BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE STRESS BOOK FORTY-PLUS WAYS TO MANAGE STRESS & ENJOY YOUR LIFE
This book takes a comprehensive approach to stress management & prevention and how modifying our lifestyles and taking practical steps can significantly reduce the stress level we are experiencing.
More than forty approaches to stress reduction, management, and prevention are covered in this book, giving you practical guidance applicable to most lives’ issues and circumstances.
This book will help people struggling with challenging situations. For example, those who work in stressful jobs are involved in difficult personal or toxic relationships. In addition, it will help those with self-destructive behavior, self-doubt, difficulty making intentional decisions, and many other challenging situations. And more importantly, it helps people from getting involved in these and other difficult situations and therefore prevents or reduces stress before it is manifested.
New Concepts: This book also provides you with many opportunities to simplify the management and prevention of stress by using a new acronym: S.T.R.E.S.S, that allows incorporating any of the forty-plus actions. These actions have been newly categorized into three main groups called Physical Actions, Mental Actions, and Community Actions. This approach will streamline, modify, and enhance treatment and prevention of stress outcomes when applied appropriately. In addition, you are provided with practical ideas, solutions, or options that, when also used, are also likely to result in the reduction or prevention of your stress.
You will also be introduced to a "new relationships (particularly toxic ones ) mental disorder called Abstract Kidnapping Disorder – A.K.D." This is associated with the termination of relationships.
This book is intended to significantly improve people's lives at any level of society who may be experiencing stress in their personal, business, or professional lives. I trust that it will make a difference in yours.
Thank you for taking the journey to improve stress in your life and for reading this book.
Semi Finalist
Assessment:
Plot/Idea: This is a book with a broad audience, and many might feel like it is needed now more than ever. The author is a medical doctor who offers forty-plus options for dealing with stress, regardless of the source. Ideas covered in the book feel fresh and insightful, making this an enlightening read.
Prose: Well-written and easy to follow, this book will be able to reach a broad audience and help eliminate stress for many readers. Providing the basics of stress processes in the first section, the author has kept themes simple and accessible, followed by a deeper dive into the physical and mental reactions to stress and how to cope.
Originality: Foster covers a variety of topics and triggers that can cause stress whether they are internal or external. External stressors that readers might not be aware of in today’s climate such as politics and religion are also considered and included.
Character Development/Execution: While giving compelling advice, Foster has included quotes throughout that help the reader cope or understand the ideas that are being conveyed. These quotes can be used as affirming mantras by the reader. The occasional chart or graph creates a helpful visual for the reader to fully understand the concept. The organization and straightforward approach to the subject will undoubtedly enlighten and ease the stress of many readers.
Date Submitted: January 29, 2022
It's clear throughout that Foster is drawing on common stress factors faced by actual patients in recent years, and he prevents his advice with the encouraging, understanding tone one would hope for from a physician. “You are the CEO of your life,” he writes in a chapter that makes the case that setting daily goals relieves stress by inculcating a sense of accomplishment and also makes large projects achievable.
Polished and written with welcome clarity, The Stress Book offers anecdotes, worksheets, and much actionable advice, both generally applicable (don’t let it get to you if some people don’t like you) and also tailored to the pandemic era: Foster calls refusals to mask up “destructive behaviors that create significant stress levels for countless families and numerous others in our society.” Each chapter offers clear-eyed analysis and guidance, closing with numbered lists of generally applicable truths, though readers expecting, from the subtitle, a countdown of 40 key techniques will find, instead, cogent, helpful essays of mental, physical, and social health rather than a pop-science ranking.
Takeaway: A doctor’s helpful guide to managing and preventing stress, updated for the pandemic era.
Great for fans of: Eva Selhub’s The Stress Management Handbook, Jay Warner’s Take the Stress Out of Your Life.
Production grades
Cover: A-
Design and typography: A
Illustrations: N/A
Editing: A-
Marketing copy: A
