BOOKS
The Caregiver’s Guide to Dementia: Practical Advice for Caring for Yourself and Your Loved One by Gail Weatherill RN
Care for yourself, while caring for a loved one with dementia.
When caring for someone with dementia, your own mental stability can be the single most critical factor in your loved one’s quality of life. The Caregiver’s Guide to Dementia brings practical and comprehensive guidance to understanding the illness, caring for someone, and caring for yourself.
From understanding common behavioral and mood changes to making financial decisions, this Alzheimer’s book contains bulleted lists of actions you can take to improve your health and your caregiving. Inspirational and compassionate, it focuses on the caregiver’s underlying love and humanity that cannot be taken away by any disease.
In The Caregiver’s Guide to Dementia you’ll find:
Dementia defined–Understand dementia and its many forms, with an explanation of the illness and its variations.
Caregiver wellness–At the end of each chapter, a small section provides relaxation and mindfulness exercises and reflection for dementia caregivers.
A practical approach–The back of the book is filled with resources, from financial planning to tips on safety, along with questions for health care professionals, lawyers, accountants, therapists, and friends.
Loving Someone Who Has Dementia: How to Find Hope While Coping with Stress and Grief by Pauline Boss, PhD, LMFT
Research-based advice for people who care for someone with dementia
Nearly half of U.S. citizens over the age of 85 are suffering from some kind of dementia and require care. Loving Someone Who Has Dementia is a new kind of caregiving book. It’s not about the usual techniques, but about how to manage on-going stress and grief. The book is for caregivers, family members, friends, neighbors as well as educators and professionals–anyone touched by the epidemic of dementia. Dr. Boss helps caregivers find hope in “ambiguous loss”–having a loved one both here and not here, physically present but psychologically absent.
Fuel Your Brain, Not Your Anxiety: Stop the Cycle of Worry, Fatigue, and Sugar Cravings with Simple Protein-Rich Foods by Kristen Allott & Natasha Duarte
Discover how high-protein, brain-fueling foods can help overcome anxiety, worry, and fatigue. It is common to struggle with anxiety, sugar cravings, weight gain, and fatigue. This practical, feel-better-now workbook offers ways to make healthier food choices and discover how protein and sugar affect emotions and energy. Convenient meal-planning and tracking tools help monitor progress, along with a wealth of easy tips and doable ways to improve diet, overcome fatigue, and restore vitality and mental clarity.
Reconciliation, by Thich Nhat Hanh
This book draws on the teachings of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh and insights from healing retreats to explore how Buddhist practices can enhance mental health and wellness. Reconciliation emphasizes mindfulness of our emotions and healing relationships through meditation and exercises that help us acknowledge and transform childhood pain. Thich Nhat Hanh, known as “the father of mindfulness,” shows how emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear can be turned into joy and tranquility. Written for people from all backgrounds, this book provides specific practices aimed at healing and relieving those affected by childhood trauma. Recommended as complementary reading for those interested in Internal Family Systems therapy.
When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chödrön
Drawing from traditional Buddhist wisdom, this book provides radical and compassionate advice for navigating life when things fall apart. It challenges our usual habits and expectations, encouraging us to take an alternative approach. The author, a self-described “example of ordinary neurosis,” is a beloved American Buddhist nun who shares practical and achievable practices for readers.
PODCASTS
You are Not Broken
Empowering women and their partners to live their best lives, Dr. Kelly Casperson uses mental wellness, body science, and healthy relationships to break down societal barriers to intimacy.
Being Well
Conversations focus on the key insights from psychology, science, and contemplative practice that you need to build reliable inner strengths, overcome your challenges, and get the most out of life. Hosted by Forrest Hanson, who is joined by clinical psychologist Dr. Rick Hanson and a world-class group of experts to explore the practical science of lasting well-being.
Tara Brach, Ph.D is an internationally known meditation teacher and author of bestselling books Radical Acceptance, True Refuge, and Radical Compassion
. Tara shares a weekly guided meditation and talk that address the value of mindfulness meditation and self-compassion in relieving emotional suffering, serving spiritual awakening, and bringing healing to our world.