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Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life
Clinical psychologist, TED Speaker, and author of Emotional First Aid offers a guide to combating the many stresses modern work imposes, based on recent research and the stories of patients Winch has helped to thrive after burnout.
Whether we like it or not, work is central to our lives. Most of us define ourselves by our work; it gives us a purpose, it enables us to maintain our lives, our homes, our nourishment, our recreational pursuits, and it puts us often among like-minded people who share and appreciate our skills and achievements. No wonder we feel it is so important. But the dark side is that it intrudes on our lives and unconsciously takes over our thoughts, our priorities, and even our coping mechanisms. Especially in recent years, the separation between work and home is blurrier than ever, and we struggle to maintain healthy boundaries, to restore ourselves and recover our attention and energy, to give due focus to our loved ones, and to nourish other essential aspects of our self.
In Mind Over Grind, Guy Winch explains how our enmeshment with work reinforces these unconscious tendencies and reveals to the damage they do to our careers and personal lives, as well as to our emotional health. He argues that attaining a work-life balance involves changing not just what you do in your free time but how you think. And he offers clear, cogent strategies we can use to regain control, change the way we think, bring intentionality back to our lives, and restore the balance we crave.
Whether we like it or not, work is central to our lives. Most of us define ourselves by our work; it gives us a purpose, it enables us to maintain our lives, our homes, our nourishment, our recreational pursuits, and it puts us often among like-minded people who share and appreciate our skills and achievements. No wonder we feel it is so important. But the dark side is that it intrudes on our lives and unconsciously takes over our thoughts, our priorities, and even our coping mechanisms. Especially in recent years, the separation between work and home is blurrier than ever, and we struggle to maintain healthy boundaries, to restore ourselves and recover our attention and energy, to give due focus to our loved ones, and to nourish other essential aspects of our self.
In Mind Over Grind, Guy Winch explains how our enmeshment with work reinforces these unconscious tendencies and reveals to the damage they do to our careers and personal lives, as well as to our emotional health. He argues that attaining a work-life balance involves changing not just what you do in your free time but how you think. And he offers clear, cogent strategies we can use to regain control, change the way we think, bring intentionality back to our lives, and restore the balance we crave.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published February 10, 2026
16 people are currently reading
160 people want to read
About the author
Guy Winch
7 books383 followersGuy Winch is a licensed psychologist, speaker, and author whose books have been translated into fourteen languages. He received a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from New York University in 1991 and he has a private practice in Manhattan. He writes The Squeaky Wheel blog for PsychologyToday.com and he also blogs for Huffington Post. On the occasional dark and moonlit night, you might find him performing stand-up comedy in New York City.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 17, 2025
Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.
I enjoy Guy Winch’s books. His style of writing seems so relative and friendly. He seems like a down to earth psychologist. Great points about how burnout is so prevalent and how the workforce takes up so much of our time—even outside of work! Validating book that provides a deeper look at the importance of leaving work at work and its lasting effects if you don’t.
I enjoy Guy Winch’s books. His style of writing seems so relative and friendly. He seems like a down to earth psychologist. Great points about how burnout is so prevalent and how the workforce takes up so much of our time—even outside of work! Validating book that provides a deeper look at the importance of leaving work at work and its lasting effects if you don’t.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Psychologist Guy Winch's "Mind Over Grind" is relatable right from the Table of Contents, divided by the days of the week with some days further divided into morning, afternoon, or evening. From the beginning, I had the sense that Dr. Winch will guide me through dealing with the stress of work and has a plan to make it accessible and easily readable.
We follow four patients in their varied experiences of workplace stress across the chapters. The real-life examples reveal the psychology of the underlying stress that happens at work. More often than not, the problem people have come to therapy to solve is not the root cause of their troubles. Dr. Winch leads patients to see what he sees and find solutions and strategies for improving their lives. He offers compassion, honesty, and insight, revealing coping mechanisms that work and those that do not. Often we have developed healthy mechanisms to deal with one type of stress but deal poorly with another. As Dr. Winch writes, “our ability to handle stress is quite elastic,” meaning what causes me stress may be no big deal to you.
Dr. Winch gives evidence of the impact stressful or even toxic work environments have on our own mental health and loss of identify, on our relationships, and on our moral compass and ethics. When the external pressures of the job collide with the internal mental stress, breakdown and burnout occur. These circumstances may mean you’d be better off leaving your job and seeking something new—an option Dr. Winch addresses. But not always. If you’ve had repeated circumstances, you need to look at your own reactions and emotional regulation, which he also addresses.
The patient stories and insightful narrative fully explain the various reactions to stress, like procrastination, rumination, and overworking. Dr. Winch puts the neuroscience behind dysregulation and regulation and emotional intelligence into everyday terms. The tips and tools that he offers his patients to address their stress could be adapted by readers. While the book and examples focus on work-related stress, they offer answers to psychological states that can result due to environments other than work. Dr. Winch offers tools and examples for improving yourself and your situation at work and beyond.
This book could be a salve and salvation for employees and entrepreneurs alike struggling with workplace stress as the tools are readily actionable. Even those who love their job may find insight to improving relationships with coworkers and managers.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #mindovergrind
We follow four patients in their varied experiences of workplace stress across the chapters. The real-life examples reveal the psychology of the underlying stress that happens at work. More often than not, the problem people have come to therapy to solve is not the root cause of their troubles. Dr. Winch leads patients to see what he sees and find solutions and strategies for improving their lives. He offers compassion, honesty, and insight, revealing coping mechanisms that work and those that do not. Often we have developed healthy mechanisms to deal with one type of stress but deal poorly with another. As Dr. Winch writes, “our ability to handle stress is quite elastic,” meaning what causes me stress may be no big deal to you.
Dr. Winch gives evidence of the impact stressful or even toxic work environments have on our own mental health and loss of identify, on our relationships, and on our moral compass and ethics. When the external pressures of the job collide with the internal mental stress, breakdown and burnout occur. These circumstances may mean you’d be better off leaving your job and seeking something new—an option Dr. Winch addresses. But not always. If you’ve had repeated circumstances, you need to look at your own reactions and emotional regulation, which he also addresses.
The patient stories and insightful narrative fully explain the various reactions to stress, like procrastination, rumination, and overworking. Dr. Winch puts the neuroscience behind dysregulation and regulation and emotional intelligence into everyday terms. The tips and tools that he offers his patients to address their stress could be adapted by readers. While the book and examples focus on work-related stress, they offer answers to psychological states that can result due to environments other than work. Dr. Winch offers tools and examples for improving yourself and your situation at work and beyond.
This book could be a salve and salvation for employees and entrepreneurs alike struggling with workplace stress as the tools are readily actionable. Even those who love their job may find insight to improving relationships with coworkers and managers.
Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster for providing an ARC in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.
#netgalley #mindovergrind
February 15, 2026
I have selected this book as Stevo's Business Book of the Week for the week of 2/15, as it stands heads above other recently published books on this topic.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews