How to Calm Your Mind: Finding Productivity in Anxious Times
“After rebounding from his own burnout, Bailey devised a clear-eyed, concise method that marries science and self-help… Slow down, breathe, and submerge into these pages.” —Oprah Daily
From the author of Hyperfocus, a treasure trove of practical, science-backed strategies that reveal how the key to a less anxious life, and even greater productivity, is a calm state of mind
Chris Bailey, researcher and productivity expert, realized he had burnt out. He was pushing himself too hard, and realized that productivity advice is useless without the mental space to use it.
Productivity advice works – and we need it now more than ever – but it’s just as important that we also develop our capacity for calm. By finding calm and overcoming anxiety, we don’t just feel more comfortable in our own skin, we invest in the missing piece that leads our efforts to become sustainable over time. We build a deeper, more expansive reservoir of energy to draw from throughout the day, and have greater mental resources at our disposal not only to do good work, but also to live a good life.
Among the topics How to Calm Your Mind covers are:
- How analogue and digital worlds affect calm and anxiety in different ways
- How our desire for dopamine breeds anxiety
- How hidden sources of stress can be tamed by a ‘stimulation fast’
- -How ‘busyness’ is as much a state of mind as it is an actual state of life
The pursuit of calm ultimately leads us to become more engaged, focused and deliberate – while making us more productive and satisfied with our lives overall. In an anxious world, achieving calm is the best lifehack around.
Chris Bailey is an author and lecturer who explores the science behind living a more productive and intentional life. He has written hundreds of articles on the subject and has garnered coverage in media as diverse as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, GQ, HuffPost, New York magazine, Harvard Business Review, TED, Fast Company, and Lifehacker. He is the bestselling author of The Productivity Project, Hyperfocus, How to Calm Your Mind, and Intentional, among others. His books have been published in forty-two languages. He lives in Ottawa, Canada.