Journalist and screen/life balance expert Catherine Price argues persuasively that our always-on, tech-addicted lifestyles have led us to obsess over intangible concepts such as happiness while obscuring the fact that real happiness lies in the everyday experience of fun. We often think of fun as indulgent, even immature and selfish. We claim to not have time for it, even as we find hours a day for what Price calls Fake Fun—bingeing on television, doomscrolling the news, or posting photos to social media, all in hopes of filling some of the emptiness we feel inside.

We've all seen the happiness on the face of a child while playing in the school yard. Or the blissful abandon of a golden retriever racing across a lawn. This is the joy of play. By definition, play is purposeless, all-consuming, and fun. But as Dr. Stuart Brown illustrates, play is anything but trivial. It is a biological drive as integral to our health as sleep or nutrition. We are designed by nature to flourish through play.

Doesn’t it seem that the more we seek happiness, the more elusive it becomes? There is an easy fix: fun is an action you can take here and now, practically anywhere, anytime. Through research and science, we know fun is enormously beneficial to our physical and psychological well-being, yet fun’s absence from our modern lives is striking. Whether you’re a frustrated high-achiever trying to find a better work-life balance or someone who is seeking relief from life’s overwhelming challenges, it is time you gain access to the best medicine available.

Free Play is directed toward people in any field who want to contact, honor, and strengthen their own creative powers. It integrates material from a wide variety of sources among the arts, sciences, and spiritual traditions of humanity. Filled with unusual quotes, amusing and illuminating anecdotes, and original metaphors, it reveals how inspiration arises within us; how that inspiration may be blocked, derailed, or obscured by certain unavoidable facts of life; and how it can finally be liberated - how we can be liberated - to speak or sing, write or paint, dance or play.

Over the past several years, Dr. Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr. Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr. Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritizes connecting with our kids over correcting them. Parents have long been sold a model of childrearing that simply doesn’t work. From reward charts to time outs, many popular parenting approaches are based on shaping behavior, not raising humans.

Read by then author, this is an audio compilation of Steal Like an Artist, Show Your Work and Keep Going, the bestselling and transformative series on how to unlock your creativity, find community and an audience in the digital age, and stay focused, creative and true to yourself—for life. Includes full text from Steal Like an Artist, on the ten things nobody ever told you about being creative; Show Your Work, on how to take that critical next step on a creative journey; and Keep Going, for anyone trying to sustain a productive life.

In Impact Players, New York Times best-selling author and researcher Liz Wiseman reveals the secrets of these stellar professionals who play the game at a higher level. Drawing on insights from leaders at top companies, Wiseman explains what the most influential players are doing differently, how small and seemingly insignificant differences in how we think and act can make an enormous impact, and why - with a little coaching - this mindset is available to everyone who wants to contribute at their highest level.

The Art of Everyday Assertiveness is not just another self-help guide that you’ll listen to and forget. The author will guide you through self-exploration to help you understand your current behavioral patterns and how they show up in your life. He’ll help you see how healthy assertiveness looks in real life, whether at work, in love, in family relations, and in other common situations. He’ll give you practical ways to start learning assertiveness in a way that doesn’t compromise your kindness and consideration for others.

Twenty-five years ago, Sally Urwin was living in a tiny flat in the city with a high-pressure job. She was utterly miserable, suffering from depression, and longing for a different life. When she met and married farmer Steve, she imagined herself wafting around in floral dresses followed by a bevy of rosy-cheeked children. The reality is quite different....

Esther has shut herself away in her vine-covered manor house on the top of a hill for as long as she can remember. Everyone in the village whispers about the scandal that broke her heart. She has cut herself off from the world—until now. Now, she needs help uncovering the mystery that has plagued her for decades. On a sunny spring day, 18-year-old Bruno is in the local library when he spots an advert. The old lady on the hill is looking for internet lessons, and Bruno sees his chance.

Gail Muller was told she’d be in a wheelchair by the age of 40. At 41, she set out to hike one of the world’s toughest treks: the Appalachian Trail - a 2,200-mile journey that would help her reclaim her life and heal her mind and body. An inspiring, moving, and uplifting memoir for fans of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild and Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love.

Most of us want to change something about ourselves - our stress levels, weight, relationships, or our performance at work. Change is hard and emotional, but it’s not as tough as you think. In this life-changing book, Gabija takes us on an eye-opening journey through the extraordinary human brain, explaining the science behind what makes us tick. With practical tools and simple tips, Gabija shows how you can make change happen.

"I'm going down now", I said to a young woman a few seconds before the darkness-my first cardiac arrest. As I returned to work as a behavioral coach, it became maddening to hear about all-consuming, everyday problems and misguided priorities while I fought to merely remain conscious. The Half-Known Life challenges conventional thinking of success, identity, and personal change. Most often, truly profound change happens following events that shake someone to their core-a car accident, death of a family member, or cardiac arrest that pulls them into a moment of clarity.

Does anxiety have a hold on you and your life? Do panic and worry tend to dominate every moment? You’re not alone—Making Friends with Anxiety is here to help. In this friendly and supportive little book, best-selling author Sarah Rayner draws on her own experience of living with an anxiety disorder and shares the life-changing coping techniques that have helped her manage her anxiety and panic at home, at work, and in all areas of life.

