Book ReviewS for Over-Thinkers
I’ve been on this journey to heal my nervous system and live a calmer life for over a year now. In that time I’ve read lots of books, listened to hundreds of podcast episodes, undertaken therapy and courses, taught over 25 Calming Art Workshops and completely changed my working life.
I wrote a past blog post on my recommended books for Burn Out, which you can read here. I know from conversations since that post, some of you have also read some of these books, so I thought I’d recommend a couple more that I’ve been enjoying lately and have frankly been blowing my mind!
The first one is titled Your Brain on Art by Susan Magmasan and Ivy Ross published in 2023. It delves into the Neuroarts, which is the study of how the arts and aesthetic experiences measurably change the body, brain, and behaviour to benefit our wellbeing. In 2025 they have released a companion workbook.
Susan Magsamen is the founder and director of the International Arts + Mind Lab, Center for Applied Neuroaesthetics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she is a faculty member. Ivy Ross is the Vice President of Design at Google. Together they have written a book that explains the neuroscience behind the feel good factors of engaging with the arts. It validates and substantiates what those of us who love and work in the arts have known, put explains what is actually happening in our brains from the release of serotonin and dopamine to the research on the positive impacts of the arts on our health and longevity.
If you’ve been in one of my Calming Art Workshops where I discuss the benefits of our mind and body- it’s been inspired by the research cited in this book.
My mind was blown when things I had known from my own practice and art teaching career where quantified and multiple studies pulled together as to why the arts can be so powerful for our wellbeing.
These are some of the mind blowing revelations in Your Brain on Art-
20 minutes of doodling can lower your cortisol stress hormone.
Engaging in just 45 minutes of an art activity—whether painting, dancing, expressive writing, architecture, or more—consistently reduces levels of the stress hormone cortisol, regardless of skill level.
Arts engagement enhances creativity, learning, and cognitive performance—it fosters neural pathways linked to learning skills and memory.
Arts-as-medicine: The authors portray arts engagement as a form of preventive and therapeutic treatment—part of a suite of health-preserving behaviours on par with exercise, nutrition, and sleep
People who take part in an arts experience just once a month (like visiting a museum or watching a performance) have been found to have up to a 31% lower risk of early death, effectively adding up to 10 years to their lifespan.
Magsamen and Ross draw from thousands of studies across neuroscience, psychology, public health and the arts to show that aesthetic engagement is not optional—it’s essential. Whether you’re painting, dancing, visiting a gallery, writing, or even simply tuning into beauty and design, the arts produce measurable benefits across stress regulation, longevity, social health, and neurobiological resilience.
Neuroaesthetics is not just mindfulness: While aesthetic experiences share some features with mindfulness (e.g. stress reduction, calming the amygdala), they activate additional brain regions tied to reward, meaning-making, and creativity—marking them as a distinct and powerful therapeutic domain
Art is accessible to everyone: Benefits don’t require talent or expertise. Even making “terrible art” yields emotional, cognitive, and physiological benefits, since neuroaesthetic effects don’t depend on skill level.
Seeing the benefits:
You can almost see all of those brain benefits happening during this recent Calming Art Workshop- with everyone in the zone.
The second book that I’ve just finished is by Joseph Nguyen and titled Don’t Believe Everything You Think. I listened to this as an audiobook and enjoyed the author’s calming voice. It’s a quick read (or listen) and very accessible. I loved the simplicity and practicality of this book, so much so, I wanted to go right back to the start and listen to it all over again as soon as it finished.
If you’re an over-thinker like me, this is an amazing book for shifting your mindset. If you wake up at 3am with your mind whirring trying to solve all the problems in the world. You meditate or exercise but then just find your mind straight back to worry and anxiety no long after you finish- this explanation for how to approach your own thinking gets me excited for a breakthrough in my own quest for a calmer life.
The book outlines the difference Between Thoughts and Thinking.
Thoughts being spontaneous mental occurrences—which are actually neutral and effortless.
while
Thinking is the active engagement—interpreting, elaborating on, and evaluating those thoughts.
It’s the overly analytical, often negatively biased and judgemental side of our minds.
Nguyen suggests, that it is the thinking rather than the thoughts that is the real cause of psychological suffering.
I can really relate to this. It’s the inner critic, the perfectionist that comes up, the self-judgement, the analysis that makes things difficult and suppresses joy, happiness and peace. It’s not actually fact but our interpretation that makes us unsettled and stressed.
It reminds me of the quote by stoic philosopher Epictetus "It's not what happens to us, but how we react to it that matters" and for over-thinkers, we react over and over and over again like a record stuck on loop. There’s no doubt life is stressful, chaotic at times and more overwhelming and fast-paced than ever. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that our minds like to manufacture even more stress by trying to keep some of that under control, keep up with a striving culture and super fast pace of life we were never designed to live.
Nguyen describes the Twin Arrow metaphor from Buddhist wisdom, which distinguishes between the unavoidable pain of life’s events (first arrow) and the suffering caused by resisting or overthinking that pain (second arrow). The second arrow is optional—how you relate to pain determines whether it becomes suffering.
I love a metaphor for helping me with new concepts, don’t you?
Nguyen’s book identifies relatable common mental traps and offers mindfulness practices—of observing thoughts without judgment, and allowing them to pass to help create space between you and your thinking.
The book outlines leaning into Radical Acceptance and Intuition as the basis for a more peaceful mind and that mental freedom comes not from controlling thoughts, but from choosing not to believe them. When we learn to observe thinking instead of identifying with it, we reconnect with our natural state of presence, calm, and clarity.
He offers the PAUSE method as a practice towards this:
🧘♂️ P — Perceive the thought
Become aware of the thought as it arises.
Don’t try to change or judge it—just notice that it’s there.
🧍 A — Acknowledge its presence
Say to yourself:
“A thought is present.”
Label it if helpful (e.g. “worry thought,” “judgment thought”).
🌬️ U — Understand it’s not you
This is the key insight:
You are the observer, not the thinker.
The thought is not who you are, and it doesn’t define your reality.
🕊️ S — See it for what it is
Recognise the thought as just that: a mental event—a story, interpretation, or memory.
Let go of the urge to engage with or “fix” it.
🧘 E — Exhale and return to presence
Take a deep breath.
Return your focus to your breath, body, or surroundings—something real and tangible in the present.
I highly recommend you read or listen to Don’t Believe Everything You Think for yourself. I am fortunate enough to have Spotify Premium and was able to listen to this audiobook through my subscription and I’m definitely about to hit play again! I want this to really sink in. xx Em
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