Mental Health Matters: Embrace Self-Care With These Audiobook and Podcast Listens

May is Mental Health Awareness month, a time to recognize those living with mental health concerns and reduce the stigma many experience. Mental health struggles impact everyone to some degree, and methods of self-care can vary. To that end, here are some recommendations from Spotify's editors of audiobooks and podcasts focused on mental health, well-being, and self-care:

Audiobooks: The Mountain is You Brianna Wiest

Narrated by Stacey Glemboski

For centuries, the mountain has been used as a metaphor for the big challenges humans face, especially those that seem impossible to overcome. To scale our own personal mountains, we must do the deep internal work of excavating trauma, building resilience, and adjusting how we show up for the climb. In the end, it is not the mountain we master, but ourselves.

In The Mountain is You: Transforming Self-Sabotage into Self-Mastery, Brianna Wiest explores the reasons people often resist efforts to evolve and explains why extracting crucial insights from our most damaging habits can help us build emotional intelligence, better understand our brains and bodies, and release past experiences at a cellular level. Wiest's book walks through the ways in which learning to act as our highest-potential future selves can help us step out of our own way.

Permission to Come Home Jenny Wang

Narrated by Jenny Wang

As Asian Americans investigate the personal and societal effects of longstanding cultural narratives suggesting they take up as little space as possible, Permission to Come Home takes readers on an empowering journey of Asian Americans' reclaiming liberty over their mental health. More than 18 million people of Asian descent live in the United States today; however, they are the racial group least likely to seek out mental health services.

Calling on her personal narrative as a Taiwanese American, her insights as a clinician, and evidence-based tools, Dr. Jenny T. Wang explores a range of life areas that call for attention, offering readers permission to question, feel, rage, say no, take up space, play, fail, and grieve. She suggests a return closer to home, a place of acceptance, belonging, healing, and freedom. For Asian Americans and the diaspora, this book is a necessary roadmap for the journey to wholeness.

Check out the full Listens for the Mind playlist here:

The Art of Living Thich Nhat Hanh

Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini, Gabra Zackman

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh-one of the world's most revered spiritual leaders-explores an art of living in mindfulness that seeks to help readers answer some of life's deepest questions and move toward experiencing greater happiness and freedom.

Combining the essence of the Buddha's teachings and the author's own poignant, timeless, and clarifying prose, The Art of Living explains seven transformative meditations that open up new perspectives on our lives, our relationships, and our interconnectedness with the world around us. Drawing on intimate examples from his own life, Thich Nhat Hanh demonstrates how these seven meditations can free us to live a happier, more peaceful, and more active life.

Decolonizing Wellness Dalia Kinsey

Narrated by LaNecia Edmonds

A lack of BIPOC and LGBTQ+ representation in the fields of health and nutrition has a demonstrably negative impact on people with those identities. In Decolonizing Wellness, registered dietitian and nutritionist Dalia Kinsey explores how the body-positivity movement emphasizes cisgender, heteronormative, and Eurocentric standards of beauty and ignores the intersectional challenges of anti-Blackness, colorism, homophobia, transphobia, and generational trauma when it comes to wellness and self-care.

A roadmap to body acceptance and self-care for queer people of color in particular, the book encourages readers to embrace food freedom : viewing food as a source of pleasure instead of shame. It's filled with practical eating practices, journal prompts, affirmations, and mindfulness tools and is a guide to throwing out food rules in exchange for internal cues. Readers learn how to adopt a self-love-based approach to eating and make mealtime into a time for celebration and healing.

Check out the full Wellness Essentials playlist here:

Mindful Mr. Sloth Katy Hudson

Narrated by Erin Ruth Walker

Sasha has one speed: fast. She loves to do lots of things all at once, as fast as possible. Mr. Sloth has one speed: slow. He loves to do things one at a time at a nice, easy pace. Can Mr. Sloth's mindful ways teach Sasha to slow down and enjoy life? Bestselling author Katy Hudson gently weaves a mindfulness theme into this unlikely friendship tale between an energetic girl and a sloth, encouraging children to stop, breathe, and be present in every moment.

Hattie Harmony: Opening Night Robbie Arnett, Elizabeth Olsen

Narrated by Robbie Arnett, Elizabeth Olsen

In this sequel to the number-one New York Times bestselling Hattie Harmony: Worry Detective, Hattie shares new tools for managing anxiety, just in time for opening night of the school play. That night, there are plenty of nerves to go around! It's a good thing Hattie Harmony is ready to help her friends soothe their worries with everything in her trusted tool belt. Will Hattie be able to settle the preshow jitters before curtain call? The authors-acclaimed actress Elizabeth Olsen and esteemed musician and writer Robbie Arnett-narrate this relatable tale that introduces the youngest reader to the importance of self-care.

Check out the full Kids' Mental Health playlist here:

Podcasts: The Liz Moody Podcast

Hosted by bestselling author and longtime journalist Liz Moody, this research-backed wellness podcast is all about helping you live your healthiest, happiest life. Each week, Liz sits down with some of the world's best functional doctors, researchers

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