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If managing anxiety were as simple as telling yourself to “just relax,” life would be a whole lot easier.

But anyone who’s ever dealt with racing thoughts, sleepless nights, or that constant feeling of dread knows it’s not that simple. Anxiety can be overwhelming, unpredictable, and downright exhausting—but the good news? You’re not alone, and there are plenty of incredible books out there that can actually help.

I’ve sifted through the endless options to bring you 12 of the best books on anxiety management—ones that go beyond generic advice and offer real, practical strategies. Whether you’re looking for science-backed techniques, mindfulness practices, or just some reassurance that you’re not losing your mind, this list has something for you. No fluffy clichés, no toxic positivity—just honest, helpful insights from experts who get it.

So, take a deep breath, get comfy, and let’s dive into some books that can help you regain control, quiet your mind, and navigate anxiety with a little more ease.

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12 Books on Anxiety Management

Calm in the Chaos:

Managing Anxiety in a Fast-Paced World (Alternative Health Secrets Series)

by Kent Jameson

Amazon Rating:   5/5 stars

Rediscover Peace – Even in the Heart of Life’s Chaos

Are you overwhelmed by the stressors of daily life?

Do endless worries keep you awake at night, making you feel like there’s no escape from anxiety?

Have you tried countless methods to manage stress, only to find yourself back at square one?

If you’ve answered “yes” to any of these questions, you are not alone. The pressure of modern living is unrelenting, but relief is within your grasp.

Introducing “Calm in the Chaos: Managing Anxiety in a Fast-Paced World” – your guide to managing stress and anxiety.

You might be thinking, “I’ve tried so many self-help books before, and none have worked.”

Here’s the thing: This book is different.

It’s meticulously designed to provide clear, actionable advice without overwhelming technical jargon or fluff. Whether you’re a busy professional, a dedicated parent, or someone navigating life’s chaotic transitions, this book offers relatable, practical solutions tailored to your unique needs.

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • The crucial steps to develop a daily routine that helps manage your responsibilities without overwhelming you
  • Practical steps to interrupt negative thought patterns and reclaim a positive mindset
  • Proven time management skills for carving out relaxation and self-care moments in your busy schedule
  • How to find and communicate with a support network that understands your anxiety struggles without judgment
  • Healthy coping mechanisms to replace unhealthy habits, fostering long-term well-being
  • Strategies for building confidence to face new situations without succumbing to anxiety

 

Dare

The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks

by Barry McDonagh

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

If you’re tired of just ‘managing’ your anxiety and want a powerful natural solution, then apply the ‘Dare’ technique as explained in Barry McDonagh’s latest book.

Based on hard science and over 10 years helping people who suffer from anxiety, Barry McDonagh shares his most effective technique in this new book.

The DARE technique can be used by everyone, regardless of age or background, to live a life free from anxiety or panic attacks.

IMPORTANT: THIS IS MUCH MORE THAN JUST A BOOK

It also comes with a free App for your smartphone as well as four audios for quick anxiety relief. With these new tools you can apply the DARE Response in any situation that makes you anxious (e.g. driving/shopping/traveling).

Help is now with you wherever you go!

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • Stop panic attacks and end feelings of general anxiety.
  • Face any anxious situation you’ve been avoiding (driving/flying/shopping etc.).
  • Put an end to anxious or intrusive thoughts.
  • Use the right natural supplements to relieve anxiety.
  • Boost your confidence and feel like your old self again.
  • Fall asleep faster and with less anxiety each night.
  • Live a more bold and adventurous life again.

Overthinking Detox

7 Practical Strategies to Reduce Stress, Clear Your Mind, and Live in the Present

by Russel Di

Amazon Rating:  4.9 /5 stars

Take control of your thoughts and weather the storm in your mind with Overthinking Detox, a comprehensive guide on stemming your overthinking right from its source!

How many times have you found yourself wanting to plan a nice evening with friends, join a new hobby club, or strike up a conversation with someone who tickles your fancy, but your worried mind stops you, churning out endless what-ifs?

Sure, thinking things through is a healthy and often beneficial process. But when you focus exclusively on the things that could go wrong or those that are completely beyond your control, then your own thoughts could hurt more than help you.

When you start to detect signs that you may be overthinking, it’s important that you deal with it right at the onset to prevent it from spiraling into something more serious.

And this guide is meant to help you with just that!

With Overthinking Detox, you can finally find reprieve from the plague of your thoughts. Our scientifically proven, expert-backed advice will guide you in staving off your overthinking before it can fully take root!

