Books: How To Find Inner Calm while Back at Work

Being back at work after the holidays can be a bit of a nuisance. Especially bearing in mind that the next time off could be far, far away.
Here are three books, all published in the last 3 weeks, to help deal with that feeling of being overwhelmed.

12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos, by Jordan B. Peterson, published by Penguin, deals with the ambivalence of rules. Although society already has too many, apparently, keeping some in one’s life is important to lead a tidy life. The idea of putting everything in print came to Peterson, a clinical psychologist, while contributing to a free website named Quora, where questions and answers can be voted and shared by readers. His most successful ones dealt, in fact, with rules to lead a meaningful life. Happiness, concludes Peterson, is a pointless goal, while it is better to start comparing ourselves with who we were yesterday, not to others.

Radio presenter Fearne Cotton wrote Calm, published by Orion Spring, to help people find out how they feel at each time and how to conquer a less stressful life. In the first pages readers will find a circle with emotions related to calmness, or on the other end stress, where they can put a small dot at all times, in order to keep track of their feelings. Cotton asks readers to draw or write lists, as well as reading inspirational thoughts.

Another female touch comes with The self-care revolution, all in lower case, by Suzy Reading, Aster publishing. Self-care is of course her main theme, and she starts explaining where that need came from recounting part of her difficult times with her father’s and in-laws’ illnesses. She explains the energy bank balance concept, and how dangerous stress is. The book is a sort of guide or workbook, with space to take notes and lots of flower pictures to start inducing a sense of calm.