Books about Resilience from Amazon.com

It lurks in the corner of our imagination, almost beyond our ability to see it: the possibility that a tear in the fabric of life could open up without warning, upending a house, a skyscraper, or a civilization

Today, nine out of ten Americans live in places at significant risk of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, terrorism, or other disasters. Tomorrow, some of us will have to make split-second choices to save ourselves and our families. How will we react? What will it feel like? Will we be heroes or victims? Will our upbringing, our gender, our personality–anything we’ve ever learned, thought, or dreamed of–ultimately matter?
    
Amanda Ripley, an award-winning journalist for Time magazine who has covered some of the most devastating disasters of our age, set out to discover what lies beyond fear and speculation. In this magnificent work of investigative journalism, Ripley retraces the human response to some of history’s epic disasters, from the explosion of the Mont Blanc munitions ship in 1917–one of the biggest explosions before the invention of the atomic bomb–to a plane crash in England in 1985 that mystified investigators for years, to the journeys of the 15,000 people who found their way out of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Then, to understand the science behind the stories, Ripley turns to leading brain scientists, trauma psychologists, and other disaster experts, formal and informal, from a Holocaust survivor who studies heroism to a master gunfighter who learned to overcome the effects of extreme fear.

Finally, Ripley steps into the dark corners of her own imagination, having her brain examined by military researchers and experiencing through realistic simulations what it might be like to survive a plane crash into the ocean or to escape a raging fire.
    
Ripley comes back with precious wisdom about the surprising humanity of crowds, the elegance of the brain’s fear circuits, and the stunning inadequacy of many of our evolutionary responses. Most unexpectedly, she discovers the brain’s ability to do much, much better, with just a little help.

The Unthinkable escorts us into the bleakest regions of our nightmares, flicks on a flashlight, and takes a steady look around. Then it leads us home, smarter and stronger than we were before..
Price: $14.05 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In The Optimistic Child, Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman offers parents, teachers, and coaches a well-validated program to prevent depression in children In a thirty-year study, Seligman and his colleagues discovered the link between pessimism -- dwelling on the most catastrophic cause of any setback -- and depression. Seligman shows adults how to teach children the skills of optimism that can help them combat depression, achieve more on the playing field and at school, and improve their physical health.

As Seligman states in his new afterword for this edition, "Teaching children optimism is more, I realized, than just correcting pessimism . . . It is the creation of a positive strength, a sunny but solid future-mindedness that can be deployed throughout life -- not only to fight depression and to come back from failure, but also to be the foundation of success and vitality.".
Price: $4.09 [Notify me when price goes down.]

"Salmansohn's writing is bold, playful, insightful—with powerful metaphors that provoke and inspire Her kinetic images amplify her message and take the book to a new level of literary experience." - Deepak Chopra, author of Seven Laws of Spiritual Success

A bad breakup. A serious illness. The loss of a job. Life has a habit of throwing people curveballs. To which Karen Salmansohn says: "When life throws you curveballs, hit them out of the park."

In The Bounce Back Book the dynamic author whose quirky self-help books—including How to Make Your Man Behave . . . and How to Be Happy, Dammit—mixes from-the-gut wisdom, humor, feistiness, and sophistication to create a hip, inspiring resource that will brighten the darkest mood. The book is grounded in happiness research, psychological studies, Greek philosophy. And it delivers: Here are 70 easily digestible, potentially life-changing tips on how to bounce back from adversity, each on a spread that's as punchy in look as it is powerful in message.

"Shrink negativity into nuggetivity." "Think of yourself as the type of person the world says yes to." With its attitude, techniques, and advice on everything from exercise to staying connected, it is a full-on guide to moving forward with great positive energy..
Price: $7.13 [Notify me when price goes down.]

In the capable hands of psychologists Karen Reivich and Andrew Shatté, resilience is not a Band-Aid or a buzzword It is a habit of mind. The Resilience Factor is a practical roadmap for navigating unexpected challenges, surprises, and setbacks at work and home. Their premise--that your thinking style determines your resilience--underlies the books promise: you can boost resilience by changing the way you think about adversity.

The authors synthesize decades of research in cognitive psychology, particularly the work of Aaron Beck and Martin Seligman, to create seven practical strategies for bouncing back. Each strategy demonstrates how "thinking styles" affect emotions and behavior. "The secret is accurate thinking, not positive thinking," they explain. After completing a "Resilience Questionnaire," readers learn to turn off negative thoughts, avoid thinking traps, detect "icebergs"--the basic beliefs that cause us to overreact--and restore perspective. Each strategy is illustrated with vivid examples, including acting-out teenagers, battle-torn marriages, downsized workplaces, and the loss of loved ones. This insightful book offers clear descriptions of resilient thinking and workable tools for changing our minds. --Barbara Mackoff.
Price: $8.24 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Resiliency - the ability to adapt to life's changes and crises - is the key to a healthy, productive life. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to get bogged down by feelings of anger and helplessness The Resiliency Advantage helps readers banish negative, self-defeating thoughts and break free from the roles of "victim" and "good child" while improving problem-solving skills, maintaining humor and optimism during rough times, and becoming both self-reliant and socially responsible. By mastering the five stages of development - sustaining health, energy, and positive feelings; handling challenges; achieving positive self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-concept; honing the skills and attributes of highly resilient people; and developing a talent for serendipity - readers learn to stand up to adversity, overcome obstacles, and meet life head on..
Price: $4.14 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Do you use substances or engage in compulsive activities to regulate your mood? Do you reach for something sweet, a couple of drinks, or a pack of cigarettes after a difficult day because you can't unwind without them? Do you race to the stores to spend away the day's frustrations or run around in circles taking more time to get less done? If these self-defeating habits sound familiar, Emotional Sobriety will shed light on why and how these coping mechanisms threaten your health and impact resilience.

