May is Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to recognize the essential role mental health plays in overall well-being. It also offers an opportunity to increase understanding, support those living with mental or behavioral health challenges, and help reduce the stigma that too often surrounds these experiences.
Finding Calm: Practical Tools for Managing Stress and Anxiety
May 4, 7:00 PM
Stress and anxiety are an unavoidable part of modern life—but when they go unmanaged, they can significantly impact both mental and physical health. Learning to cope effectively can improve focus, build resilience, enhance sleep, and support a greater sense of balance.
In this interactive workshop being offered at the Livingston Public Library, positive psychology coach, educator and speaker, Diane Lang, will guide participants in exploring the root causes of stress and anxiety while introducing practical strategies for creating a more balanced and fulfilling life. Through reflection and accessible, everyday tools, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of what supports your well-being—and what may be contributing to feelings of overwhelm.
Participants will learn how to:
- Recognize early warning signs of burnout
- Understand how stress and anxiety affect both body and mind
- Simplify daily routines to ease feelings of overwhelm
- Practice realistic techniques to feel calmer, more centered, and more optimistic
Whether you’re feeling stretched thin or simply looking to cultivate greater peace and clarity, this welcoming workshop offers a chance to pause, reset, and recharge.
In addition, the Livingston Public Library offers a selection of nonfiction titles available to borrow with your library card. These books explore many facets of mental health and share practical strategies for managing conditions such as stress and anxiety while fostering healthier, more positive coping mechanisms.
The Anxiety Antidote : How Awareness and Action can Lead to Self-Control and Inner Peace by Kamran Bedi
This book offers tools and techniques that the reader can apply quickly on a daily basis, such as exercises on self-reflection, breath work, mindfulness and visualization. As a practical, “how to” self-help book, the reader will get a deeper understanding of their anxiety from a cognitive and emotional point of view, allowing them to transform their mind and emotions quickly, for the better.
The Busy Brain Cure : The Eight-Week Plan to Find Focus, Tame Anxiety, and Sleep Again by Romie Mushtaq
A guidebook for professionals looking to overcome their chronic stress, burnout, and Busy Brain symptoms using a simple eight-week plan.
The Catastrophic Worrier : Why You Worry & How to Stop by Graham Davey
Excessive and distressing worrying is a problem that affects everyone at some point in their lives, but for some people this can become a lifelong affliction. Catastrophic worry can turn even imagined setbacks into a cascade of devastating events, leading to loss of sleep, lower self-confidence, poor decision making, and even health problems. In this guide, leading worry expert Davey explains why we worry, and offers readers a clear path to stopping catastrophic worry so they can regain control and live a happier life.
50 Ways to More Calm, Less Stress : Scientifically Proven Ways to Relieve Anxiety and Boost Your Mental Health Using Your Five Senses by Megy Karydes
This book presents opportunities to activate our five senses to reduce stress. Each activity is supported by scientific research, is relatively easy to do, and is low to no cost. Examples include: TOUCH: Addressing burnout and digital fatigue through a creative outlet like cross-stitching, embroidery, or knitting SEE: Forest therapy using the five senses to connect with nature TASTE: Mindful eating to teach you to be less reactive to stress SMELL: Aromatherapy requires just a few sniffs of a scent to help ease your mind or help you focus HEAR: Calm your body by tuning in to music or white noise.
The 5 Resets: Rewire Your Brain and Body for Less Stress and More Resilience by Aditi Nerurkar
The book argues that stress isn’t the enemy—it’s a natural, useful biological response. The real problem is when stress becomes constant and overwhelming, leading to burnout, fatigue, and poor health.
To fix this, Nerurkar introduces five simple “resets” (mindset shifts) that help you retrain your brain and body to handle stress better.
Help in a Hurry : Simple Tips for Finding Peace When You’re Overwhelmed, Anxious, or Stressed
Your mental health matters! Addressing the most common challenges we all face in this life, this practical guide from a bestselling author, speaker, and neuroscientist offers actionable and evidence-based strategies to help you cope in the moment, fight overwhelm, and experience a better, more fulfilled life.
How to Be Okay When Nothing is Okay : Tips and Tricks that Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself by Jenny Lawson
A candid, funny, and compassionate guide to coping with mental health struggles while continuing to create and live meaningfully. Drawing from her own experiences with depression, anxiety, and ADHD, Lawson shares practical, often humorous strategies for managing tough days, staying motivated, and finding small moments of joy. The book emphasizes self-acceptance, asking for help, and celebrating progress—offering reassurance that it’s possible to keep going, even when things feel overwhelming.
The Intrusive Thoughts Toolkit : Quick Relief for Obsessive, Unwanted, or Disturbing Thoughts by John Hershfield
Written by a team of mental health experts and grounded in evidence-based therapy, thisToolkit provides fast-acting tools for soothing distressing thoughts in the moments when you need it most. With this take-anywhere guide, you’ll learn proven techniques to get unstuck from negative thoughts and feelings, adopt healthier thinking habits, and increase overall well-being. You’ll also find easy and doable ways to help you press pause on spiraling thinking, and in-the-moment interventions to help you quiet your mind before your thoughts get out of control.
100 Questions & Answers About Anxiety by Laura L. Smith
A practical, easy-to-read guide that explains anxiety in a clear question-and-answer format. It covers what anxiety is, common types (like generalized anxiety and panic disorders), causes, symptoms, and how it affects daily life. The book also explores treatment options—including therapy, medication, and lifestyle changes—while addressing common concerns people have about managing anxiety.
Power of the Pause : 90 Seconds to Calm, Reset, and Reconnect by Jillian Pransky
This book teaches how to slow down reactive thought patterns, be gentle, and to take actions that benefit not just the self, but the surrounding community and even the world. Respected yoga and meditation expert Pransky provides the tools for readers to take advantage of this urgent and essential skill-the medicine we truly need for these chaotic times.
Jake Eagle and Dr. Michael Amster present a simple mindfulness method called A.W.E.: Attention, Wait, and Exhale & Expand. In just 5–15 seconds, practiced a few times daily, it uses moments of wonder to reduce anxiety, burnout, and chronic pain while boosting overall well-being.
Online Courses
Universal Class, available to Livingston Library cardholders, has courses on anxiety therapy, mastering mindfulness, stress management, and emotional healing.
—Archana, Adult Services & Acquisitions Librarian