TAKE YOUR LUNCH BREAK

A debut guide to managing stress and understanding its causes.

In this self-help book inspired by her 2018 TEDx talk, business psychologist Chohan shares the story of her own battles with anxiety and how she learned to manage everyday stress. After a general introduction to the concepts that make up this book and how the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic created new challenges in the workplace, the author provides an overview of the biological components of stressful states and their effects on the human body, then moves on to mitigation strategies. Subsequent chapters discuss building resilience, developing coping skills, minimizing workplace stressors, and achieving a helpful mindset, among other topics. The book distinguishes between those stressors that readers can control or change, and those to which they can only react, along with recommendations for minimizing physical and emotional difficulties stemming from the latter. Management techniques range from big-picture advice for making career decisions to concrete actions, such as the title tactic, which Chohan frames as an opportunity to eat nutritious food, briefly detach from work, and set boundaries. In addition to stories from the author’s own life, the book features anecdotes from others, such as Robyn Short of the consultancy Workplace Peace Institute, and anonymized interviewees who offer additional perspectives and expertise as they explain how they’ve dealt with their own sources of stress and worry. Chohan’s perspective on stress is shaped by own her experiences, such as a health crisis she faced as a teenager, which allow her to provide personal insights that are applicable to the experiences of a broad audience. The book also incorporates quite a bit of research, although sources are so zealously cited in the text that the book sometimes has the feel of a term paper. Still, Chohan does an excellent job of synthesizing and organizing existing work on her subject, and the result is an easy-to-follow, logically arranged guide to minimizing stress when possible, and improving the body’s response when it’s not.

An engaging, personal, and informative self-help manual.