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • Telling the difference: Chewing over life-changing decisions is perfectly reasonable, but spending hours deciding what you want for dinner is not. We share instances when overthinking is acceptable and when it isn’t.
  • Types: From worrying and overgeneralizing to catastrophizing and mind reading, overthinking comes in many forms, and we’re here to lay them all bare, from their symptoms to how you can rid yourself of them.
  • Mastering the here and now: Does your mind have a tendency to decipher the future negatively? If so, bringing your thoughts back to the present is essential. We detail mindfulness and meditation techniques to help keep your thoughts grounded and free from needless rumination.
  • Mental restructuring: Learn to recognize when your overthinking gets the better of you and how you can challenge your negative beliefs and thoughts to garner more positive ones!
  • Keeping your emotions in check: Messy emotions lead to a chaotic headspace. We share breathing exercises to calm your mental disarray. On top of that, discover how communicating your feelings and consuming the right media can help you manage your emotions.

Outsmart Your Anxious Brain

Ten Simple Ways to Beat the Worry Trick

by David A. Carbonell, PhD

Foreword by Martin N. Seif, PhD

Amazon Rating:   4.6/5 stars

It’s time to outsmart your worry and anxiety. Drawing on the same cutting-edge psychology presented in author David Carbonell’s The Worry Trick, this irreverent, on-the-go guide offers ten powerful “counter-intuitive” strategies to help you put worry in its place—anytime, anywhere.

Anxiety is a powerful force. It makes us question our decisions and ourselves, worry about the future, and it fills our days with dread and emotional turbulence. But what if we understood that anxiety is merely a trick of the mind, trying to convince us we’re in danger? Anxiety is like a magician behind the curtain, playing subtle tricks on us to convince us that we’re in danger when we’re not. When we understand this, we can observe our anxious feelings with some distance.

Based on the author’s popular book, The Worry Trick, this helpful and humorous guide identifies the “trick” of chronic anxiety, and provides the ten most powerful techniques based in acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you respond differently to panic, anxiety, worry, and phobias. Once you learn to respond differently to the worry trick, you’ll be able to break the cycle of chronic anxiety for good.

A Few Key Takeaways:

Instead of trying to “manage” your anxiety or push anxious thoughts away—techniques that you’ve probably already discovered don’t work—the ten powerful strategies outlined in this guide will empower you to actually change how you respond to worry and anxiety, so you can get your life back!

Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts – A CBT Based Guide

A CBT-Based Guide to Getting Over Frightening, Obsessive, or Disturbing Thoughts

by Sally M. Winston, PsyD and Martin N. Seif, PhD

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

You are not your thoughts! In this powerful book, two anxiety experts offer proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) skills to help you get unstuck from disturbing thoughts, overcome the shame these thoughts can bring, and reduce your anxiety.

If you suffer from unwanted, intrusive, frightening, or even disturbing thoughts, you might worry about what these thoughts mean about you. Thoughts can seem like messages—are they trying to tell you something? But the truth is that they are just thoughts, and don’t necessarily mean anything. Sane and good people have them. If you are someone who is plagued by thoughts you don’t want—thoughts that scare you, or thoughts you can’t tell anyone about—this book may change your life.

If you have unwanted thoughts, you should remember that you aren’t alone. In fact, there are millions of people just like you—good people who have awful thoughts, gentle people with violent thoughts, and sane people with “crazy” thoughts. This book will show you how to move past your thoughts so you can reclaim your life!

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • You’ll discover the different kinds of disturbing thoughts, myths that surround your thoughts, and how your brain has a tendency to get “stuck” in a cycle of unwanted rumination.
  • You’ll also learn why common techniques to get rid of these thoughts can backfire.
  • You’ll learn powerful cognitive behavioral skills to help you cope with and move beyond your thoughts, so you can focus on living the life you want.
  • Your thoughts will still occur, but you will be better able to cope with them—without dread, guilt, or shame.

The A.C.E.R. Method

A Realistic and Effective Method to Overcome Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Hypochondria and Agoraphobia

by Jimmy C. Doan

Amazon Rating:   4.7/5 stars

The A.C.E.R. Method is one of the most effective methods today for overcoming Anxiety, GAD, Panic Disorder, Agoraphobia and Health Anxiety/Hypochondria.
By using simple, day to day language, this book provides a deep and thorough explanation which serves as a foundation for recovery to build upon.

The A.C.E.R. Method is not only effective in overcoming anxiety, panic attacks and other related conditions, but it’s also powerful at making you a stronger and happier version of yourself.

This book is being recommended by medical professionals to their patients as an effective weapon in their fight against their mental health struggle.

