Bestselling author and renowned psychologist Kelly McGonigal offers a groundbreaking look at joy and how we can embrace it
As psychologist Kelly McGonigal reveals in this paradigm-shifting book, joy gives life meaning, sustains hope, and helps us feel close to others. It is the emotion that tells us: life is worth living, good things are possible, and you are not alone.
And yet, many people find it difficult to allow themselves to feel, show, or even seek joy. Instead, we worry: Is it selfish to want joy? Is joy even possible when life is hard? Instead of turning to joy as a resource, we try to protect ourselves from the perceived risks of caring too much. What if, instead, you were able to trust the feeling of joy and appreciate the good in your life? And what if you were able to help others experience the benefits that joy provides?
Weaving together personal storytelling with insights from psychology, neuroscience, and research conducted around the world, McGonigal offers tangible ways to experience this powerful emotion in everyday life. You’ll discover:
How joy works in the brain and body to provide relief
How to create moments of meaning, connection, and celebration, in challenging times
Why joy is a form of social support, and how to bring joy to others
Strategies to counteract joy dampening that keeps us from enjoying good moments
Tools to navigate common obstacles to joy, such as envy, guilt, anxiety, and grief
20 “joy experiments” you can begin implementing today
Motivating and uplifting, Joy Is a Risk Worth Taking shows that seeking and sharing joy is an act of courage and compassion—and one you can take even when life is difficult.
The bestselling author of The Willpower Instinct introduces a surprising science-based book that doesn't tell us why we should exercise but instead shows us how to fall in love with movement.
Through her trademark blend of science and storytelling, McGonigal draws on insights from neuroscience, psychology, anthropology, and evolutionary biology, as well as memoirs, ethnographies, and philosophers. She shows how movement is intertwined with some of the most basic human joys, including self-expression, social connection, and mastery--and why it is a powerful antidote to the modern epidemics of depression, anxiety, and loneliness.
McGonigal tells the stories of people who have found fulfillment and belonging through running, walking, dancing, swimming, weightlifting, and more, with examples that span the globe, from Tanzania, where one of the last hunter-gatherer tribes on the planet live, to a dance class at Juilliard for people with Parkinson's disease, to the streets of London, where volunteers combine fitness and community service, to races in the remote wilderness, where athletes push the limits of what a human can endure. Along the way, McGonigal paints a portrait of human nature that highlights our capacity for hope, cooperation, and self-transcendence.
The result is a revolutionary narrative that goes beyond familiar arguments in favor of exercise, to illustrate why movement is integral to both our happiness and our humanity. Readers will learn what they can do in their own lives and communities to harness the power of movement to create happiness, meaning, and connection.
Selected by The Next Big Idea Book Club as one of the seasons’ must-read nonfiction books worth reading cover-to-cover.
The author of The Willpower Instinct delivers a groundbreaking new book that overturns long-held beliefs about stress.
While most of us do everything we can to reduce or avoid stress, Stanford psychologist and bestselling author Kelly McGonigal, PhD, delivers a new perspective: Stress can bring out the good in you, even when the situation causing you stress is not good.
In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal highlights new research demonstrating the human capacity to respond to stressful circumstances with courage, hope, and meaning. As she did in The Willpower Instinct, McGonigal combines science, stories, and exercises into an engaging and practical book that is both fascinating and life-changing, showing you:
How stress can provide focus and energy to help you rise to a challenge
How stress can help people connect and strengthen close relationships
Why your brain is built to learn from stress, and how to grow from difficult experiences
How to find meaning and purpose even in the midst of chaos, crisis, and loss
McGonigal’s TED talk “How to Make Stress Your Friend” is one of the most viewed TED talks of all time. Her message resonates with people who know they can’t eliminate the stress in their lives and want to get better at stress, by understanding it, embracing it, and using it for good.
Selected as one of Greater Good's Favorite Books, the most thought-provoking, important, and useful nonfiction books published on the science of a meaningful life.
Based on Stanford University psychologist Kelly McGonigal's wildly popular course "The Science of Willpower," The Willpower Instinct is the first book to explain the science of self-control and how it can be harnessed to reach your most important goals.
Based on cutting-edge insights from psychology, economics, neuroscience, and medicine, The Willpower Instinct combines life-changing prescriptive advice to help readers build new habits, overcome self-destructive patterns, and do what matters most—even when it’s hard.
The Willpower Instinct takes you into the classroom with an award-winning teacher whose mission is to help you discover your own strength and become your best self. With empathy and humor, McGonigal explains the traps we fall into when trying to make a change or pursue a goal—and how to avoid them.
Easy-to-implement Willpower Experiments throughout the book offer science-based strategies for finding motivation, resisting temptation, overcoming procrastination, recovering from setbacks, harnessing social support, and dealing with emotions that can get in the way of change, including anxiety, shame, and stress.
“The Willpower Instinct is a new kind of self-help book. Using science to explain the why and strategies for the how, McGonigal has created a must-read for anyone who wants to change how they live in both small and big ways.” —Book Page
An international bestseller published in more than 30 languages worldwide
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