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Books in The Instant Help Solutions Series series

  • A Teen's Guide to Getting Stuff Done: Discover Your Procrastination Type, Stop Putting Things Off, and Reach Your Goals

    Jennifer Shannon LMFT, Doug Shannon

    Paperback (Instant Help, Nov. 1, 2017)
    Do you procrastinate? And if so, what’s your procrastination type? In this fun and illustrated guide, author Jennifer Shannon blends acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and cognitive behavioral strategies to help you recognize your procrastination habits, discover the strengths of your unique procrastination type, and find the motivation you need to meet important deadlines and reach your highest goals.In the midst of modern-day distractions like smartphones, social media, and endless hours of movie and television streaming, it’s no wonder you procrastinate! But despite what you may have heard, procrastination doesn’t make you a bad or lazy person. In fact, procrastination may even work for you sometimes—creating a sense of urgency that can help you focus. But if procrastination doesn’t work for you, it can get in the way of meeting your full potential—in high school, college, your career, and life. So, how can you get things done and be your very best?In A Teen’s Guide to Getting Stuff Done, you’ll discover your procrastination type—warrior, pleaser, perfectionist, or rebel—as well as the unique strengths inherent in each type. If you’re a warrior, you love a good challenge, but may not be able to complete tasks you find uninteresting. If you’re a pleaser, you may be so concerned about disappointing others that you postpone doing something. If you’re a perfectionist, you may put things off because you’re worried about your work being judged by teachers, parents, or peers. And finally, if you’re a rebel, you’re driven by a strong sense of independence. By understanding your type and using the practical strategies laid out in each chapter of this book, you’ll be able to break the cycle of procrastination once and for all.This isn’t a manual on how to please your parents, teachers, professors, or friends. This is a book to help you understand why you procrastinate, whether or not procrastination works for you, and if not, how to improve your work habits and really get things done. By helping you uncover your own unique strengths, this book will help you master your to-do list—and your life!This book has been selected as an Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Book Recommendation—an honor bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.
  • Winning with ADHD: A Playbook for Teens and Young Adults with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

    Grace Friedman, Sarah Cheyette MD, Stephen P. Hinshaw PhD

    Paperback (Instant Help, April 1, 2019)
    Get the real inside scoop on thriving as a teen with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Drawing on her own experiences living with the disorder, college student Grace Friedman—along with pediatric neurologist Sarah Cheyette—offers valuable tips and tricks to help you face the unique challenges of ADHD.If you’re a teen with ADHD, you care about academic and social success just as much as your peers do, but you may also experience difficulties keeping up in school and maintaining good relationships with friends and family. In addition, you probably find it challenging to stay organized, articulate your struggles to others, and cope with overwhelming pressure—especially as college approaches. This workbook will give you solid skills for addressing the challenges of ADHD so you can live up to your true potential.In Winning with ADHD, you’ll learn powerful and proven-effective cognitive behavioral strategies for coping with overwhelm, staying organized, tackling assignments, preparing for exams, dealing with emotions, communicating effectively with adults, and maintaining strong friendships. You’ll also find valuable information about ADHD medication, how your brain works, as well as self-advocacy skills to help you get ahead in high school, college, and beyond.As a teen with ADHD, you may face many unique challenges. This workbook will give you everything you need to get one step ahead of your ADHD and thrive in all aspects of life.
  • Self-Esteem for Teens: Six Principles for Creating the Life You Want

    Lisa M. Schab LCSW

    Paperback (Instant Help, July 1, 2016)
    “In a culture where value is often measured by how many followers or likes you attain on social media, this book by Lisa Schab hits the mark. ” —Lucie Hemmen, PhD, licensed clinical psychologist From the author of the best-selling The Self-Esteem Workbook for Teens, Self-Esteem for Teens offers six core principles in a smaller, easy-to-reference format to help you build a healthy, positive view of yourself as you face all the challenges of teen life.How you feel about yourself affects every aspect of your life. When you have healthy self-esteem, you’ll approach people, situations, and feelings with confidence. You’ll have an easier time making friends, excelling in school, and interviewing for jobs. You’ll be able to see yourself more clearly—celebrating your strengths and accepting your weaknesses. And finally, you’ll be better able to accomplish any goal you set. This book can teach you how.Self-Esteem for Teens will show you how you are in control of your own self-esteem. When you truly believe in your own worth, discovering and developing your authentic self gives you the power to feel good and succeed in any area of life. You can learn to turn any life situation into a positive one and see mistakes and hurdles as opportunities and challenges. You can develop inner strength and peace. And you can make choices in your thoughts and actions that lead to positive outcomes with friends, family, dating, school, jobs, and activities.So, stop being unkind to yourself! Start cultivating a deep and abiding belief in your own self-worth. You can create the life you want! The principles in this book will show you how.
  • The Self-Compassionate Teen: Mindfulness and Compassion Skills to Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice

