Anxiety and Depression are mentally and emotionally draining. You feel like you are falling into a bottomless pit with no hope of coming back. I remember the time when I was going through an emotional down-slide, unable to cope with the stress and responsibilities that came with my new job.
According to research by WHO, more than 264 million people suffer from depression worldwide leading to chronic health problems. So yes, Anxiety and Depression are serious problems and it is not something that’s “just all in your head”.
Audiobooks are a great way to escape from stresses of the world and have proved to have a soothing effect on listeners. I have listened to many audiobooks dealing with mental problems and found that they often fall short of any practical advice. It is important to filter out all the crap that’s been going around as Bible on Anxiety and Depression.
Out of the tons of books that I’ve read and listened to on mental health, these are the Best Audiobooks for Dealing with Anxiety and Depression that will help you battle your inner demons and offer constructive ways to tackle Depression symptoms from different perspectives.
Here’s a list of 9 Best Audiobooks for Dealing with Anxiety and Depression
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone
Before I went through a therapy session, I always wondered what it’s like to be in a counselling session with a psychiatrist. Lori Gottlieb’s book Maybe You Should Talk To Someone(soon to be a television series with Eva Longoria!) answers these questions in a hilarious and thought-provoking style.
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is a hilarious and insightful journey of battling depression and anxiety and what it means to be a human in this day and age?
Through this book, Lori shares stories of her five clients each going through a difficult phase of their lives. At the same time, you get a peek into Lori’s life as a psychiatrist and her own struggle against depression and anxiety.
Maybe You Should Talk To Someone is profoundly funny and illuminates accounts of our own mysterious lives and our power to transform them.
Wise, warm, smart, and funny… If you have even an ounce of interest in the conundrum of being human, you must read this book.
Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy
What causes depression? Is it anxiety, low self-esteem, broken relationships, work-related stress or other ‘blackholes’ that exist in our lives?
In the Amazon’s No.1 best-selling book on treating depression, Feeling Good, Dr David Burns reveals the small hurdles in our lives that slowly build up as the tall mountain called ‘depression’. Dr David says “Depression is a result of your thoughts about a particular event rather than the event itself”.
Dr David has condensed his years of research into easy to follow guide to explain the effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy in treating depression. There are 10 cognitive distortions that cause anxiety and depression, this book teaches you how to tackle anxiety and nip negative thoughts in the bud.
There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.
David D. Burns, Feeling Good
Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks Fast
‘Anxiety can be overwhelming’. There’s nothing worse than the feeling of wanting to run away from yourself. Many books out there will try to teach you how to ‘manage’ your anxiety or just ‘medicate it way’.
Barry McDonagh’s Dare is a new way to fight anxiety head-on not by managing or medicating it way, but by using Dare techniques. Based on 10 years of research on anxiety, the Dare technique has helped hundreds of patients to live a life free from anxiety and panic attacks.
Barry’s calming narration makes this audiobook a calm and revealing experience.
As strange as it sounds, the greatest obstacle to healing your anxiety is you. You’re the cure.
Barry McDonagh, Dare: The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks Fast
The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
Who am I? What is my purpose in my life? How can I fulfil my life with peace, harmony and tranquillity? What will take to achieve my goals in my life?
Once you start asking yourself these questions, you find yourself in a constant tussle with the voice in your head. The distractions in your life avoid you from discovering who you really are?
In The Untethered Soul, Michael Singer shows how being aware in the present moment can bring happiness and lead to self-realization. As Micheal points out in his book, once you silence the noise in your head, you can hear the music of your soul.
Reading The Untethered Soul is like taking a journey within yourself, to explore what it means to be a human and silence the devil in your mind to curb anxiety-ridden thoughts right in their tracks.
There is nothing more important to true growth than realizing that you are not the voice of the mind – you are the one who hears it.
