Staying in the moment as often as possible doesn’t come quickly to many of us. We don’t readily identify and acknowledge the negative emotions weighing us down- making mindfulness a crucial practice we must include in daily activities, such as reading. That’s why we curated the best mindfulness books to add to your reading list.
We choose books written by mindfulness teachers, clinical psychologists, Buddhist monks, and many other experts. You get to explore the scientific and mystical aspects of mindfulness.
Related Read: Mindfulness Podcasts To Keep You Calm And Present.
Mindfulness meditation is a form of meditation that focuses on the awareness of the present moment. Mindfulness originates from Buddhism. It requires training your mind to be more aware of your thoughts, breathing, emotions, and environment.
A major trait of mindfulness is using creative exercises to observe your consciousness without judgment. It also requires total acceptance of the self. You don't have to respond to the feelings and sensations you feel. Simply observe, acknowledge, and let it go.
You experience less stress, and your decision-making process becomes easier when you practice mindfulness meditation.
Read more: Health Benefits of Mindfulness.
Quick link to the best mindfulness books:
Written by: Thich Nhat Hanh
Formats: Paperback, Audible, Kindle
Thich Nhat Hanh is an author, teacher, poet, and peace activist. He is also a Buddhist monk who had a major hand in introducing to the Western world. In 1967, Martin Luther King King Jr. nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to reconcile North and South Vietnam.
He wrote The Miracle of Mindfulness to explore the ways to become mindful. Thich Nhat Hanh explains that practicing mindfulness meditation is about being in the present moment. "Mindfulness frees us of forgetfulness and dispersion and makes it possible to live fully each minute of life."
You don't have to get into a fancy lotus position before you can practice mindfulness meditation. You can practice mindfulness when you're doing the laundry, eating, or doing the dishes.
The Miracle of Mindfulness is one of the best mindfulness books because it teaches you, in clear and practical terms, how to live a peaceful and anxiety-free life.
Written by: John Teasdale, Mark Williams, and Zindel V.Segal
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
The Mindful Way Workbook is an eight-week plan to help free yourself from depression, anxiety, and stress. It is one of the best mindfulness books because it is a mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, tested and proven effective through several clinical trials.
The authors of the Mindful Way Workbook are experts in clinical psychology. Mark Williams is an Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford, having been a Principal Research Fellow at Oxford from 2003 to 2012, while John Teasdale is a fellow at the British Academy and the Academy of Medical Sciences.
He also held a Special Scientific Appointment with the United Kingdom Medical Council's Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge. Zindel Segal is a Psychology Professor in Mood Disorders at the University of Toronto.
The book provides strategies that will help you deal with your emotions. It focuses on helping you develop stability in your mindfulness practices. You don't have to follow the eight-week plan. Practice the mindfulness techniques at your own pace. Remember, the whole point of mindfulness is to take things slow and live in the moment.
Written by: Jon Kabat-Zinn
Formats: Kindle, Audible, Paperback, Hardcover
Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. They use mindfulness meditation to assist patients dealing with illnesses. He focuses on living in the moment, paying attention, and simply being.
We focus on activities we need to get done, forgetting how to be present and at peace with ourselves. The Full Catastrophe Living offers various mindfulness exercises that can help you focus your attention. He shares examples of mindfulness practices that help patients improve their health or help them feel better despite their illness.
It is one of the best mindfulness books for people experiencing chronic pain and illness. The book includes mindfulness exercises like sitting meditation, body scan, gentle yoga, and breathing exercises. The exercises are mostly about paying attention to your body and your breath.
You should purchase the guided meditation CD alongside the book to make practicing mindfulness less overwhelming and strenuous. The Full Catastrophe Living is an excellent book for therapists looking to learn how practicing mindfulness helps people struggling.
Written by: Daniel Goleman and Richard J. Davidson
Formats: Paperback, Kindle, Audible, Hardcover
It is a mindfulness book based on the scientific facts of mindfulness meditation practice. The authors debunked common misconceptions and neuromythology to create awareness about the distorted data about mindfulness practices. Their research for the book was guided by the idea of the truths about meditation you don't know.
