Books like The Noonday Demon

01

An Unquiet Mind

Kay Redfield Jamison · Psychology

Kay Redfield Jamison is a psychiatrist and professor who has manic-depressive illness.

Shares mental health and treatment with The Noonday Demon.

02

Lost Connections

Johann Hari · Health

Lost Connections is Johann Hari's argument that depression and anxiety are not primarily chemical imbalances in the brain but responses to social and environmental conditions — disconnection from meaningful work, close relationships, the natural world, a secure future, and status that feels deserved.

Shares depression and mental health with The Noonday Demon.

03

The Depression Cure

Stephen Ilardi · Health

The Depression Cure is Stephen Ilardi's account of Therapeutic Lifestyle Change (TLC), a structured program he developed at the University of Kansas for treating depression without primary reliance on antidepressants.

Shares depression and mental health with The Noonday Demon.

04

Spark

John J. Ratey · Health

Spark is John Ratey's argument, grounded in neuroscience, that aerobic exercise is the single most powerful thing most people can do for their brain.

Both dig into mental health.

05

Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life

Martin E. P. Seligman · Psychology

Martin Seligman's research career began with learned helplessness — the discovery that animals and humans who experience uncontrollable events generalize the uncontrollability to subsequent situations where control is actually possible, becoming passive even when action would help.

Both dig into depression.

06

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

Randolph M. Nesse · Psychology

Randolph Nesse spent forty years as a psychiatrist and evolutionary biologist asking a question most of his colleagues found strange: why did natural selection leave us so vulnerable to anxiety, depression, and other forms of suffering?

Shares mental health and psychiatry with The Noonday Demon.

07

Reasons to Stay Alive

Matt Haig · Memoir

Reasons to Stay Alive is Matt Haig's account of the severe depression and anxiety disorder he experienced in his mid-twenties, and how he survived it, returned to functioning, and eventually to something he could call a good life.

Shares depression and mental health with The Noonday Demon.

08

The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct

Thomas Szasz · Psychology

Thomas Szasz's thesis, first published in 1961, is that mental illness is a category error.

Shares mental health and psychiatry with The Noonday Demon.

09

Anatomy of an Epidemic

Robert Whitaker · Health

Anatomy of an Epidemic is Robert Whitaker's investigation into a paradox: as the use of psychiatric medication in the United States has increased dramatically over the past half-century, the number of people on disability due to mental illness has risen in parallel.

Both dig into psychiatry.

10

Brain Energy

Christopher M. Palmer · Health

Brain Energy is Christopher Palmer's argument that mental illness is fundamentally a metabolic disorder — specifically, a disorder of mitochondrial function and brain energy regulation.

Both dig into psychiatry.

11

The Mindful Way Through Depression

Mark Williams · Health

The Mindful Way Through Depression is a clinical self-help book by four researchers — Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn — who developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, a treatment program with strong evidence for reducing depression relapse.

Both dig into depression.

12

The Myth of Normal

Gabor Maté · Health

The Myth of Normal is Gabor Maté's most ambitious book, co-written with his son Daniel Maté.

Both dig into mental health.