Michael A. Singer, The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself
The Upward Spiral
Depression sucks! but it doesn’t overtake your life all of a sudden. It’s not like one day you woke up and suddenly found yourself utterly depressed. Depression is a culmination of bad habits, negative thinking and adversities saturated over time in your life.
In The Upward Spiral, Dr Alex Korb shows you how to reverse the downward spiralling journey due to depression and turn it into an upward spiralling journey of happiness and fulfilment with one small step at a time.
Dr Alex demystifies the neurological processes that cause depression and offers easy practical steps that you can take to destroy the roots of the problem.
Some of the exercises are as simple as relaxing certain muscles to reduce feelings of anxiety and others involve making small efforts towards more positive social interactions.
Unfortunately, people with depression tend to create nebulous goals that are poorly defined, which makes progress and achievement difficult.
Alex Korb, The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time
The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
Have you ever wondered why anybody would go to such lengths as to kill themselves? Andrew’s extensive research on mental illnesses and his journey fighting depression answer why a person might choose to end his own life.
I never listened to a book which goes so deep into the crux of the problem but at the same time keeps you hooked right till the end with such an uncommon wit, candour and humanity.
Andrew draws the life of thousands of people suffering from mental illnesses and how it affects people across various demographics and the personal, medical, pharmacological and cultural interpretations of depression.
Grief is a depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.
Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression
When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life
If there is one thing that I say about this book is to listen to it now! No matter who you are, whether you are suffering from panic attacks or not, if you want to become mentally and emotionally strong, then this the book is for you.
Everybody suffers from anxiety, the only difference is the cause and the intensity of it. Some people suffer from panic attacks, while others have mild anxiety attacks.
Anxiety can creep in due to various reasons like worrying, shyness, fear of public speaking, test anxiety and phobias that cripple your mental health.
In When Panic Attacks, Dr David Burns teaches you 40 new powerful anti-anxiety techniques to deal with anxiety without any lengthy therapy or prescription drugs. All you need is a little bit of courage and the techniques in this book to beat the hell out of depression.
When you confront the monster you fear the most, you’ll defeat your fears.
David D. Burns, When Panic Attacks: The New, Drug-Free Anxiety Therapy That Can Change Your Life
The Mindful Way Through Depression
Anybody who’s been through depression knows how physically and mentally taxing it is to go through the traditional medications prescribed by psychologists.
More often than not, they are just a temporary solution to soothe the chaos within you and not cure it. Antidepressants fix depression as long as you are taking them. When stopped, the symptoms kick in even harder than before.
In The Mindful Way through Depression, four uniquely qualified experts have developed a new approach to deal with depression. Through extensive research, they have developed an insightful way of dealing with depressive thoughts combining the Eastern meditative techniques with CBT( Cognitive Behavioral Therapy).
These meditation techniques and exercises will empower you to deal with self-doubt, rumination and anxious thoughts that lead to depression without taking having to take any antidepressants.
Being mindful means that we suspend judgment for a time, set aside our immediate goals for the future, and take in the present moment as it is rather than as we would like it to be.
J. Mark G. Williams, The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness
Can’t Hurt Me
If you think your life is hard! then listening to David Goggins life story will make you realize that the things that are making your life ‘hard’ are just a bunch of meaningless excuses. Unlike many of us who fret about the smallest of things, Goggins life was a real nightmare right from his childhood.
Can’t Hurt Me is the story of a man ridden with poverty, prejudice and physical abuse from his childhood, who became a US Armed Forces icon and the fittest man in America with his hard-work, will-power and iron-like discipline.
In this audiobook, Goggins narrates his own story from being a depressed overweight young man to becoming the only man in history to complete elite training as a Navy SEAL, Army Ranger, and Air Force Tactical Air Controller.
Goggins believes that most of us only tap into 40% of our potential. Goggins calls this the 40% rule, and his story illuminates a path that anyone can follow to push past pain, demolish fear, and reach their full potential.
You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.
David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
Also Read: 10 Must-Read Books To Curb Mind Wandering and Improve Concentration
