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Reading self-help books is one of the best forms of self-care, it can help to reduce stress and improve mental well-being.
Reading self-help books can provide a way to escape from daily responsibilities and can be a source of inspiration and entertainment.
Additionally, reading can improve cognitive function and increase empathy and understanding of others. As well as possessing multiple mental health benefits.
It can also be a way to learn new things and expand your knowledge. Overall, reading can be a relaxing and rejuvenating activity that can help to improve overall mental health and well-being.
Here are a few of my favorite books you should read for self-care this year.
1. The Goddess Revolution: Make Peace with Food, Love Your Body and Reclaim Your Life by Mel Wells
If you’ve ever struggled with diets, food, body image, or weight, then The Goddess Revolution is your new handbook for life. Mel Wells goes beyond the number on the scale, your dress size, or waistline. She shows you how to get out of that body prison and step firmly and forever into body, mind, and spirit freedom
Imagine how much you would fall in love with your life again if you weren’t so consumed by negative thoughts about food, your weight, and your body.
This book is for any woman who’s struggled with diets, food, body image, or weight, or ever felt like they have felt trapped, out of control, or ‘obsessing’ about any of the above.
2. You Woke Up Worthy: A 21-Day Self-Love Journey for Women with Big Dreams by Britny West
You Woke Up Worthy is a 21-day guided workbook and journaling experience packed with self-love practices and prompts to help you let go of shame and self-judgment, re-connect to your higher self, create a daily self-love practice, get clear on your purpose and big dreams, and start living your best life now rather than someday.
I originally participated in the online 21 Day You Woke Up Worthy plan and truly found it so inspirational and helpful. This book takes you on a journey of healing and growth and self-love. Take advantage of this book. Britny has a gift and I’m so glad the book is available to every woman out there.
This self-love experience will help you discover that truth within yourself so you can start feeling deserving of your big dreams and stop self-sabotaging your own happiness and success.
3. More Than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth
Elaine Welteroth has climbed the ranks of both the fashion and media industries, shattering ceilings along the way. In this riveting memoir, the inspiring editor unpacks lessons on race, identity, and success through her own journey.
From navigating her way as the unstoppable child of an unlikely interracial marriage in small-town California to finding herself on the frontlines of a modern movement for the next generation of change-makers.
More Than Enough is a guide for young people who want to find their voice, a crash course for those who want to challenge the status quo, and an adventure story for all of us. Young women can learn so much from Elaine’s remarkable journey.
Anyone who has ever felt like she doesn’t belong will feel less alone after reading More Than Enough.
4. Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski
Burnout. We’ve all experienced it. What’s expected of women and what it’s really like to be a woman in today’s world are two very different things—and women exhaust themselves trying to close the gap between them.
In Burnout, sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski deconstruct the stress we experience as women, and their compassionate, science-based advice on how to release it resonated with me. The book is revolutionary and its authors are wonderful and wise.
This is a great book to help women move through stress and stop beating themselves up.
5. Maybe You Should Talk To Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb
In her book, Lori Gottlieb pulls back the curtain of a therapist’s world. The result is a humane and empathetic exploration of six disparate characters struggling to take control of their lives as they journey back to happiness.
It is a smart, hilarious, and insightful book. Lori will have you laughing and crying as she breaks down the problems of her patients, her therapist, as well as herself.
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone is revolutionary, to say the least, offering a deeply personal yet universal tour of our hearts and minds and providing great insights, a boldly revealing portrait of what it means to be human, and a funny account of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them ourselves.
6. How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell
In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell and keep our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape.
However, in this instructive guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives.
This is a wonderful book. Jenny Odell suggests that we should take more time offline for nurturing our own thoughts and our well-being. Although it is not a very new idea, it is gracefully articulated and makes it easy for you to take action.
7. Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Illustrated by Jonny Sun
Before Hamilton catapulted him to international fame, Lin-Manuel was inspiring his Twitter followers with words of encouragement at the beginning and end of each day.
Now Lin-Manuel has gathered the best of his daily, motivating greetings into a beautiful collection.
Read a chapter of these relatable and inspiring words in award-winning composer and playwright Miranda’s book every day and it might just infuse a little positivity into your day-to-day life.
8. Becoming by Michelle Obama
This is an intimate, powerful, and inspiring memoir by the former First Lady of the United States.
In a life filled with meaning and accomplishment, Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most iconic and compelling women of our era.
In her book, Michelle is inspirational without trying to be. From the first words, the very warmth emanating from the pages can sometimes be overwhelming. Becoming manages to be a coming-of-age tale, a story of romance, and a family saga all in one.
More importantly, this book is a reminder that we are all still a work-in-progress, and that hope can be an action word if we make it one.
Becoming is the book that could shape you into the woman of your dreams.
9. Thirty Chic Days: Practical Inspiration For a Beautiful Life by Fiona Ferris
Is it possible to live a chic and elegant life if you don’t live in Paris or even France?
Well, instead of daydreaming about running away to the City of Light, Fiona Ferris invites you to put on your French-tinted sunglasses and view your world through an enchanting and motivating filter.
Fiona Ferris has created a fun, motivational book for women on how to live a more joyful and iconic life. Just by reading one or two chapters you will feel compelled to get up and start making changes and implementing her tips.
Fans of her blog, How To Be Chic, will not be disappointed in this rich volume, full of chic words of wisdom.
10. How To Meet The Rich: For Business, Friendship, or Romance by Ginnie Sayles
I guarantee you won’t be able to put this book down as soon as you begin reading it.
