An empowering tool for transforming stress that downplays the devastating effects of trauma.
A self-help guide for rethinking stress.
Heiss, an academic and keynote speaker, offers readers a unique approach to reframing stress in this optimistic book. After finding out that her sister-in-law had an inoperable brain tumor, the author “blew up [her] entire life” and quit her job, divorced her husband, and sold her home. This experience inspired Heiss to reimagine stress as “energy to be molded and shaped for your own utility.” According to the author, stress is to be embraced, not banished. Her three-pronged approach begins with “The Tiger” stage, in which readers learn to recognize that stressors are rarely as threatening as they seem. In the second stage, “The FEAR[less] Transfer,” readers are encouraged to think about how the challenge might become an adventure. The third stage, “The Springboard,” requires taking action. Heiss advises “inviting the tiger in for tea,” or leaning into stressors to retrain the brain to tolerate discomfort (for example, complimenting a stranger or asking to borrow someone’s phone). Though physiology will sound the alarm—through a pounding heart, dry mouth, or excessive sweating—the goal is to acknowledge these sensations and ride them out rather than fight them. The author discusses how acting “as if” with enthusiastic body language can trick the mind, turning anxiety into excitement. She advises assessing where one is playing it safe, taking small steps into the unknown, and celebrating wins. Heiss also describes the “Stress SpringLoad,” the pile-up of stressors that make people “feel disordered and like we’re going to battle every day.” (Sharing these loads with others can foster a sense of community, per the author.) The work also explores post-traumatic growth and the cultivation of hope.
The book combines a friendly tone, accessible language, and clever phrases like “run to the roar” to cement key concepts in readers’ brains. Heiss supports her FEAR[less] Stress Formula with a study in which the Perceived Stress Scale scores and heart rate variability of participants were measured; after 30 days, Heiss reports that 85% of participants showed a reduction in their Perceived Stress Scale scores and that 40% reported an increase in their heart rate variability (which indicates a more adaptive stress response). The author helpfully supplements her framework with other research-based concepts like the Yerkes-Dodson curve, which suggests that an intermediate level of stress is key to peak performance. Visual elements, including a graph about emotions that shows “pleasure/displeasure” on the X axis, “high arousal/low arousal” on the Y axis, and emotions associated with these states in each quadrant, further illustrate the author’s concepts. The book also includes QR codes throughout to encourage further engagement with the material. At times, Heiss blurs the distinction between everyday stress and profound trauma, as when she brands her “Stress SpringLoad” concept as “the new PTSD.” Similarly, some insensitive examples imply that trauma is beneficial for people; the author frames her best friend’s cancer diagnosis as one of the “most profound experiences of [her] life” and credits it for bringing her friend group closer together. Still, this inspiring guide effectively teaches readers how to accept stress as part of the human experience, channel that energy in a positive and productive way, and connect with others in the process.
An empowering tool for transforming stress that downplays the devastating effects of trauma.Pub Date: Sept. 2, 2025
ISBN: 9781646871995
Page Count: 164
Publisher: Ideapress Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 8, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our...
A psychologist and Nobel Prize winner summarizes and synthesizes the recent decades of research on intuition and systematic thinking.
The author of several scholarly texts, Kahneman (Emeritus Psychology and Public Affairs/Princeton Univ.) now offers general readers not just the findings of psychological research but also a better understanding of how research questions arise and how scholars systematically frame and answer them. He begins with the distinction between System 1 and System 2 mental operations, the former referring to quick, automatic thought, the latter to more effortful, overt thinking. We rely heavily, writes, on System 1, resorting to the higher-energy System 2 only when we need or want to. Kahneman continually refers to System 2 as “lazy”: We don’t want to think rigorously about something. The author then explores the nuances of our two-system minds, showing how they perform in various situations. Psychological experiments have repeatedly revealed that our intuitions are generally wrong, that our assessments are based on biases and that our System 1 hates doubt and despises ambiguity. Kahneman largely avoids jargon; when he does use some (“heuristics,” for example), he argues that such terms really ought to join our everyday vocabulary. He reviews many fundamental concepts in psychology and statistics (regression to the mean, the narrative fallacy, the optimistic bias), showing how they relate to his overall concerns about how we think and why we make the decisions that we do. Some of the later chapters (dealing with risk-taking and statistics and probabilities) are denser than others (some readers may resent such demands on System 2!), but the passages that deal with the economic and political implications of the research are gripping.
Striking research showing the immense complexity of ordinary thought and revealing the identities of the gatekeepers in our minds.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-374-27563-1
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Sept. 3, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
IN THE NEWS
IN THE NEWS
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.
Helbig and Norman present a game plan for making leadership more responsively human.
In this expanded update to The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human (2023), the authors provide “practical strategies for responding to resistance, sparking change, embodying the change we want to see, and moving forward deliberately,” specifically in a business setting. They suggest ways to encourage what they call “changemakers” through the use of five key “plays” from their playbook: Communicate Courageously, Master the Art of Listening, Manage Your Reactions (“shift from automatic reaction to conscious response to stay better connected to yourself and others”), Embrace Risk and Failure, and Design Inclusive Rituals. The goal is to ensure that organizational cultures promote psychological safety, guided by leaders who “walk the talk” by emphasizing their own humanity at every turn. (“We must be the first to share our own failures with our teams, which will start to make it possible for others to do the same.”) This call for example-setting is sounded throughout the book as Helbig and Norman urge their target audience (leaders and would-be leaders) to go beyond mere instruction and instead embody the qualities they want to see in their subordinates, such as continuous learning, active curiosity, and self-reflection. Each chapter includes a detailed “Recommended Reading” section and text with extensive numbered and bulleted points formatted to make the core concepts more immediately digestible. The authors effectively employ clear and empathetic prose to assure readers that psychological safety is slow to build and quick to break, observing that such safety requires steady attention and delivers outsize payoffs as a result. They refreshingly ground a great deal of the material in psychology and neuroscience, pointing out, for instance, that research has demonstrated that the parasympathetic nervous system responds to honest appreciation, which improves creative thinking. Some wistful readers might consider some of the authors’ suggestions beyond the reach of their own organizations, as when group facilitators are advised to “gently intervene when someone dominates the conversation,” but hope springs eternal.
A passionate and accessible guide to humanizing the workplace.Pub Date: May 19, 2026
ISBN: 9798993550503
Page Count: 170
Publisher: Crazy Idea Press
Review Posted Online: April 23, 2026
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
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