In this book, you'll learn how self-compassion, loving kindness, attention, insight, monitoring thoughts, and deconstructing and reappraising pain contribute to mindful living. Daniel Goleman and Richard Davidson's research shows that mindfulness training can decrease the production of cytokines—the molecules responsible for inflammation.
It also shows the combination of mindfulness and cognitive therapy are well-validated treatments for some mental disorders. Altered Traits emphasize the importance of continuous meditation because it has long-term effects. It is the book for you if you are interested in the science of practicing mindfulness meditation.
Written by: Patrizia Collard
Formats: Paperback, Kindle, Flexibound, Audible
The Little Book of Mindfulness is a short mindfulness meditation book exploring various mindfulness exercises and meditation techniques. Dr. Patrizia Collard strives to explain that mindfulness practice aims to experience life as it unfolds simply. She illustrates ways to bring yourself back into a sense of tranquility slowly.
She offers a series of mindfulness meditation practices that are easy to include in your daily activities. It's a compact book you can take everywhere, especially if you're going on a short trip or vacation. Reading the Little Book of Mindfulness shows you can learn and experience more moment by moment, with a good sense of adventure and curiosity.
Each exercise lasts for a maximum of 15 minutes. Also, the yoga poses illustrated are easy to practice. Dr. Patrizia Collard provides simple exercises to reduce stress and help you focus on the beautiful moments of life.
Written By: Susan Kaiser Greenland
Formats: Paperback, Audio CD, Audible, Kindle
It is a mindfulness-based book for children. Children also experience stress and anxiety. The world is sparing anyone from the pressure of its claws. It is better to prepare your child for mindful living, a way to protect themselves.
The methods written by Susan Kaiser Greenland are excellently suitable for children. It shows parents how to teach children to respond and handle stressful situations. It helps children become more emphatic, resilient, and thoughtful.
Written by: Patrizia Collard
Formats: Kindle, Audible, Paperback
The Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy For Dummies takes you on an eight-week mindfulness journey. It explains how mindfulness helps reduce the risks of relapsing into depression and reduces stress, anxiety, and the occurrence of mental health disorders.
The book begins with a detailed explanation of MBCT and its benefits. It mentions the problems MBCT can solve and the challenges you might encounter during the course duration. The mindfulness book has three other parts apart from the introduction to MCBT.
The second part is the eight-week course plan. Each chapter covers a week of mindfulness techniques, gradually building your mind and body to deal with difficult emotions and setbacks. It teaches you ways to take charge of your mental and physical health, while the third section discusses methods of using MBCT for addiction, anxiety, pain, and depression.
The last section of the book offers you ten ways to expand your mindfulness practice beyond the information you read in the book. It is advisable to keep a mindfulness journal while reading this book because it helps keep track of your progress.
Written by: Christopher Willard
Formats: Kindle, Paperback, Audio cd, Audible.
Christopher Willard wrote How We Grow Through What We Go Through to help us turn our everyday life experiences into a source of strength. The book explores how to regulate your nervous system by controlling your breath and body. It teaches the importance of mindful self-compassion as a pivot to becoming resilient in all areas of your life.
In this book, you will learn how to set more boundaries to bring more peace into your life. It also mentions ways to turn your terrible life experiences into positive growth. Christophers used his clinical psychologist experiences to write a resilience guidebook.
He offers practical exercises, empowering ideas, and words to improve your well-being. His friendship approach to the discussion about dealing with trauma gives a safe but familiar ambiance, making the book an easy read. It is an introduction to self-exploration and mindfulness.
Written by: Johann Hari
Formats: Kindle, Hardcover, Paperback, Audible
Stolen Focus is a mindfulness book about gaining focus for tasks in your daily life. Our attention span is so short that an average human can barely focus on an activity for three minutes. Teenagers only focus for an average of sixty-five seconds. Hari took it upon himself to figure out the root cause behind the reduction in attention span and to find a lasting solution.
