I read Calm Your Thoughts by Nick Trenton, which came out in 2021. In this book, Trenton explains the process of anxiety and overthinking while explaining techniques to help reduce overthinking. The book has five chapters with multiple sub-points in each chapter. Some of the main points Trenton made in the book are that anxiety and anxious thoughts are not the reader’s fault, we need to become responsive rather than reactive, and we need to work on neutrality and detaching from our emotions. To help combat overthinking, some of the best things to do are practice mindfulness and meditation, and Trenton explains other techniques that readers can learn to help de-stress and stay calm in stressful situations. Chapter summaries followed each chapter …show more content…
A few of the techniques, when broken down, turn into ‘just stop thinking about it.’ For example, worry postponement. In theory, it sounds great to just stop thinking about something and plan a time to worry about it later. But I personally don’t know how to just stop worrying about something. I can’t tell myself “Stop, you can worry about this tomorrow.” Worry postponement is a technique that won’t work for me. I need techniques that will help me to stop thinking when I am overthinking. Trenton also talked about how embracing uncertainty would allow the reader to worry less. To me, uncertainty is a lot of what causes me to have anxious thoughts. It would be very hard for me to overcome that and embrace uncertainty.
I also realized that some of the different ways to change behavior seemed to be the same idea repeated in a different way in a different section of the book. It made the novel feel repetitive. Another thing I didn’t like about the book was that it had a sudden, unsatisfying ending. I thought it would end on a positive note and reiterate how the things discussed in the book could help the reader, but it just ended after discussing rumination. I would have liked something included at the end that would make me feel excited to try the suggestions in the