notes' field to my view in Outlook. Now I can believe in myself that everything I can possibly have done on a project is handled, and I don't repeat my thoughts.

The rest of GTD was pretty useless to me honestly. The whole notion of tickler files, etc I have down pretty well with my calendar, and that was never a real issue. My biggest issue was what I would call 'circle thought' (see above) by visualizing tasks that I would forget the start of when I made it to the end, or because there were too many related tasks.
posted by SirStan at 4:41 PM on November 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

A book called "Prescription for Nutritional Healing" by James Balch has a section on stress management that I found useful. Sorry that I can't link due to ancient OS.

What I learned from that book is when I am going through a stressful period to load up on the vitamin B complex. I take one at every meal for a couple of days and then I reduce the dose to one a day or every other day. It does something to your nervous system that makes it easier to deal with stress.

IANAD, YMMV
posted by Soda-Da at 5:44 PM on November 19, 2006

I don't have any book recommendations, but spouse and I have been playing guided relaxation/meditation CDs before bed each night for about 3 weeks now, and our coping mechanisms (and quality of sleep!) have improved immensely.
posted by shelbaroo at 6:49 PM on November 19, 2006

Well, it's no "it" book, it's been around a long time indeed, but it's what I like: a workbook of very helpful strategies to avoid and deal with stress/anxiety and their more sever forms: panic attacks and phobia. I got it on loan from my old therapist and just bought my own copy. It's called The Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, and it's very well-rounded in its approaches.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 7:07 PM on November 19, 2006

If you are at all interested in meditation try Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn. It's a good introduction to the practice of mindfulness-based stress reduction.
posted by zipperhead at 8:57 PM on November 19, 2006

Take a look at "The Wellness Book" by Herbert Benson. Its goal is to reduce stress-related physical symptoms (headache, insomnia, etc.) by reducing anxiety in your life. Helped me.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 9:55 PM on November 19, 2006