This book is definitely worth the money, it’s not only a list of places to meet people but it also has a whole plethora of information concerning navigating the spaces to dressing to conversational techniques, romance to business to everything else.
I’m especially impressed with her chapter on getting comfortable with the rich because most people are pretty intimidated by those of the upper class and may not exactly be sure how they should act without coming off as a try-hard.
Overall very useful insights that apply in all areas of life and not just in meeting the rich.
11. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
One of the most iconic, beloved, and bestselling books of our time, Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love touched the world and changed countless lives, inspiring and empowering millions of readers to search for their own best selves.
This is a wonderful book, brilliant and personal. It has rich spiritual insights.
Gilbert is everything you would love in a tour guide of magical places she has traveled to both deep inside and across the oceans: she’s wise, witty, real, hilarious, and heartbreaking,
And she teaches us to pay attention to the things that really matter.
12. The Art of Doing Nothing: The No-Guilt Practical Burnout Recovery System for Busy Professionals by Chandler Kitching
We live in a culture of overachievers, who make things happen–and happen fast.
As we rush along to catch up to our peers, the days just seem to get shorter and shorter, yet we get no closer to our goals. If only we could slow the clock, if only we could get more time to cherish the little moments.
The Art of Doing Nothing will help to ease these beat-the-clock jitters. The stress-reducing techniques described here require no time, skill, and no commitment.
A well-needed guide on rest and relaxation, it teaches us how to live in a world of “being” and not a world of “doing”.
13. The Witch’s Book of Self-Care: Magical Ways to Pamper, Soothe, and Care for Your Body and Spirit by Arin Murphy-Hiscock
Self-care is a necessity for any modern woman, you know that or you wouldn’t be reading this post.
The goals of self-care are simple: a healthy mind, healthy body, and healthy spirit. This book helps you prioritize yourself with a little help from the magic of witchcraft.
The Witch’s Book of Self-Care has advice for pampering your mind, body, and spirit with spells, meditations, mantras, and powerful activities to help you to keep healthy, soothe stress, relinquish sadness, channel joy, and embrace your strength.
Whether you believe in the dark arts or not, I believe that this book has a little something for everyone.
14. How To Marry The Rich: The Rich Will Marry Someone, Why Not You? by Ginnie Sayles
Another book by Ginnie Sayles, this is not a book on morals. It teaches you how to get what you want.
Men and Women-Psychologists, Doctors, Attorneys, Realtors, Stockbrokers, and a number of Celebrities-have had Private Consultations with Ginie on this very subject.
With this book, you can have that same experience for a fraction of the price.
15. The Power of the Pussy: Get What You Want From Men: Love, Respect, Commitment, and More! by Kara King
Kara King’s controversial dating and relationship advice book The Power of the Pussy shares twelve powerful secrets that will transform any woman into the type of strong, desirable woman that can effortlessly obtain what she wants from men
Including the love, respect, and relationship she desires.
16. The Black Girls Guide to Being Blissfully Feminine by Candice Adewole
As a black woman, you’ve been told that you must be strong.
You know what you want and you think you know how to get it, but no matter how hard you try, you still feel like it’s not enough, you’re not enough. You are overworked, tired, and ready to give up.
Candice Adewole shows that she knows how you feel, and how we all feel. She wrote this book with every woman in mind, especially every black woman.
Reading this book will put you in a different direction, the right direction. Toward the very things you were put on this Earth to do: love unconditionally, nurture without fear, and live your truth, and be unapologetically and blissfully you.
17. The Style Strategy: A Less-Is-More Approach to Staying Chic and Shopping Smart
This book is written to help propel you forward, into that place where style and shopping are one. Neither one, according to Nina Garcia, can work without the other. Teaching you how to effortlessly balance the two is her mission.
Armed with Nina’s no-fail The Style Strategy, the regular woman will not only discover a myriad of shopping alternatives sure to help them attain high-end looks at lower prices, but also learn how to maximize what they already have through maintenance, ingenuity, and creative style choices.
This is the book that will propel you into dressing like the best version of yourself and giving you the confidence t get what truly belongs to you.
18. How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life by Catherine Price
Packed with tested strategies and practical tips, this book is an essential, life-changing guide for everyone who owns a smartphone.
For most of us, our phones are the first things we reach for in the mornings and the last thing we put down before bed. We find ourselves endlessly scrolling and wasting our time away without even noticing. and by the time we do, the time has already slipped away from us.
Award-winning journalist Catherine Price presents a practical, hands-on plan to break up and then makeup-with our phones. The goal? A long-term relationship that actually feels good.
19. Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies: And Other Rituals to Fix Your Life, from Someone Who’s Been There by Tara Schuster
Buy Yourself the F*cking Lilies is the story of Tara’s path to re-parenting herself and becoming a “ninja of self-love.” Through simple, daily rituals, Tara transformed her mind, body, and relationships.
She teaches us how to fake gratitude until we actually feel it, excavate your emotional wounds and heal them with kindness, identify our self-limiting beliefs, kick them to the curb, and start living a life we choose, shield ourselves from self-criticism, carve out time each morning to start our day empowered, inspired, and ready to rule
Create a life you truly, totally f*cking LOVE.
20. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers (A NICE GIRLS Book) by Lois P. Frankel
We as women have a distinct set of behaviors, instilled in us from childhood that ultimately makes us come out last as adults.
In her book, Frankel teaches us how to eliminate these unconscious mistakes that could be holding us back and offers invaluable coaching tips that can easily be incorporated into our social and business skills.
Stop making “nice girl” errors that can become career pitfalls.
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