Your Wellness Bookshelf: 5 Picks for Mental Clarity and Emotional Health

In the midst of our fast-paced lives, it's easy to overlook the importance of pausing to care for our inner selves. A wellness bookshelf offers a gentle invitation to slow down and explore the emotional, mental, and spiritual dimensions of our well-being. Whether through personal stories, science-backed strategies, or soul-nourishing reflections, these books provide space for intentional growth, healing, and self-discovery. Taking time to reflect isn't a luxury—it's a vital step toward living with greater balance, clarity, and purpose.

1. Liturgy of the Ordinary: Sacred Practices in Everyday Life 

Topics: Spiritual Wellness (Christian)

Goodreads Rating: 4.7

Summary: Framed around one typical day, this book explores life through the lens of liturgy―small practices and habits that form us. In each chapter, Warren considers a common daily experience like making the bed, brushing her teeth, and losing her keys. Drawing from the diversity of her life as a campus minister, Anglican priest, friend, wife, and mother, Warren opens up a practical theology of the everyday.

Notable Reviews:

“I’ve always had a hard time seeing how the spiritual and the mundane can overlap. It seems like trying to push together two magnets with the same poles, or trying to mix oil and water: it will never work. Yet in a quiet, unassuming manner, Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren’s Liturgy of the Ordinary does the extraordinary by making the case that we are meant to live life intertwining our spiritual practices with our daily routines.”

- Amazon Review

2. Leading on Empty: Refilling Your Tank and Renewing Your Passion

Topics: Burnout, Spiritual Wellness (Christian)

Amazon Rating: 4.7

Summary: A message of revitalization and encouragement for leaders before they leave the ministry. Wayne Cordeiro, author of Doing Church as a Team, found himself paralyzed by burnout. He had been in ministry for 30 years, and 10 years after founding what is now the largest church in Hawaii, he found himself depleted. Wayne took a season out of his growing ministry to recharge and refocus on the truly important. He got back in touch with his life, got back in proper balance, and re-energized his spirit through Christ and came back to serve with new passion and joy.

Notable Review: 

Great short book that gives a personal experience of burnout and the recovery from it. It’s an easy read in that it’s not complicated, but it caused me to think about my own life, which is why it took me a few months (I get distracted easily!) to read. It’s like medicine for the pastor’s soul and it contains guides, almost like a workbook, on how the reader can recover. I’m looking forward to using this book to help me.

- Amazon Review

3. Start With One: A Simple Approach to Upgrade Your Health: Mind, Body & Spirit

Topics: Mental Health, Physical Health, Spiritual Wellness (Holistic)

Amazon Rating: 4.9

Summary:  A fresh perspective on improving your body, mind, and spirit through practical strategies and easy-to-understand tools that can be implemented immediately to enhance your overall well-being. Start With One empowers readers to take charge of their health by making one small change at a time.

Notable Reviews:

“The author has done a complete job of creating a holistic picture of your health. The mental, spiritual,and emotional aspects are included which is often omitted in health books that have "how to" instructions. It has great structure and lots of support to get started! You will learn how to set goals for long, short, and target behavior to support your success step by step. It has assessments ( I love assessments!), resources, stats, case studies, and coaching. If you've been wanting to make change for the better in your health but haven't known how to start - this book is for you!”

- Amazon Review

4. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

Topics: Mental Health, Trauma Recovery

Amazon Rating: 4.8 

Summary: In The Body Keeps the Score, Kolk uses recent scientific advances to show how trauma literally reshapes both body and brain, compromising sufferers’ capacities for pleasure, engagement, self-control, and trust. He explores innovative treatments—from neurofeedback and meditation to sports, drama, and yoga—that offer new paths to recovery by activating the brain’s natural neuroplasticity.

Notable Review:

“As a Behavioral Health Pharmacist, I work with many patients dealing with PTSD and other trauma-related mental health issues. I wanted to read The Body Keeps the Score to better understand how trauma affects the brain and body, and to be able to explain to my patients why sticking with their prescribed medications can be an important part of their healing process.

This book is packed with information. Dr. van der Kolk does a wonderful job of explaining how trauma changes brain chemistry, often leaving people stuck in a cycle of stress and emotional distress. I found the discussions on fight, flight, or freeze especially interesting, as they really helped connect the dots between mental health symptoms and physical reactions. The book also explores different treatment approaches, including traditional therapies and alternative methods like yoga, drama, and neurofeedback, which I found useful.”

- Amazon Review

5. Overcoming Burnout: Real-life Strategies for Burnout Recovery and Prevention

Topics: Mental Health, Burnout

Amazon Rating: 4.1

Summary: Overcoming Burnout takes a street-smart approach to recovering from career burnout as well as implementing the necessary changes in life to prevent it from happening again. This is not a clinical research publication. The strategies to recover from career burnout are told through the stories of people from all walks of life and all professional industries.

Notable Review:

This "streetwise" lens on burnout is sorely needed. Highly accessible, and full of useful, easy to apply ideas, this book is an important addition to your mental health library. Highly recommended.

- Amazon Review

Honorable Mention: 52-Week Mental Health Journal: Guided Prompts and Self-Reflection to Reduce Stress and Improve Well-Being

Topic: Journaling, Mental Health 

Amazon Review: 4.6

Summary: A focused prompt for every day of the year, this 52-week journal helps you navigate four core pillars of good mental health enhancement―calm and resiliency, connection and engagement, goals and purpose, and healthy living―so you can thrive in every area of your life.

Notable Review:

I have been using my journal for a week now and it has been super helpful. The prompts and daily questions help me take time to reflect on myself, my goals, aspirations, concerns, and bring peace to my mind. Free journaling or writing has never been easy for me, I find it overwhelming to not have a direction. However, the guiding questions are specific and have helped me get into the practice of journaling every day. 

- Amazon Review