5 Best Books to Help You Reduce Stress and Reclaim Your Time in 2026 (if you work in public health!)

📖If you’re a woman working in public health and you’re ready to reduce stress, reclaim your time, and feel more in control in 2026, this video is for you. Today I’m sharing 5 of the best books to help you break cycles of overworking, overwhelm, people-pleasing, and burnout — especially for mid-career women in public health who are carrying heavy workloads in systems that don’t make balance easy.

These books have personally helped me (and hundreds of my clients) create more rest, better boundaries, and calmer, more sustainable routines — without quitting their jobs or pretending work gets lighter on its own.

📚 Books Mentioned in This Video

📘 Do Nothing: How to Break Away from Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving — Celeste Headlee
📙 Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle — Amelia Nagoski & Emily Nagoski
📕 Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto — Tricia Hersey
📗 Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones — James Clear
📖 Radical Compassion: Learning to Love Yourself and Your World with the Practice of RAIN — Tara Brach

🌿 Why These Books Matter for Public Health Professionals

Women in public health are dealing with high workloads, staff shortages, constant crisis response, emotional labor, and pressure to be “the one who holds everything together.” These books offer practical tools, emotional healing, productivity strategies, and rest practices that actually work in the real-life context of public health — not the “just plan better” advice the internet loves to give.