The internet plays a crucial role in the reduction of your attention span. You keep swiping from app to app, post to post, looking for the next dopamine rush. The Stolen Focus reveals that speeding reading decreases the rate of information retention.
In this book, you'll learn how aerobic exercises expand the growth of brain connections and the brain chemicals that support self-regulation and executive functioning. It is the book for you if you want to know what science reveals about low attention spans.
Written by: Kimberly Brown
Formats: Kindle, Paperback
Kimberly wrote Navigating Grief and Loss to support people experiencing grief and loss. Grief and loss could be from a shocking accident, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a business or career, divorce, or the loss of a pet.
Each chapter provides a personal experience with grief or death, followed by brief meditation exercises. She also offers contemplation prompts that help you find comfort in your struggles and pain.
It is the perfect book for someone experiencing loss and grief. It can help you find inner peace and release your sorrows and pain. It'll help you show more compassion to yourself.
Written by: Matthew Socklov
Formats: Paperback, Audible, Kindle, Spiral Bound
Matthew Socklov, the founding father of One Mind Dharma, published Practicing Mindfulness to help you apply mindfulness in your everyday life. Practicing Mindfulness contains 75 meditations that can help you manage stress and anxiety and improve your mental health.
In this book, Matthew emphasizes the importance of mindful self-compassion and kindness. It is an essential part of mindfulness meditation. He also offers a series of guided meditations to help you through this frantic world.
Written by: Kristin Neff
Formats: Paperback, Kindle, Hardcover, Audible
Kirstin Neff wrote Self-compassion as a guide to teach people how to have more compassion for themselves. It is an excellent book for someone who needs to learn how to be kinder towards themselves. She conducted research that shows that people who are tender-hearted towards themselves have greater well-being than people who constantly judge themselves.
In this book, she mentions the first step in learning compassion. It is recognizing your suffering. She discusses the pros of being gentle towards yourself and experiencing life with a balanced self-awareness. She also advises you to be comfortable with the idea of failure even when you are trying your best.
Written by: Daniel J. Siegel
Formats: Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle Audible
Daniel Siegel shared the results of his research on neuroscience and meditation in his book Aware. For this, he developed the Wheel of Awareness. The Wheel of Awareness is a wheel practice to open awareness and cultivate an expansive container of consciousness.
He developed the practice to help you use your focused attention on your senses, bodily sensations, mental activities, and interconnectedness- essentially encouraging your mind to become more integrated. This book also focuses on the benefits of meditation, like ways meditation helps cultivate empathy.
The wheel of awareness mentioned in this book is an excellent introduction to mindfulness meditation for beginners. It can also be a refreshing reminder of some basic meditation principles for experienced mindfulness practitioners. Buy this book if you want to cultivate a deeper understanding of the mind with a new approach to meditation.
Written by: Jon Kabat-Zinn
Formats: Paperback, Kindle, Audible
In Wherever You Go, There You Are, Jon Kabat-Zinn explains mindfulness as an ancient Buddhist practice that helps you live in harmony with yourself and the world. In this book, you will learn that meditation is the only intentional and systemic human tool to realize where you are currently, not where you're trying to get to.
It also contains a practical guide on how to meditate. It is an excellent book that teaches you how to live in the present moment instead of getting lost in the vices of the modern world. You'll also learn the importance of letting go. Jon wrote this book for people who are finding peace and practicing meditation.
Written by: Jan Chozen Bays
Formats: Paperback
It is a mindfulness book that caters to eating habits. Jan Chozen Bays encourages mindful eating because it creates a better relationship with food, leading to the better management of eating disorders. Applying mindfulness to food makes eating a source of joy, with the removal of negative attributes like calorie counting, overeating, anorexia, and bulimia.
Mindful eating enables you to listen to your body's dietary requests. You'll know what and when to eat and the correct quantity of food for you. You'll learn to eat less when satisfied and identify your patterns with food.
