Recommended Books for Athletes

As an athlete, it's important to prioritize your mental health in the same ways you focus on your physical health. There are dozens of books designed to help you learn more about and optimize your routines to support both. Check out the list below to get started.

Short on time? No worries, many of these books come in Audiobook format for free on your music apps!

Want to save on time and money? Try using the campus library or the Libby app for rental options.

SPORT + MENTAL HEALTH BOOKS

• Mindfulness for Student Athletes: A Workbook to Help Teens Reduce Stress and Enhance Performance

• A Still Quiet Place for Athletes: Mindfulness Skills for Achieving Peak Performance and Finding Flow in Sports and Life

• Flow in Sport: How to Master the Mental Game Of Peak Performance

• The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance

• Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance

• The Yoga Mind: 52 Essential Principles of Yoga Philosophy to Deepen Your Practice

• Athlete’s Mental Performance Journal

GENERAL MENTAL HEALTH, TRAUMA RECOVERY, + EMOTIONAL HEALING BOOKS

• Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones

• Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents

• Self-Care for Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: Honor Your Emotions, Nurture Your Self, and Live with Confidence

• Recovering from Emotionally Immature Parents: Practical Tools to Establish Boundaries and Reclaim Your Emotional Autonomy

• Running on Empty

• Platonic: How The Science of Attachment Can Help You Make—and Keep—Friends

• No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model

• How to Do the Work: Recognize Your Patterns, Heal from Your Past, and Create Your Self

• What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing

• The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma 

• When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

• Healing from Hidden Abuse: A Journey Through the Stages of Recovery from Psychological Abuse

• Rewire: Break the Cycle, Alter Your Thoughts and Create Lasting Change (Your Neurotoolkit for Everyday Life

• Thriving with Anxiety: 9 Tools to Make Your Anxiety Work for You

• Fierce Self-Compassion: How Women Can Harness Kindness to Speak Up, Claim Their Power, and Thrive