When we manage the stresses of the day by turning to outside 'mood managers' such as food, sex, work, shopping, gambling, drugs, and alcohol rather than healthier forms of 'self-soothing,' it is because we lack emotional sobriety--the state of processing our thoughts efficiently to bring our emotions into balance, says bestselling author and renowned addictions psychologist Tian Dayton, Ph.D. In her latest book, Emotional Sobriety, Dr. Dayton shares compelling, honest tales of her life experiences and case studies of those she has counseled.

Illustrating that emotional sobriety is a mind/body phenomenon, Dr. Dayton includes ideas on how to attain emotional literacy--the skill of translating feelings into words so that we can use our thought processes to understand and bring our emotions into balance--and how to calm the limbic system so that we can actually experience what we're feeling. The limbic system processes our emotions and governs our mood, appetite, and sleep cycles. Repeated painful experiences, in childhood or adulthood, over which we have no ability or sense of control or escape can oversensitize us to stress andderegulate our limbic system. Dr. Dayton shows you through concrete examples how to bring your emotions and thoughts into balance and learn healthy ways of 'self-soothing' to relieve symptoms of depression, anxiety, rage, and the desire to self-medicate.

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Price: $9.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

A Leader Becomes a Leader opens with a window on history: Henry David Thoreau riding a borrowed horse and wagon into the woods around Concord, Massachusetts to Walden Pond in 1845. There, he writes a classic work that has a powerful effect on the lives and philosophies of seminal leaders in the next century as diverse as Mohandas Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela. Thoreau believed that a spirit exists in work of a high order that works outside time to touch readers whenever he or she proves ready. This book in a vivid presentation of images and essays asks an important question: is there a spirit to leadership? Does it exist, and if it does, can it work outside the normal, linear confines of history to mark the progress of civilization in important and consequential ways? A Leader Becomes a Leader: Inspirational Stories of Leadership for a New Generation is a thought-provoking and much-heralded first work from nationally recognized entreprenuer and author J. Kevin Sheehan. With 207 gorgeous photographs and a splendid design from award-winning graphic artist Jan Lindy Boyce, the book lays out cinematically, with sprawling visuals that present critical themes of leadership that get little coverage in current media: Seeking Justice, Sowing Peace, Manifesting Beauty, and With Vision are some of the important realms that make up the books architecture. The book asserts that the spirit of leadership and the core human values that underline it are universal, inherent human capacities that ''often go underestimated or unrecognized when people settle for less.'' The Determination of Nelson Mandela, The Presence of Eleanor Roosevelt, The Experiments of Mohatma Gandhi, The Decency of Cesar Chavez are some of the compelling section titles. Take a journey, and discover how some of the most consequential leaders of the last century developed into the people that we remember, and find inside this book the metaphoric struggles that make or break us on our own paths to leadership. The book is distinguished in the variety of leadership segments and iconic figures it represents. They include Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, Franklin Roosevelt, Albert Schweitzer, Katherine Graham, Neil Armstrong, Aung San Suu Kyii, Pele, and 57 others!.
Price: $17.00 [Notify me when price goes down.]

The number of anxious, depressed, hyperactive and withdrawn children is staggering—and still growing! Millions have experienced bullying, violence (real or in the media), abuse or sexual molestation Many other kids have been traumatized from more “ordinary” ordeals such as terrifying medical procedures, accidents, loss and divorce. Trauma-Proofing Your Kids sends a lifeline to parents who wonder how they can help their worried and troubled children now. It offers simple but powerful tools to keep children safe from danger and to help them “bounce back” after feeling scared and overwhelmed. No longer will kids have to be passive prey to predators or the innocent victims of life’s circumstances.

In addition to arming parents with priceless protective strategies, best-selling authors Dr. Peter A. Levine and Maggie Kline offer an antidote to trauma and a recipe for creating resilient kids no matter what misfortune has besieged them. Trauma-Proofing Your Kids is a treasure trove of simple-to-follow “stress-busting,” boundary-setting, sensory/motor-awareness activities that counteract trauma’s effect on a child’s body, mind and spirit. Including a chapter on how to navigate the inevitable difficulties that arise during the various ages and stages of development, this ground-breaking book simplifies an often mystifying and complex subject, empowering parents to raise truly confident and joyful kids despite stressful and turbulent times..
Price: $9.56 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Slap on a Little Lipstick…You'll be Fine celebrates the beauty of all women…their triumphs, their tears, their strengths and struggles, their journeys and joys - and through it all the smiles that mark survival.

This sassy gift book empowers women with thoughts on daily survival with fun and inspiring verse and art. Hills shares with us some of the empowering messages she learned from her mother and delivers it in a fun and empowering way. This book is the perfect book to share with a girlfriend, mother, sister, day care provider, teacher and more..
Price: $4.36 [Notify me when price goes down.]