6 Meditation Books to Help You De-Stress and Find Focus

Feeling aimless on your path to mindfulness? Start here.

By Melanie Yates, Best Product

Anyone can benefit from meditating on a regular basis — just the act of sitting still and breathing for a few minutes each day helps reduce stress, lowers blood pressure, and allows you be more present and engaged. From philosophical to just plain fun, use these meditation books to help center yourself and live a more zen life.

O's Little Book of Calm & Comfort-

Joy and frustration simultaneously exist in everyone's life — meditation offers people a way to help harmonize that internal dichotomy. This meditation book from the editors at O, The Oprah Magazine, is a collection of essays that grounds the abstract nature of meditation with stories of the pleasures
and setbacks that are all part of the human experience.

[post_ads]It also includes an enlightening conversation between Oprah and Buddhist monk Pema Chödrön about rebuilding and thriving after going through a personal tragedy. This book is an enjoyable quick read, and it's small enough to carry with you, for flipping back open to a favorite essay at any time.

More: Top-Rated Meditation Apps To Begin Your Personal Practice

The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World -

The Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu may be two of the wisest men alive, but their wisdom is gleaned through lives of constant introspection and reckoning with the profound suffering in the world today. 

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This book follows them during the course of Tutu's weeklong visit to the Dalai Lama's home in 2015, in which they discuss what pure, true joy means to every life (even in the face of immense hardship), and also the mental obstacles that can prevent even the most capable people from attaining it.

The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom-

 b The Four Agreements is a book about the ancient teachings passed down from the Toltec peoples of Mexico, which have endured in their relevance to living a full, good life today. The agreements outlined in the book sound extremely simplistic (one of them is "do your best"), but author and spiritual teacher Don Miguel Ruiz breaks these large, vague concepts into specific ways that readers can start to instill positive changes in their day-to-day.

More: Best Coloring Books for When Reading Isn't Helping De-Stress

 

Declutter Your Mind: How to Stop Worrying, Relieve Anxiety, and Eliminate Negative Thinking-

Our inner voice helps us navigate tricky decisions and work out what we want to say before it comes out of our mouths, but when it turns into a panicked monologue, it can severely impact our quality of life.

For anyone who feels too riddled with anxiety and worried thoughts to sit down and meditate, Declutter Your Mind is a wonderful tool to help you remove distractions, cut down on the mental chatter, and reclaim that space for calm contemplation.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values -

If you prefer reading novels to philosophy texts, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is a wonderful place to start on the journey to mindfulness.
Touted for its pacing, narrative voice, and easily digestible concepts, this story of a father and son on a motorcycle trip serves as a metaphor for the underlying questions about the purpose and true nature of humanity.

When Breath Becomes Air-

This eloquent memoir from neurosurgeon Paul Kalanithi reflects on finding joy and beauty in life, as well as reconciling with one's own mortality. Published posthumously, it is a philosophically insightful book, and also a true affirmation on the value of a life lived to the fullest.


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