    Karen Bluth PhD, Kristin Neff PhD

    Paperback (Instant Help, Oct. 1, 2020)
    Are you kind to everyone but yourself? This book will help you find the strength and courage to move beyond self-criticism and just be you. Do you ever feel like you’re just not good enough? Do you often compare yourself to friends, classmates, or even celebrities and models? As a teen facing intense physical, mental, and social changes, it’s easy to get caught up in self-judgment and criticism. The problem is, over time, these negative thoughts can build up, cloud your world, and lead to stress, anxiety, and even depression. So, how can you start being nicer to yourself?Written by psychologist Karen Bluth and based on practices adapted from Kristin Neff and Christopher Germer’s Mindful Self-Compassion program, this book offers fun, everyday exercises grounded in mindfulness and self-compassion to help you overcome crippling self-criticism and respond to feelings of self-doubt with greater kindness and self-care. You’ll find real tools to help you work through difficult thoughts and feelings, navigate life’s emotional ups and downs, and be as accepting of yourself as you are of others.Learning to believe in yourself means being aware of the self-critical voice inside you, and then discovering how to not take it so seriously. With this book, you’ll learn how self-compassion can actually be a much greater motivator for reaching your goals than self-criticism. In fact, being kind to yourself when you’re struggling can actually reduce stress and make you more resilient!So, stop beating yourself up, and start reading this book. You have an important friend to make—you!
  • From Anger to Action: Powerful Mindfulness Tools to Help Teens Harness Anger for Positive Change

    Mitch R. Abblett PhD, Christopher Willard PsyD

    Paperback (Instant Help, June 1, 2019)
    A comprehensive mindfulness program to help teens understand and channel anger into healthy expressions of creativity, advocacy, and empowerment.Sometimes you just feel pissed off, and that’s okay. Maybe you missed a deadline in school, flunked a test, didn’t get invited to a party, or feel angry about something you saw on the news or online. We’ve all been there. It’s impossible to go through life never feeling angry. But what if, instead of letting your anger take control, you were able to harness it in constructive ways? This book will show you how.With this guide, you’ll find powerful mindfulness tools to help you listen to your anger, connect with your core values and goals, and make positive changes that will truly empower you. Instead of resorting to outbursts, you’ll learn to channel the incredible energy of your anger into self-advocacy, social action, and productivity. You’ll also find stories from other teens just like you who’ve successfully redirected their anger into creating positive change.If you’re ready to change your relationship with anger and transform it into fuel for change and creative possibility, this book will guide you, every step of the way.
  • The Stress Survival Guide for Teens: CBT Skills to Worry Less, Develop Grit, and Live Your Best Life

    Jeffrey Bernstein PhD

    Paperback (Instant Help, Dec. 1, 2019)
    Is stress getting the best of you? Do you ever feel overwhelmed, like your life is zooming by? This practical, proven-effective, and easy-to-use survival guide has your back!School pressure, BFF drama, body changes, social media, dating—is it any wonder you’re feeling stressed? You aren’t alone. Many teens today find themselves worried, anxious, and stressed out. But there are ways you can take control of your stress before it interferes with your life. This go-to “survival guide” will show you how to deal with stress so you can get back to the things that make you happy.With this fun and easy guide, you’ll learn how cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help you challenge negative thoughts and replace them with more helpful, flexible ways of seeing life’s challenges. You’ll also discover how important it is to slow down and notice the things that are really going well in your life! Finally, you’ll learn to figure out what’s really important to you, and how you can use your values to build resilience against stress and future setbacks.Life is full of stress, but that doesn’t mean you have to be. With this book, you’ll learn to quiet your negative inner voice and focus on your strengths, so you can conquer any challenge you might face, achieve your goals, and live your very best life.
  • Goodnight Mind for Teens: Skills to Help You Quiet Noisy Thoughts and Get the Sleep You Need

