stress on Books

A common question I’m hearing from folks these days is whether it is beneficial (or a moral imperative) to pay attention to the news. The Catholic nun and social activist Dorothy Day asked the same qu...

“Thirty years ago,” Anne Lamott writes in her book Bird by Bird, “my older brother, who was ten years old at the time, was trying to get a report on birds written that he’d had three months to write. ...

In his highly insightful work, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding ways to rest and relax as part of a healthy, balanced life: I once read a book in which the author sa...

A man can wear out a particular part of his mind by continually using it and tiring it: but the tired parts of the mind can be rested and strengthened not merely by rest, but by using other parts… Man...

In his highly book, Inside Job , Stephen W. Smith shares the importance of finding balance, even as life seems to pull us in different directions: Overextending yourself is stretching your physic...

Unless we can discover ways of staying afloat amidst the surging torrents of information, we may end up drowning in them.

Learn to master time, and you will be able—whatever you do, whatever the stress, in the storm, in tragedy, or simply in the confusion in which we continuously live—to be still, immobile in the present...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Philippian Joy During Division and Persecution For an in-depth description of the context of Paul’s letter to the Philippians, see last...

We need the interruption of the night To ease attention off when overtight, To break out logic in too long a flight, And ask us if our premises are right.

Where there is no choice, we do well to make no difficulty.

In the fall of 2009, I was invited to go on a month-long speaking tour throughout Africa. During the trip, a CEO from South Africa named Salim took me to Soweto, a township just outside of Johannesbur...

What you allow to occupy your mind will sooner or later determine your feelings, your speech and your actions. Thoughts . . . have a real impact on how you feel and behave.”

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.

The little troubles and worries of life may be as stumbling blocks in our way, or we may make them stepping-stones to a nobler character and to Heaven. Troubles are often the tools by which God fashio...

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a best-selling statistician, argues that it is not even mere resilience we need, but what he calls antifragility . He groups things into three categories. First, fragile...

Everyone: Holy God, we live our lives struggling in our own burdens and failing to trust You with all the things that hold us down. Leader: Your Scripture says, "Come to Me all you who are wear...

Social media addiction also changes our neurochemistry: our slumped posture produces cortisol; the backlit phone and blue light can suppress melatonin (needed for sleep); and a recent study with “hard...

We are hyperliving, skimming along on the surface of life.

In the story of grace, the lack of hurry makes room for presence.

Caesar Augustus, the first Roman emperor, had quite the sharp wit. After hearing about a Roman nobleman who had passed away with enormous debts (which were kept private throughout his lifetime), he se...

Did you know that more has been discovered about our minds in the last twenty years than in all the time before that? Did you know that an estimated 60 to 80 percent of visits to primary care physicia...

A study from Yale said the best way to deal with stress is to do a small act of generosity for someone else.

The truth is that it’s what we say to ourselves [the self-talk of our thought life] in response to any particular situation that mainly determines our mood and feelings.

My whole life is a movie. It’s just that there are no dissolves. I have to live every agonizing moment of it. My life needs editing.

The objects of the present life fill the human eye with a false magnification because of their immediacy.

Make a point of watching quality documentaries: a study by the BBC and the University of California, Berkeley, found that viewing nature programmes increased feelings of awe, amusement and joy while r...

Mess creates stress.

Fear and restlessness kill more than do illnesses.

When we find worth by our affluence, it promises rest but brings stress, increasing demands, and a greater devotion to a god that will never love us and always forsake us.

Reality is the leading cause of stress among those in touch with it.