 Are you looking for some good distractions to help manage your 2020/COVID/quarantine/election/end-of-daylight-savings/holiday stress? These are a few of the things that have helped to keep my mind occupied and my heart hopeful. BooksDaniel J. Levitin's Successful Aging: A Neuroscientist Explores the Power and Potential of Our Lives. “Growing old may be the only event in life that is both desired and feared. Daniel Levitin alleviates the fear with sound advice that can tilt the balance so that we have more healthy years and fewer sick ones. The brilliance of this book is that Levitin not only tells us what to do and what not to do—he gracefully and eloquently shares the science behind how we can change our minds and brains, and how even small changes can reap large benefits. Share this book—especially with anyone you hope to grow old with.” -Diane Halpern, past-president of the American Psychological Association Lori Gottlieb's Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed. "[In the end, Gottlieb and her patients] are more aware—of themselves as people, of the choices they’ve made, and of the choices they could go on to make . . . It’s exploration—genuinely wanting to learn answers to the question Why am I like this?, so that maybe, through better understanding of what you’re doing, you figure out how to be who you want to become." -Slate Mark O'Connell's Notes from the Apocolypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back. "A fitting travelogue for our stationary moment...O’Connell’s 'future-dread' haltingly yields to faith in humanity’s resilience, resourcefulness, and capacity for cooperation." - New Yorker Allie Brosch's Solutions and Other Problems. “Gut-busting . . . . Like a millennial James Thurber, Brosh has a knack for seeding a small, choice detail that snowballs into existential chaos . . . [Her] spidery and demented digital portraits, a visual expression of fun-house mirror anxiety, fits her material perfectly. . . This achingly accurate and consistently hilarious comic memoir finds Brosh moving forward and becoming a stronger, braver storyteller page by page.” - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review Dan Rather's What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism. “…a deeply felt reminder of what is the best of America. What Unites Us is at times almost unbearably poignant. Yet Rather’s words provide a sort of salve—and clear thinking about how to recover from these ugly times. What Unites Us is a passionate treatise on preserving the best of America and letting go of that which makes us weaker.” - BookPage Gail Honeyman's Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine. “Eleanor Oliphant is endearing, [a] whip-smart read. . . a fascinating story about loneliness, hope, tragedy and humanity. Honeyman’s delivery is wickedly good, and Eleanor won’t leave you anytime soon." - Associated Press MoviesRotten Tomatoes guide to 150 Great Feel-Good Movies You can Stream Right Now. (Note that the better reviewed films come latest in the list.) Empire's list of 30 Feel Good Movies to Distract You from the Horror of 2020. Some never-fail feel-good films include: Singin' in the Rain Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse The Greatest Showman Paddington (1 and 2, actually) and The Princess Bride. SeriesThe Great British Baking Show (Netflix) may help restore your faith in humanity. With its British charm and contestants who root for one another and take both their wins and losses on the chin, the annual baking competition is feel-good TV at its best. The Mandalorian (Disney+). Jon Favreau's Disney Original series is an exquisitely shot gun-slinger Western set in the cinematic universe of Star Wars. Also, Baby Yoda. Need I say more? Ted Lasso (Apple TV+). Ted Lasso (played by Jason Sudeikis) is an American football coach hired as the unlikely coach for an English premier league football (soccer) club, is definitely less family-friendly, but 100% wholesome with some of the best quote-able quotes to come out of 2020. A World of Calm (HBO Max). This series of 30-minute documentaries comes from the creators of one of the most popular mediation apps, Calm. One person described an episode to me as "a nature documentary about a sea turtle - except that unlike a nature documentary, the sea turtle in A World of Calm is never in peril!" This page contains links to websites not administered by Las Colinas Psychological Services (LCPS). LCPS is not responsible or liable for the accuracy or the content of linked pages. LCPS does not benefit from the sale or promotion of the organizations, books, or websites listed above.
 Ryder Carroll, creator of the Bullet Journal Method, strikes a great balance of practical tips and philosophy in this guide to using pen and paper to organize your life, develop the practices of mindfulness and living intentionally, and give a newfound sense of priority and urgency to your goals.
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About the AuthorHello! I am clinical psychologist, Dr. Kristy Novinski. Here I record insights, book and film reviews, discussions of pop culture, and exploration of news and research in the field of psychology. What I'm Reading:
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