    Colleen E. Carney PhD

    Paperback (Instant Help, June 1, 2020)
    Turn off the light. Turn off your phone. Turn off anxious thoughts. Do you have trouble getting to sleep at night? You aren’t alone. There are so many reasons teens today have a difficult time going to sleep—including early school start times, too much late-night screen time, or just being anxious about what the future holds. You are at an important crossroads in your life, so it’s natural to feel overwhelmed at times. But it’s essential that you get the sleep you need. This book can help.Written by a renowned sleep expert, Goodnight Mind for Teens offers tips based in proven-effective cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you get your zzzs and be your best during the daytime. You’ll learn how to set your own ideal sleep schedule, overcome sleep lag, cope with sleep anxiety, and manage the anxious, over-stimulating thoughts and worries that are keeping you up at night.If you’re ready to start feeling better, less cranky during the day, and more at ease at bedtime, this book has everything you need to… zzzz…
  • Transforming Stress for Teens: The HeartMath Solution for Staying Cool Under Pressure

    Rollin McCraty PhD, Sarah Moor, Jeff Goelitz, Stephen W. Lance MS, Steve Sawyer LCSW CSAC

    Paperback (Instant Help, Aug. 1, 2016)
    It’s stressful being a teen! In Transforming Stress for Teens, leaders from the world-renowned Institute of HeartMath and Clemson University’s Youth Learning Institute team up to teach overwhelmed and stressed-out teens how to use HeartMath skills—proven-effective tools and techniques to help you manage daily stress and anxiety, and develop resilience by managing emotion.The teen years are a time of significant change and growth, and teens face numerous stressors like homework overload, conflict with friends and family, balancing school and other responsibilities, and dealing with the all-too-common feeling of being left out or of not belonging. Emotions can “drain your battery,” and many teens struggle when it comes to managing their everyday stress. Some withdraw or even turn to destructive behaviors in an effort to feel better.Following the success of Transforming Stress, this book is the first to provide teens with the life-changing, proven-effective HeartMath skills for reducing stress. Using these practical evidence-based concepts and techniques, this book will help you manage stress by showing you how to manage your emotions. And with these emotion regulation skills, like the relaxing heart-breathing technique, you’ll feel calmer, be more confident, think more clearly, bounce back from challenging situations, and enjoy life with a new understanding of what’s really important to you.Transforming Stress for Teens will help you recognize the mental, emotional, and physical impact of stress, and guide you toward finding balance, clarity, and self-assurance with the proven HeartMath tools. When you feel better, you do better—this book will show you how.
  • Relationship Skills 101 for Teens: Your Guide to Dealing with Daily Drama, Stress, and Difficult Emotions Using DBT

    Sheri Van Dijk MSW

    Paperback (Instant Help, March 1, 2015)
    In Relationship Skills 101 for Teens, Sheri Van Dijk―author of Don’t Let Your Emotions Run Your Life for Teens―offers powerful tools based in dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to help you regulate your emotions so you can build better relationships with your parents, friends, and peers. Do you ever feel like your emotions are out of your control? Is it hard for you to make friends, get a date, or get along with your parents? You aren’t alone. For some people, good relationships seem to come easily. But if you are like many others, you may need a little help. This book offers evidence-based strategies you can use to take control of your emotions and reactions in order to respond effectively to peer pressure, bullying, cyberbullying, and gossip, allowing you to navigate the many social issues that make these years so challenging. This book outlines three core skills to help you manage your emotions and create better relationships. First, you’ll discover how mindfulness can help you face each life experience with awareness and acceptance. Second, you’ll find more effective ways of communicating with others so you can develop healthier, more balanced relationships. Finally, you’ll learn powerful skills to regulate your emotions so you don’t end up taking things out on the people you care about. With these combined skills, you'll learn how to act in healthier ways so you don't end up pushing people away. Like most teens, you want to make and keep friends. You also want to date! And you’d probably like to have a good relationship with your parents. This book will give you the skills to reach these goals and live a happier, more fulfilling life―well beyond your teen years. Why not get started now?
  • Mindfulness for Teen Worry: Quick and Easy Strategies to Let Go of Anxiety, Worry, and Stress

