Best Self-Help Books To Read In 2024

1. Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? by Dr Julie Smith

While best known for her sub-minute TikToks, Dr. Julie Smith has dedicated decades to the study of psychology, running a clinical practice as a member of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapy. She has used this experience to write "Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before?", an easy-to-understand therapy toolkit that can help people with anxiety, depression, low mood, and lack of motivation, among other mental health problems.

The book’s greatest strength is that it's brilliantly practical. Other books on mental health can get bogged down in long stories, but Smith's handbook is made up of short chapters with clear, doable advice that anyone can use.

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2. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

How do you organize your day? Do you try to finish a long and detailed list of things to do, but end up wasting hours on e-mail and social media instead? As Georgetown University’s Prof. Cal Newport explains, the to-do list is bound to lead to such frustration - but there is a much better way to organize your time.

In this book of practical advice, he outlines his time-blocking management system that carefully considers both how long each task takes and how much time you have available. Then comes the important bit. Newport tells readers how they should and can spend more time on "deep work," which is working on a difficult task without being interrupted. Newport says that organizing your day around chunks of deep work will help you focus, get more done, and be more creative. He backs this up with evidence from scientific studies.

Importantly, deep work is not a manifesto for working harder and longer. It’s the opposite. Yes, Newport's time management advice is geared toward increased productivity, but it is also geared toward a better work-life balance free of time famine.

3. A Path through the Jungle: Psychological Health and Wellbeing Programme to Develop Robustness and Resilience by Steve Peters

When it was first released, Prof. Steve Peters’s "The Chimp Paradox" was praised for its straightforward explanation of how the human brain processes emotion and how to better manage those emotions. It became a best-seller and was praised by the likes of former footballer Steven Gerrard and Olympic champion Victoria Pendleton.

However, the book had a problem. Some people thought "The Chimp Paradox" was too simple, and a lot of the neuroscience behind the mind-management program in the book was not explained. The solution is "A Path Through the Jungle". While the language is still simple, Peters gives a fuller picture of the complex neural networks behind your emotions and stress responses. And it’s from this deeper explanation of the brain’s systems that the reader can better learn to manage their inner emotion machine (what Peters calls "The Chimp").

An extremely comprehensive guide to improving your mental health in a multitude of areas.

4. Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art by James Nestor

Ever feel like the whole self-improvement game is just learning you have a list of never-ending insufficiencies? If so, you may meet this claim from journalist James Nestor with some resistance: you’re breathing wrong. Specifically, you’re probably breathing through your mouth a lot of the time.

Why does that matter? Well, as Nestor's interesting, surprising, and detailed book shows, this could be very bad for your health. With the help of top researchers and an impressively long list of references, the book "Breath" explains how just breathing better can make a big difference in our physical and mental health.

5. The Sleep Fix: Practical, Proven, and Surprising Solutions for Insomnia, Snoring, Shift Work, and More by Diane Macedo

"Why We Sleep?" by Matthew Walker is one of the best books about sleep that talks about how important it is to get enough sleep. But when it comes to practical advice, many of these guides aren't compatible with everyday life. For instance, it's common sleep advice to wake up and fall asleep at the same time every day. But what about shift workers?

That’s where "The Sleep Fix" comes in. This book was written by US news anchor Diane Macedo. It gives realistic and flexible ways to get to sleep, based on advice from the world's top sleep experts. Macedo explains in simple terms how to deal with snoring, insomnia, shift work, sleep apnea, anxiety, restless sleep syndrome, and much more. She does this by drawing on scientific research and her own experience as an overnight worker.

Packed with unexpected but worthwhile advice, this book is worthwhile for those who feel they’ve tried everything else.

6. Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman

How long is the average human life? The answer, as you may guess from this book's title, is a mere 4000 weeks. It may seem like a worryingly small number, but as journalist and productivity geek Oliver Burkeman points out, accepting our ridiculously short time on Earth could be the key to living a more fulfilled life.

Burkeman makes the case that our obsession with overflowing inboxes, constantly growing to-do lists, and never-ending searches for self-improvement will never really make us happy. Our limitations, he argues, are better embraced than denied.

Overall, this is a self-help, anti-self-help book that seeks to realign your relationship with time - and figure out how to spend your 4,000 weeks most effectively.

Authors

Thomas Ling Digital editor, BBC Science Focus

Original Source: sciencefocus.com