May is Mental Health Awareness Month. Below is a selection of books on mental health available at Danville Public Library.

Are u ok? : a guide to caring for your mental health / Kati Morton, LMFT.

A licensed family therapist and YouTube personality clarifies the difference between mental health and mental illness, answering common questions to reduce stigmas while offering advice on how to pursue beneficial therapy.

 

 

 

The book you wish your parents had read : (and your children will be glad that you did) / Philippa Perry.

In this absorbing, clever, and warm book, renowned psychotherapist Philippa Perry tells us what really matters and what behavior it is important to avoid–the vital dos and don’ts of parenting.

 

 

 

The disordered mind : what unusual brains tell us about ourselves / Eric R. Kandel.

Eric R. Kandel, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his foundational research into memory storage in the brain, is one of the pioneers of modern brain science. His work continues to shape our understanding of how learning and memory work and to break down age-old barriers between the sciences and the arts. In his seminal new book, The Disordered Mind, Kandel draws on a lifetime of pathbreaking research and the work of many other leading neuroscientists to take us on an unusual tour of the brain. He confronts one of the most difficult questions we face: How does our mind, our individual sense of self, emerge from the physical matter of the brain? The brain’s 86 billion neurons communicate with one another through very precise connections. But sometimes those connections are disrupted. The brain processes that give rise to our mind can become disordered, resulting in diseases such as autism, depression, schizophrenia, Parkinson’s, addiction, and post-traumatic stress disorder. While these disruptions bring great suffering, they can also reveal the mysteries of how the brain produces our most fundamental experiences and capabilities–the very nature of what it means to be human. Studies of autism illuminate the neurological foundations of our social instincts; research into depression offers important insights on emotions and the integrity of the self; and paradigm-shifting work on addiction has led to a new understanding of the relationship between pleasure and willpower. By studying disruptions to typical brain functioning and exploring their potential treatments, we will deepen our understanding of thought, feeling, behavior, memory, and creativity. Only then can we grapple with the big question of how billions of neurons generate consciousness itself.

Dodging energy vampires : an empath’s guide to evading relationships that drain you and restoring your health and power / Christiane Northrup, M.D.

Highly sensitive people see life with compassion and caring. They were born that way. As a result, they carry a tremendous amount of inner light, which makes them the favored prey of energy vampires who disrupt their lives on every level. The author draws on the latest research in this exciting new field, along with stories from her global community and her own life, to explore the phenomenon of energy vampires and show us how we can spot them, dodge their tactics, and take back our own energy. Delve into the dynamics of vampire-empath relationships and discover how vampires use others’ energy to fuel their own dysfunctional lives. Learn to recognize the patterns of behavior that mark these relationships, and to identify the vampires in your life. With this toolbox of techniques you can leave these harmful relationships behind; heal from the darkness they’ve cast over your mind, body, and spirit; and let your own light shine.

In pain : a bioethicist’s personal struggle with opioids / Travis Rieder.

Rieder’s terrifying journey down the rabbit hole of opioid dependence began with a motorcycle accident in 2015. Enduring half a dozen surgeries, the drugs he received were both miraculous and essential to his recovery. But his most profound suffering came several months later when he went into acute opioid withdrawal while following his physician’s orders. Over the course of four excruciating weeks, Rieder learned what it means to be “dope sick”—the physical and mental agony caused by opioid dependence. Rieder’s experience exposes a dark secret of American pain management: a healthcare system so conflicted about opioids, and so inept at managing them, that the crisis currently facing us is both unsurprising and inevitable.

The more or less definitive guide to self-care / Anna Borges; illustrations by Bob Scott.

“An A to Z, mental health-centric handbook that distills the “self-care internet” to four distinctive realms of self-care: physical, mental, social, and spiritual”– Provided by publisher.

 

 

Understanding teenage anxiety : a parent’s guide to improving your teen’s mental health / Jennifer Browne & Cody Buchanan.

Today’s teens are high-strung and socially overextended. We shrug it off as a millennial problem, but is it? In a world that encourages the quick fix, instant gratification, and real-time feedback, can we really expect our children to cope as we did less than two decades ago, in the land of handshakes, eye contact, elbow grease, and grit? This book is a product of a combination of three very different perspectives: those of the anxious teen, the parent, and the therapist. We need to understand what we’ve created in terms of our current society to gain proper insight on why we’re seeing increasingly rising levels of anxiety in our teenagers.

 

If you, or someone you know, is in crisis call the toll-free, 24-hour hotline of the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (1-800-273-8255); TTY: 1-800-799-4TTY (1-800-799-4889).