In this book, Jan Chozen Bays will introduce you to the various types of hunger, food habits and attitudes, gratitude, and lessons taught by mindful eating. He also offers tools to aid a better relationship with food and to gain or lose weight. It is the book for you if you are interested in developing a compassionate attitude towards your struggles with food.
Written by: Jon Kabat-Zinn
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
It is one of the many mindfulness books authored by Jon Kabat-Zinn. He describes the process of mindfulness awareness concisely, making mindfulness concepts easily understandable by anyone.
In this book, each lesson offers in-depth wisdom that serves as a guide on your meditation journey. You can use it as a daily meditation guide, treating each lesson as a practical tool.
Written by: Michael A. Singer
Formats: Paperback, Hardcover, Audible, Kindle
The Untethered Soul answers those questioning how to break free from their limitations and rise above their boundaries. In this book, Michael Singer teaches you how to remove thoughts and emotions that limit your consciousness and genuine happiness. He explores your relationship with your thoughts and feelings to discover unhealthy patterns and functions in your consciousness.
The book also offers you practical tools to release yourself from the limitation that limits your consciousness. It teaches you to let go of the past and look forward to the future. Michael describes the concept of chakras and provides solutions to unclogging your heart chakra from worrisome thoughts. You can’t see the future if you are in a constant state of worry.
Written by: Bhante Henepola Gunaratana
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Bhante Henepola Gunaratana is an expert mindfulness teacher who understands the importance of cultivating a mindful lifestyle. He explores the benefits of mindful living in clear and precise terms. He wrote the book from the perspective of Vipassana meditation.
Vipassana meditation is about learning how to live. You don't live by developing aesthetic thoughts about life by living it. It is impossible to live without experiencing some form of sadness and unpleasantness. Bhante emphasizes the importance of learning how to handle these unpleasant emotions and experiences without jeopardizing your peace.
He also gives tools to help you solve problems you might encounter during meditation. Purchase Mindfulness in Plain English if you want to learn how to escape into your reality, not from it.
Written by: S.J Scott and Barrie Davenport
Formats: Paperback, Kindle, Audible
The modern world can be overwhelming because many problems and bad experiences make us anxious and worrisome. We experience negative thoughts that limit our consciousness and energy levels. To live a better life, filter these negative emotions out of your mind.
Declutter Your Mind is the right book to help you stop worrying and relieve anxiety. It will help you remove what no longer serves you, making room for your priorities. The authors tackled the four causes of mind clutter: stress, the paradox of choice, too much stuff, and the negativity bias.
They also offer four decluttering habits to help clear your mind. They mentioned deep breathing exercises, meditation, reframing negative thoughts, and teaching your mind new tricks. The book also explored ways to declutter your relationships and obligations. Reading Declutter Your Mind will teach you ways to simplify your environment.
Written by: Rachel Hershenberg
Formats: Paperback, Kindle
Rachel Hershenberg offers strategies to help you end low motivation spells, negative moods, and depression. She explains the importance of changing our lives through the small, intangible decisions we make. You can’t change your life with a grand thought, but you can change it with a series of small, positive changes.
Reading Activating Happiness will set you on the path of achieving real happiness as it guides you with good motivation techniques and good habit forming. You will learn how to deal with your emotions as they happen. It is an excellent way to introduce yourself to goal setting and build the habit of identifying your emotions, behavioral patterns, and triggers.
Thanks to the authors ' expertise above, we can dig deeper into mindfulness practice. From Buddhist monks to clinical psychologists, they share guides on meditation, motivation, happiness, and many more. So, review the list above and add these enlightening titles to your reading list today.
Jen’s a passionate environmentalist and sustainability expert. With a science degree from Babcock University Jen loves applying her research skills to craft editorial that connects with our global changemaker and readership audiences centered around topics including zero waste, sustainability, climate change, and biodiversity.
Elsewhere Jen’s interests include the role that future technology and data have in helping us solve some of the planet’s biggest challenges.
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