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How to Calm Your Mind

Finding Productivity in Anxious Times

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How to Calm Your Mind

By: Chris Bailey
Narrated by: Chris Bailey
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About this listen

Read by the author, Chris Bailey, the bestselling author of Hyperfocus.

How to Calm Your Mind
offers a toolkit of accessible, science-backed strategies that reveal how the path to a less anxious life, and even greater productivity, runs directly through calm.


When productivity expert Chris Bailey discovered that he had become stressed and burnt out because he was pushing himself too hard, he realized that he had no right to be giving advice on productivity without learning when and how to rein things in and take a break.

Productivity advice works – and we need it now more than ever – but it’s just as important that we also develop our capacity for calm. By finding calm and overcoming anxiety, we don’t just feel more comfortable in our own skin, we invest in the missing piece that leads our efforts to become sustainable over time. We build a deeper, more expansive reservoir of energy to draw from throughout the day, and have greater mental resources at our disposal not only to do good work, but also to live a good life.

Among the topics How to Calm Your Mind covers are:

- How analogue and digital worlds affect calm and anxiety in different ways
- How our desire for dopamine breeds anxiety
- How hidden sources of stress can be tamed by a ‘stimulation fast’
- How ‘busyness’ is as much a state of mind as it is an actual state of life


The pursuit of calm ultimately leads us to become more engaged, focused and deliberate – while making us more productive and satisfied with our lives overall. In an anxious world, achieving calm is the best life hack around.

Mental Health Personal Development Personal Success Psychology Psychology & Mental Health Stress Management

Critic Reviews

A clear-eyed, concise method that marries science and self-help
Attention grabbing . . . Chris Bailey offers actionable, data-driven insights (Adam Grant, author of Originals on Hyperfocus)
The best productivity plans call for strategy, not just hacks or tactics – and Hyperfocus gives you strategy in spades. When you read this book, get ready to do your most important work (Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup on Hyperfocus)
Engaging . . . Bailey teaches how to re-examine your tasks, determine your priorities and minimize interruptions (The New York Times on Hyperfocus)
Here’s a book that promises, in the title, to pay for itself. And the truth is, it will, in just a few days (Seth Godin, author of Linchpin on The Productivity Project)
All stars
Most relevant
A really honest, practical walk through one man’s path to finding Calm.
Now have a list of tests to run on myself to see what works for me.
Would love it if Audible would provide a PDF of references for books like this. As someone who listens a lot whilst driving, it would really assist, since I’m often not able to pull over and record references.

Challenging and Practical Book

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The mix of research, anecdote and Chris’s personal story make this a worthwhile listen. It sums up his other books quite well as they were part of the journey. The feelings he expressed summed up the way I felt about personal productivity, and asks us to step back and address the underlying anxiety we all experience. It finishes strong and offers a lot of helpful advice on finding calm. I have a physical copy of the book on the way, and I’m going to share it around my family. Great work Chris! Nice shout out to Sparks, Schmitz and Vardy at the end.

Starts slow and then delivers

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In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.