This Book Will Make You Happy

There is so much in this that I highlighted that I could quote the entire book! A lot of this was information that I already have heard or knew but it is put in a different way. The entire cognitive behavioral therapy and negative automatic thoughts were my favorite.

Firstly, six years ago I suddenly realized that I didn’t have a positive thought in my skull! It was wearing me down. As I’m sure you can imagine. This goes into explain that negative thoughts, or what they call NAT’s are normal and everyone has them. The problem though is that some people have them ALL the time. See my sentence above. It took me a long time to learn how to deal with these thoughts. If I could have gone back in time I would just give myself this book!

Not only does it explain the NAT’s quite well but how to get rid of them! You know that annoying thought you keep going back to in times where you feel like you’re not really thinking about anything? Then WHAM it sinks into your skull and then you’re in a bad mood because you start spiraling! There’s an entire chapter just for how to, not only recognize those thoughts but how to make them go away!

Now, I’ve been working on that particular thing for about six years but the thoughts still pip in every once in a while. I do have a problem with spiraling once those thoughts hit though. This talks about how to negate that spiral and how to change your normal negative thinking into positive thinking.

There are also golden rules. Mostly things that I’ve heard before like how to never use the words “always and never” and how you can set yourself up for failure by not changing your thinking.

I do read a lot of self-help books for some reason. I think they are fun. I love to grow. Some I walk away knowing I didn’t take anything away but I didn’t lose anything but time. In this one, however, I am keeping it on my Kindle and may wind up getting it in paperback just so I have it handy. It’s good to have positive reinforcement to help ourselves with and to remind us that we are not as horrible as our inner thoughts say we are!

In short: Mired by your thoughts? Need a pick me up? This book is totally for you!

This book lives up to its title. It definitely offers insight into how to be happier. I plan to get a hard copy so that I can see what kid of space exists for notes, journaling, etc. I definitely like the conversational tone of this book and I think it has appeal for students. At the same, I question whether or not it minimizes aspects of depression. Having heard Andrew Solomon speak about his own experiences and his book, The Noonday Demon, I do find a huge contrast to the approach taken by Jo Usmar and Jessamy Hibberd. I hope that their work, This Book Will Make You Happy, finds a wide audience and prompts more discussion about medical research and statistics concerning depression.