    Jeffrey Bernstein PhD

    Paperback (Instant Help, Jan. 2, 2018)
    Is your worrying keeping you from reaching your goals? In Mindfulness for Teen Worry, a clinical psychologist offers quick, easy-to-learn mindfulness skills teens can use anytime, anywhere to stop worries from growing and taking over.Let’s face it—being a teen isn’t easy. And if you’re like a lot of other teens, you probably worry about getting good grades, fitting in with a certain crowd, or what the future will bring after high school. These are all completely normal worries, and signs that you are tuned in to your life and thinking about your goals. But what about chronic worrying—the kind that keeps you up at night, ruminating about that paper you just turned in, or that thing your friend said to you at lunch (what did she mean by that?), and so on. Sometimes worrying isn’t helpful. In fact, it can get in the way of living your life! So, how can you start putting worry in its place before it takes up too much head space?Mindfulness for Teen Worry will show you how living in the moment will dissolve worry and help you stay grounded in the here and now. You’ll learn powerful and easy-to-use mindfulness skills to manage the four most common worry struggles teens face: school pressure, coping with friendship and relationship problems, improving body image, and handling family conflicts. You’ll discover why you worry and the long-term destructive impacts worry can have on your life. And most importantly, you’ll be introduced to simple, effective techniques to help you become more mindful—like harnessing the power of the breath and how to relax your body in times of stress.If you struggle with worry or anxiety that gets in the way of being your best, this fun and friendly guide will help you maintain a mindful life in a frenzied world.This book has been selected as an Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Book Recommendation—an honor bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.
  • The Autism Playbook for Teens: Imagination-Based Mindfulness Activities to Calm Yourself, Build Independence, and Connect with Others

    Irene McHenry PhD, Carol Moog PhD, Susan Kaiser Greenland JD

    Paperback (Instant Help, Aug. 1, 2014)
    “When I was a teen, many of the exercises and activities in this book would have helped me calm down. … This book is a real, practical, and positive guide for reducing stress.”―Temple Grandin, author of Thinking in PicturesTeens with autism have the potential to be excellent actors. They are natural observers―able to study, imitate, and learn social behavior. The Autism Playbook for Teens is designed to bolster these strengths with mindfulness strategies and roleplaying scripts, while also helping teens reduce anxiety, manage emotions, be more aware in the present moment, and connect with others.This book offers a unique, strengths-based approach to help teens with autism spectrum (including Asperger’s Syndrome) develop social skills, strengthen communication, and thrive. The activities contained in each chapter are custom-designed to work with the unique perspectives, sensory processing, neurological strengths and challenges that teens with autism bring to their encounters with the social world. By engaging in these activities, teens will gain an authentic awareness of their surroundings, leading to better social interaction that is also rewarding, interesting, and fun.The delightful and creative activities in this book are grounded in well-documented clinical observations and current empirical studies. They also take into account the real neurological differences that exist in young people with autism, and focuses on the unique pathways needed to connect with and inspire these exceptional and fabulous teenagers.This is the only book available for teens with autism that specifically integrates mindfulness skills and imaginative scripted roleplaying activities for building authentic social experiences.
  • Grieving for the Sibling You Lost: A Teen's Guide to Coping with Grief and Finding Meaning After Loss

    Erica Goldblatt Hyatt DSW, Kenneth Doka PhD

    Paperback (Instant Help, Sept. 1, 2015)
    If you’ve lost a sibling, you feel sad, confused, or even angry. For the first time, a psychotherapist specializing in teen and adolescent bereavement offers a compassionate guide to help you discover your unique coping style, deal with overwhelming emotions, and find constructive ways to manage this profound loss so you can move forward in a meaningful and healthy way.Losing a loved one—at any age—is devastating. But if you’re a teen who has lost a sibling, this loss can feel even more so. Siblings are also lifetime playmates, confidants, role models, and friends. After losing a brother or sister, you may feel like a part of yourself is missing. You may also feel lonely, depressed, and anxious. These are all normal reactions. But even though the pain feels unmanageable now, there are ways you can start to heal.Grieving for the Sibling You Lost will help you understand your own unique coping style. You'll also find effective exercises based in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you work through negative thoughts, and learn the importance of creating meaning out of loss and suffering. Most importantly, you'll learn when and how to ask for help from parents, friends, or teachers.If you’ve lost a sibling, the pain can feel unbearable, but there are ways you can start to heal. This book will show you how.