In This Moment: Five Steps to Transcending Stress Using Mindfulness and Neuroscience

Description

Little daily hassles can add up to big, big stress. Whether you're stuck in traffic, hauling your kids out the front door in the morning, dealing with a demanding boss, or worrying about money, it's easy to become overwhelmed. Stress is a normal part of daily life; but over time, chronic stress can take its toll on both your mental and physical health, leading to everything from anxiety and depression to weight gain and disease. So how can you move past the little hassles that get in the way of fully enjoying life? In This Moment will show you how to find a sense of calm and serenity using a breakthrough, evidence-based program grounded in mindfulness and neuroscience. Imagine feeling stressed, and being able to work through it by paying attention to your thoughts and feelings, moment by moment, no matter where you are or what you're doing. It's not as difficult as it sounds! Written by cofounder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) Kirk Strosahl and pioneering behavioral health researcher Patricia Robinson, the mindfulness exercises in this book will help you strengthen the parts of your brain that support vitality and a sense of being fully present in the here and now. And with a little practice, you will learn to combat stress in healthy ways, stay balanced, and live a happier life, no matter what challenges arise.

Kirk D. Strosahl, PhD, is cofounder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), a cognitive behavioral approach that has gained widespread adoption in the mental health and substance abuse communities. Strosahl works as a practicing psychologist at Central Washington Family Medicine, a community health center providing health care to medically underserved patients. He also teaches family medicine physicians in how to use the principles of mindfulness and acceptance in general practice. Strosahl lives in Zillah, WA. Patricia J. Robinson, PhD, is director of training and program evaluation at Mountainview Consulting Group, Inc., a firm that assists health care systems with integrating behavioral health services into primary care settings. She is author of Real Behavior Change in Primary Care, and coauthor of The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression. After exploring primary care psychology as a researcher, she devoted her attention to dissemination in rural America, urban public health departments, and military medical treatment facilities. Robinson lives in Portland, OR.

"Strosahl (The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression) and Robinson (Real Behavior Change in Primary Care) base this self-help guide on the proposal that seemingly insignificant, everyday stressors, rather than life-changing events, pose the greatest danger to the average person's mental and physical health. Accordingly, the authors emphasize the importance of developing healthy coping mechanisms, advising the reader on how to evaluate one's current state of mind. One of their mottos is 'practice makes permanent, ' and to that end, they present a number of exercises with the promise that, practiced over time, these will teach the brain how to handle stress by getting into a less emotional, more cerebral state, where one can process different courses of action--what they call the 'quiet mind.' Perhaps not for the well-versed self-help reader, this book can be overly obvious and protracted, particularly when describing the step-by-step process of developing mindfulness. That said, the background information on neuroscience and how stress affects the brain will be of interest, and concern, for anyone who feels worn down by the day-to-day." --Publishers Weekly "Chronic stress is a marker of living life on autopilot. This book gently wakes you up. It asks you instead to live life inside non-judgmental awareness and intentionality--and to do it right here, right now, in this moment. Written in Kirk Strosahl and Patricia Robinson's usual clear, step-by-step style, it contains scores of practical tips and exercises that gently train and practice a mindful path through stress. You cannot help but be moved." --Steven C. Hayes, PhD, cofounder of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and author of Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life