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • If anxiety and panic attacks have taken away the freedom and the meaningfulness of your life, this book is for you.
  • If, because of Anxiety, you find yourself going from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital, always being afraid of the way you feel both physically and mentally, this book will give you the tools to resume the life you are meant to live.
  • If you have tried therapies, supplements, medications and countless coping mechanisms without any significant results, this book is for you.
  • If you are struggling with intense mental and physical symptoms from anxiety like heart palpitations, difficulty breathing, insomnia, constant fatigue and exhaustion, dizziness, headaches, nausea, depersonalization, vision issues, digestive issues, all kinds of pain, shaking, trembling, intrusive thoughts, agitation, depression – just to name a few, then this book is definitely for you.
  • If you find yourself avoiding things and places that you used to love
  • If you find yourself being locked inside your own house due to the fear of being in the outside world (agoraphobia), this book will be the key to set you free from your own prison.

Anxiety Hacks

PROVEN TECHNIQUES, TOOLS AND TIPS TO CALMNESS

by Kate Hudson-Hall

Amazon Rating:   4.8/5 stars

With step-by-step techniques and tools, Kate teaches you how to overcome your negative behaviors and instantly calm yourself in less than 90 seconds.

With easy-to-learn powerful strategies for you to use to calm your anxiety quickly:

  • Create your own toolbox to manage your stress, worries, and negative feelings that work.
  • Take yourself from being completely overwhelmed by your negative feelings to showing you easy ways you can learn to cope with your behaviors and instantly calm yourself.
  • Learn how to set boundaries and say no without feeling guilty or anxious.
  • Learn how to improve your sleep, relax and calm yourself.

Whether you’ve suffered your whole life or are just experiencing it for the first time, this anxiety self-help book is the perfect guide to help you calm anxiety and break free from painful behaviors. This is one of the top great reads of 2023, so don’t miss out on this empowering tool for a healthier, happier life.

A Few Key Takeaways:

Understanding and overcoming your behaviors:

  • Understand why YOU have these challenging behaviors and how you can break through them to a calmer new you.
  • Understand the root cause of your behaviors and learn how to break free from them.
  • Discover how to reduce anxiety and panic attacks and prevent them from controlling your life.

Learn how to boost your emotional well-being:

  • Improve your life with the support of the FREE companion course containing downloadable worksheets and bonus videos of Kate demonstrating each powerful strategy revealed throughout the book.
  • Discover how to use mindfulness and other techniques to reduce your anxiety and improve your overall well-being.
  • Learn how to improve your mood with simple and practical strategies.

Attacking Anxiety

From Panicked and Depressed to Alive and Free

by Shawn Johnson

Amazon Rating:  4.8 /5 stars

Shawn Johnson was the lead pastor of a thriving, fast-growing church. He was supposed to have it all together. But he was also struggling in silence with anxiety and depression, suffering from debilitating panic attacks that told him the lie that this would never end, that he’d spend the rest of his life in excruciating pain.

In Attacking Anxiety, Shawn vulnerably shares about this dark time and offers those familiar with that same struggle everything he’s learned in his battles with anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. 

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • Exposes the lies that lead to isolation and replace them with the truths that are essential to survival
  • Reveals the things that most of us don’t realize are adding more anxiety and depression to our lives and replace them with the wisdom and support that lead to true freedom
  • Explains what to do when you, or someone you love, is in the middle of a panic attack
  • Guides you through what you need to know in order to start attacking anxiety and depression

Try Softer

A Fresh Approach to Move Us out of Anxiety, Stress, and Survival Mode–and into a Life of Connection and Joy

Aundi Kolber

Amazon Rating:   4.8/5 stars

In a world that preaches a “try harder” gospel―just keep going, keep hustling, keep pretending we’re all fine―we’re left exhausted, overwhelmed, and so numb to our lives. If we’re honest, we’ve been overfunctioning for so long, we can’t even imagine another way. How else will things get done? How else will we survive?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Aundi Kolber believes that we don’t have to white-knuckle our way through life. In her debut book, Try Softer™️, she’ll show us how God specifically designed our bodies and minds to work together to process our stories and work through obstacles. Through the latest psychology, practical clinical exercises, and her own personal story, Aundi equips and empowers us to connect us to our truest self and truly live. This is the “try softer” life.

Trying softer is sacred work. And while it won’t be perfect or easy, it will be worth it. Because this is what we were made for: a living, breathing, moving, feeling, connected, beautifully incarnational life.

