What To Read When Life Feels Heavy: Books for Burnout, Grief, and Finding Hope

This groundbreaking book explains why women experience burnout differently than men — and provides a roadmap to minimizing stress, managing emotions, and living more joyfully. With the help of eye-opening science, prescriptive advice, and helpful worksheets and exercises, all women will find something transformative in Burnout — and will be empowered to create positive change. And to help empower yourself to create positive change, check out The Burnout Workbook!

From the New York Times bestselling author of Digital Minimalism and Deep Work, a groundbreaking philosophy for pursuing meaningful accomplishment while avoiding overload. Slow Productivity provides a roadmap for escaping overload and arriving instead at a more timeless approach to pursuing meaningful accomplishment. The world of work is due for a new revolution. Slow productivity is exactly what we need.

Instead of waiting for White people to change, Black people must prioritize their own prosperity, power, and self-determination by navigating, challenging, and exiting racist systems — a radical argument from a Harvard behavioral scientist. Play the Game. Change the Game. Leave the Game. is a bold, groundbreaking proposition that empowers readers to make the leap from being played to creating their own game plan.

The Cure for Burnout provides a holistic method for burnout management to address the epidemic of our always-on, chronically overextended culture, empowering us to reclaim control of our own lives once and for all.

Rather than shrinking in the face of life’s difficulties, you will discover in Homecoming the therapeutic approaches and spiritual practices to live a more expansive life characterized by empowerment, healthier relationships, gratitude, and a deeper sense of purpose.

Protect yourself from burnout and find the balance you’ve been craving in this self care book for women. Research tells us that joy has a whole host of health benefits and now using the tools in this book, you can start taking the necessary daily steps toward building a life that lights you up instead of drags you down.

From psychotherapist Katherine Morgan Schafler, an invitation to every “recovering perfectionist” to challenge the way they look at perfectionism, and the way they look at themselves. It’s a clarion call for all women to dare to want more without feeling greedy or ungrateful. Ultimately, this book will show you how to make the single greatest trade you’ll ever make in your life, which is to exchange superficial control for real power.

From bestselling author Martha Beck, a new path to overcoming anxiety by awakening the creativity within. Beck provides instructions for engaging the “creativity spiral,” in a process that not only shuts down anxiety but leads to innovative problem solving, a sense of meaning and purpose, and joyful, intimate connection with others — and with the world. The opposite of anxiety, it turns out, is a wonderful new way of life — one that can calm and inspire us as individuals and help us become a source of healing for everything around us.

From the bestselling author of Set Boundaries, Find Peace, a guide to understanding healthy dependency — to bring our relationships back into balance. Whether you’re yearning for more trust with a spouse or partner, more clarity with a best friend or sibling, or more agency in how you show up in the world, these insights will help you reevaluate, reset, and relate better.

Aware provides practical instruction for mastering the Wheel of Awareness, a life-changing tool for cultivating more focus, presence, and peace in one’s day-to-day life. Whether you have no experience with a reflective practice or are an experienced practitioner, Aware is a hands-on guide that will enable you to become more focused and present, as well as more energized and emotionally resilient in the face of stress and the everyday challenges life throws your way. Don’t miss the Becoming Aware workbook that walks you through a twenty-one-day journey to discover what it means to be truly present.

Our ability to pay attention is collapsing. From the author of Chasing the Scream and Lost Connections comes a groundbreaking examination of why this is happening — and how to get our attention back.

In Real Self-Care, Lakshmin helps readers understand what a real practice of caring for yourself could—and does—look like. Using case studies from her practice, clinical research, and the down-to-earth style that she’s become known for, Lakshmin provides a step-by-step program for real and sustainable change and solace.

Good Energy offers a new, cutting-edge understanding of the true cause of illness that until now has remained hidden. It will help you optimize your ability to live well and stay well at every age.

A radically compassionate plan for turning inward and lifting the heaviness that prevents us from healing ourselves and the world, from the New York Times bestselling author of Clarity & Connection. Yung Pueblo’s hope is that as more of us heal, our actions will become more intentional, our decisions will become more compassionate, our thinking will become clearer, and the future will become brighter.

No matter your story or your struggle, Eric Thomas — celebrated motivational guru, educator, and problem-solver to many of the top athletes and business leaders — will “help you work harder, discover your real motivation, and crack the code of enduring success” (Ed Mylett, #1 bestselling author of The Power of One More).

A guide to the art of journaling — and a meditation on the central questions of life — by the bestselling author of Between Two Kingdoms, with contributions from Hanif Abdurraqib, Jon Batiste, Salman Rushdie, Gloria Steinem, George Saunders, and many more.

Part memoir, part spiritual journey, The Light We Give is a transformative book of hope that shows how each of us can turn away from fear and uncertainty and move toward renewal and positive change.

Imagine what you’d do, if you FULLY believed in YOU! When you stop doubting your greatness, build unshakable self-worth and embrace who you are, you transform your entire life! Worthy teaches you how, with simple steps that lead to life-changing results!

From Emma Heming Willis, wife of Bruce Willis, a deeply personal and richly compassionate supportive guide that helps caregivers care for themselves while they navigate a loved one’s dementia.

The renowned psychic medium and New York Times bestselling author of Signs explains how our loved ones who have passed continue to communicate with us, steering us to discover our purpose and create lives of meaning, connection, and love. Offering solace and comfort though times of grief, and full of inspiring, motivating stories, Guided points the way toward an illuminated life for us all.

Memory is far more than a record of the past. In this groundbreaking tour of the mind and brain, one of the world’s top memory researchers reveals the powerful role memory plays in nearly every aspect of our lives, from recalling faces and names, to learning, decision-making, trauma, and healing.

For readers of Atul Gawande and Siddhartha Mukherjee – a timely, vital exploration of the burnout, grief, depression, and trauma that America’s healthcare system engenders among doctors, nurses, and medical workers.

From the globally acclaimed, bestselling novelist and author of We Should All Be Feminists, a timely and deeply personal account of the loss of her father: “With raw eloquence, Notes on Grief … captures the bewildering messiness of loss in a society that requires serenity, when you’d rather just scream. Grief is impolite … Adichie’s words put welcome, authentic voice to this most universal of emotions, which is also one of the most universally avoided” (The Washington Post).

From the indie rock sensation known as Japanese Breakfast, an unforgettable memoir about family, food, grief, love, and growing up Korean American — “in losing her mother and cooking to bring her back to life, Zauner became herself” (NPR).

A collection of powerful interconnected essays and affirmations that follow Mimi Zhu’s journey toward embodying and re-learning love after a violent romantic relationship, a stunning and provocative book that will guide and inspire readers to lean into love with softness.

A landmark work about grief, love, and survival from one of America’s most iconic writers. Joan Didion delivers a searing portrait of a marriage and a life – in good times and bad – that will speak to anyone who has ever loved and lost a husband or wife or child. In a work of electric honesty and passion, Didion explores how we all, somehow, will ourselves to survive. “An utterly shattering portrait of loss and grief” (The New York Times).