Outside of Mexico City lies the ancient pyramid complex of Teotihuacan, which, according to the oral tradition of the Ruiz family, was the spiritual center for the Toltec people. For over 30 years, Toltec master Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. has been traveling to the pyramids of Teotihuacan to teach others about the powerful mysteries that can be found there. Now, for the first time ever, Ruiz reveals the meaning and transformative power of this ancient city to all and explains to listeners how they too can experience this transformation in their own lives.

Dead cats. That's the image many people conjure up when you mention curiosity. An image perpetuated by a dusty old proverb that has long represented the extent of our understanding of the term. This book might not put the proverb to rest, but it will flip it upside down: far from killing anything, curiosity breathes new life into almost everything it touches.

From internationally renowned family consultant Kim John Payne comes an eloquent guide that seeks to help parents reclaim for their children the space and freedom that all kids need for their individuality to flourish.

Most of us believe when we're depressed that our situation is hopeless. That's a mistake, Dr. Elisha Goldstein reassures us in Uncovering Happiness. The secret to overcoming depression and uncovering happiness is in harnessing our brain's own natural antidepressant power and ultimately creating a more resilient antidepressant brain.

In 21 Days to Resilience, Dr. Zelana Montminy gives you a practical, concrete toolkit to develop your capacity to recover quickly. Each day of her powerful program, Dr. Montmimy introduces a key concept necessary to improve resiliency and enhance well-being - such as courage, focus, positivity, self-care, and social support - then provides three quick skills to accomplish. Throughout the book she teaches you lifelong skills you can continue to practice and return to as needed to keep your resiliency muscles strong.

Between the ages of twelve and twenty-four, the brain changes in important and, at times, challenging ways. In Brainstorm, the renowned psychiatrist and bestselling author of Parenting from the Inside Out, The Whole-Brain Child, and Mindsight, Daniel Siegel busts a number of commonly held myths about adolescence — for example, that it is merely a stage of “immaturity” filled with often “crazy” behavior — to reveal how it is in fact a vital time in our lives in terms of charting the course for the adults we ultimately become.

Popular parenting blogger Rebecca Eanes shares her hard-won wisdom for overcoming limiting thought patterns and recognizing emotional triggers, as well as advice for connecting with kids at each stage, from infancy to adolescence. This heartfelt, insightful advice comes not from an "expert," but from a learning, evolving parent.

Our children can be our greatest teachers. Parenting expert Susan Stiffelman writes that the very behaviors that push our buttons - refusing to cooperate or ignoring our requests - can help us build awareness and shed old patterns, allowing us to raise our children with greater ease and enjoyment.

During his twenty years as a GP, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, author of the international bestseller Feel Better in 5, has seen first-hand that motivation isn't always enough for us to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It's only when we learn how to support our own mental wellbeing and cultivate core happiness that these choices become easy. In Happy Mind, Happy Life, Dr. Chatterjee shares cutting-edge insights into the science of happiness and reveals ten simple ways to put you back in control of your health.

From infancy we are taught to edit ourselves, trimming out the darker, weirder, less acceptable parts in order to please others. But this addiction to approval is holding us back. What if we begin to be ourselves, honestly and fully? Insanely Gifted shows how to transform our thinking and turn our inner demons into allies. How to reframe disappointment (because not getting what we want can be as interesting and useful as getting what we want).

Elizabeth Earnshaw is here to help. The renowned Gottman therapist, founder of A Better Life Therapy, and influential Instagram therapist behind @lizlistens has helped to transform countless relationships. With I Want This to Work, she presents for today’s generation the most effective and proven steps for relationship success.

This book is a call to action based on one simple concept - that personal freedom is a choice. Beth Kempton went from being a life-loving, risk-taking adventurer to a grown-up, settled down mother-wife-business owner before realizing the life she had built was suffocating her. She set out to find her personal freedom and along the way discovered that many others were also feeling hemmed in, suffering from anxiety, depression, and physical pain, exhausted, disconnected, and sad.

How much love do you have for yourself? Not the narcissistic "aren't I wonderful?" kind of love but the essential regard for self that empowers you and helps you navigate through life. The type of love that enables you to feel safe and secure in who you are and inspires you to make choices that are good for your authentic self. When scientist David Hamilton realized that his own lack of self-love was sabotaging him in hundreds of subtle ways and more than a handful of major ways, he devised an experiment using himself as the guinea pig.

Onward tackles the problem of educator stress, and provides a practical framework for taking the burnout out of teaching. Stress is part of the job, but when 70 percent of teachers quit within their first five years because the stress is making them physically and mentally ill, things have gone too far. Unsurprisingly, these effects are highest in difficult-to-fill positions such as math, science, and foreign languages, and in urban areas and secondary classrooms - places where we need our teachers to be especially motivated and engaged.

As a boy, Raun Kaufman was diagnosed by multiple experts as severely autistic, with an IQ below 30, and destined to spend his life in an institution. Years later, Raun graduated with a degree in biomedical ethics from Brown University and has become a passionate and articulate autism expert and educator with no trace of his former condition. Thanks to the Son-Rise Program, a revolutionary method created by his parents, Raun experienced a full recovery from autism.

While most parenting programs are designed to coerce kids to change, Parenting Without Power Struggles does something innovative, showing you how to help your children awaken their natural instincts to cooperate, rather than employing threats or bribes, which inevitably fuels their resistance. By staying calm and being the confident "captain of the ship" your child needs, you will learn how to parent from a place of strong, durable connection, and you'll be better able to help your kids navigate the challenging moments of growing up.