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Mental Health

Your Happiest You: the care & keeping of your mind and spirit

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Your Happiest You: the care & keeping of your mind and spirit by Judy Woodburn
Format: book
Who it’s for: Kids & Teens

Being happy is something we want for our kids but how can we help them get there?  This book is full of great insight and practical ideas about achieving happiness and is written in an inviting style that makes it very accessible to elementary and middle school age kids.

We teach our kids to take care of their bodies by eating right, exercising, and brushing their teeth so it makes sense to help them learn to take care of their mind and spirit at the same time.  With this book, kids can try out simple exercises to find internal calm, have better relationships with friends and family, enjoy the world around them, and think about how their attitude affects their feelings.

This book is published by American Girl Publishing so it is more geared toward girls but the concepts and advice apply to boys just as well.  Another wonderful book in this Care & Keeping of You series is Liking Herself which talks about developing good self-esteem.

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13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do

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13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin
Format: Book
Who it’s for: Adults, Teens

Let’s say you’re trying to get your body into good physical shape, you might go to the gym and have a long, heavy work out and feel like you’re moving in the right direction.  However, if you eat a box of donuts on the way home from the gym then you’ve just erased all your hard work!

The same thing can happen with our mental health.  There are many very positive things we can do for ourselves like practicing mindfulness, gratitude, or yoga but author Amy Morin points out that we might be sabotaging our best efforts with some bad mental habits.

Do I stress about things I can’t control?  Do I try to please everyone? Do I resent other people’s success? These are just three out of the thirteen bad mental habits that can drag us down and undermine our happiness.

Check this book out and give your mental health a workout. We can’t always change our circumstances but we do have control over our attitude and that can make all the difference!

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(Don’t) Call Me Crazy

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(Don’t) Call Me Crazy: 33 Voices Start the Conversation About Mental Health Edited by Kelly Jensen
Format: Book
Who it’s For: Teens and Adults

(Don’t) Call Me Crazy is a collection of essays, poems and drawings that discusses different aspects and experiences of mental health. The 33 collaborators come from various backgrounds, including authors like Libba Bray and Victoria Schwab, actress Kristen Bell, and former figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.

The book is broken down into five chapters of essays that deal with similar topics. The first seeks to define the word “crazy” in terms of each individual’s personal experience and their relationship to the word. The second discusses our culture’s stigmas surrounding mental illness. The third discusses addictions and eating disorders, while the fourth addresses anxiety and depression. The book finishes with a discussion of recovery and healing.

(Don’t) Call Me Crazy is an important work for teenagers and adults alike. No matter if one has personal experience with mental illness, knows someone living with one or has no experience with mental illness, everyone can gain something from the book. Whether to make a personal connection or inspire a better understanding, the perspectives brought forth by the collection show the multitude of different aspects of mental health and show that every person’s experience is different. No one’s experience with mental illness is exactly like another’s, but the book may provide comfort to those struggling with their own.

(Don’t) Call Me Crazy inspires an important discussion about a topic that many in our society find too uncomfortable to talk about. It is, however, becoming vital that we engage in open conversation about mental health. Collections like (Don’t) Call Me Crazy aid in that conversation, especially for teens.

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