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • Know and set emotional and relational boundaries
  • Make sense of the difficult experiences you’ve had
  • Identify your attachment style―and how that affects your relationships today
  • Move through emotions rather than get stuck by them
  • Grow in self-compassion and talk back to your inner critic

Rewire Your Anxious Mind

How to Use the Neuroscience of Fear to End Anxiety, Panic, and Worry

by Catherine M. Pittman, PhD and Elizabeth M. Karle, MLIS

Amazon Rating:  4.6 /5 stars

Do you ever wonder what is happening inside your brain when you feel anxious, panicked, and worried? In Rewire Your Anxious Brain, psychologist Catherine Pittman and author Elizabeth Karle offer a unique, evidence-based solution to overcoming anxiety based in cutting-edge neuroscience and research.

In the book, you will learn how the amygdala and cortex (both important parts of the brain) are essential players in the neuropsychology of anxiety. The amygdala acts as a primal response, and oftentimes, when this part of the brain processes fear, you may not even understand why you are afraid. By comparison, the cortex is the center of “worry.” That is, obsessing, ruminating, and dwelling on things that may or may not happen. In the book, Pittman and Karle make it simple by offering specific examples of how to manage fear by tapping into both of these pathways in the brain.

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • Gain a greater understanding how anxiety is created in the brain 
  • Learn to change the way you respond to fear, helping you to become more resilient 
  • Learn to literally “rewire” the brain processes that lie at the root of your fears
  • Practical self-assessments and proven-effective techniques in this book

Calm the Storm of Overthinking

Simple and Effective Strategies to Combat Constant Worry and Negative Self-Talk

by Shannon M. Buck

Amazon Rating:  5 /5 stars

This book is your practical guide to transforming those overwhelming thoughts into calm and focused clarity.

You might be thinking, “I’ve tried everything; nothing works.” The reality is, many methods you’ve tried may have lacked a comprehensive approach or weren’t tailored to the unique stressors you face.

This book is different.

It synthesizes years of research, practical exercises, and real-life success stories into a step-by-step guide that’s straightforward and easy to follow, empowering you with tools that work.

Whether you’re bogged down by analysis paralysis or feeling the weight of never-ending negative self-talk, this guide offers relatable, actionable techniques to achieve mental clarity and find peace.

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • Powerful techniques to halt overthinking in its tracks and bring your focus back to the present moment.
  • Grounding exercises you can use anywhere, anytime to reduce immediate stress.   
  • The crucial role of CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) in managing and reducing overthinking.   
  • How to dismantle and reframe negative self-talk into constructive and positive thoughts.   
  • Effective ways to boost self-esteem, perfect for battling feelings of inadequacy and imposter syndrome.   
  • 2-minute mindfulness practices to instantly calm a racing mind.   
  • Actionable journaling tips for turning mental clutter into clear action points.

28-Day CBT Workbook for Adults

A Straightforward Guide to Start Rewiring Your Brain in 15 Minutes a Day—With Proven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Techniques For Anxiety, Depression, & Self-Esteem

by Calvin Caufield

Amazon Rating:  4.9 /5 stars

Living with anxiety, depression or struggling with low self-worth can feel like you’re constantly exhausted. Like the challenges of everyday life just leave you depleted.

With CBT you can learn to break the cycle of negative thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Using field tested techniques that have helped thousands overcome anxiety, stress, and work through their depression.

The journey to mental health can be long and difficult, but all it takes to start making a noticeable difference in how you feel is taking that first step.

That’s exactly what this workbook was designed for, making it as easy and simple as possible to use the principles of CBT to start rewiring your brain towards positivity— even in just 15 minutes a day.

A Few Key Takeaways:

  • 8 Of The Most Common Ways Your Brain Plays Tricks On You (Just Knowing These Transforms The Way You React In Anxiety Inducing Situations)   
  • The Number One Mistake People Make Setting Goals, And How To Avoid This So You Actually Achieve Yours 
  • The CBT Technique That Has Helped Over 90% Of People With Specific Phobias Overcome Their Anxiety Inducing Fear   
  • A Personalized Anger Management Plan That Can Prevent Outbursts And Save Relationships Instead Of Burning Bridges
How To Get The Most Out of These Books

Reading these books is just the first step—what matters most is how you apply what you learn. Take your time, reflect on the insights, and try incorporating small changes into your daily life. You don’t have to absorb everything at once; even one meaningful lesson can make a difference.

Remember, growth is a journey, not a race. Be patient with yourself, celebrate progress, and keep exploring what works best for you.

I’d love to hear your thoughts! Have you read any of these books, or do you have a favorite to add to the list? Share your experiences in the comments and let’s continue the conversation.

 


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