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🧠 Taking care of your mental health

Stress, anxiety and depression can affect your learning by sapping your energy, restricting how new information is stored and retrieved, and making school feel overwhelming. Good mental health makes it easier to pay attention, get along with peers, recover from setbacks, and achieve academic success. Here's a selection of books to give you tips on self-care and strategies to prioritize your mental health.

Book cover for the courage playbook, with an illustration of a ladder on the front and red writin on a white backgroundThe Courage Playbook

A practical guide to living with purpose, leading with integrity, and building stronger relationships through moral courage. With tools like the Five Steps to Courage, the “3 NO’s” and “3 GO’s,” and Courageous Communication Plays, readers are shown how to face fears, resolve conflicts at their root, and inspire others in every part of life. 

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Book cover image for set boundaries, find peace, with coloured square blobs on the front.Set Boundaries, Find Peace

A practical guide to creating balance and healthier relationships by learning to say no, express needs, and assert yourself with confidence. Drawing on cognitive behavioral therapy and her work as a leading counselor, Tawwab offers simple, effective techniques to break cycles of anxiety, burnout, and codependency—showing that boundaries are the key to freedom, peace, and more fulfilling connections.

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Book cover for 52 ways to walk with white titlw on a dark green background.52 Ways to Walk

52 Ways to Walk is a fresh, science-backed guide to transforming an ordinary walk into a powerful practice for physical health, emotional wellbeing, and creativity. With weekly routines that encourage variety—new routes, companions, times of day, and even skills to learn while walking—it helps break stale habits and reveals walking as a secret to sharper memory, better sleep, stronger posture, and more joy. 

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Book cover for Cook smart, eat well, with a photo of delicious meat and vegetable skewers on the front.Cook Smart, Eat Well

Cook Smart, Eat Well makes healthy home cooking simple, flavorful, and sustainable. Featuring over 100 recipes—from breakfasts and comfort foods to vegetarian dishes and desserts—this guide combines smart meal prep, bold flavors, and practical tips to help cooks of any level streamline planning and create nutritious meals with ease.

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Book cover for Coping in good times and the bad, with intersecting bright coloured circles on the front.Coping in Good Times and Bad: Developing Fortitude

Coping in Good Times and Bad offers a research-based framework for building resilience, wellbeing, and satisfaction in everyday life. Frydenberg explores why we cope well—or poorly—and provides practical strategies for strengthening our approach to life’s challenges. By integrating coping with concepts like emotional intelligence, mindset, mindfulness, and grit, this book goes beyond crisis management to present a template for thriving through both smooth and difficult times.

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Book cover for Breakthrough, with an illustration of a butterfly on a tan background.Breakthrough: A Story of Hope, Resilience and Mental Health Recovery

Dr. Ahmed Hankir blends memoir and insight, tracing his journey from impoverished psychiatric patient to award-winning psychiatrist and advocate. With honesty and warmth, he explores the realities of living with mental illness, the barriers of stigma and discrimination, and the impacts of poverty, addiction, and social inequality. Offering hope and practical guidance for both those experiencing mental health challenges and those who support them, this book affirms that recovery is possible, stigma can be challenged, and no one needs to suffer in silence.

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Book cover for hardiness, with a tangled ball of coloured wires or thread on the front.Hardiness: Making Stress Work for you to Achieve your Life Goals

Learn how to turn stress into a catalyst for growth by mastering the “3 C’s” of psychological hardiness—commitment, control, and challenge. Backed by 30 years of research, this book offers practical exercises and real-life examples to help you resist stress, build resilience, and thrive under pressure. 

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Book cover for the love habit, with mixed brightly couloured letters on a white background.The Love Habit

A practical guide to breaking free from unhealthy patterns and building healthier, more fulfilling relationships through a love-based approach to habits—Learn, Optimize, Validate, Experience. By connecting self-image with daily choices, Howard shows how to foster self-love, set boundaries, and align actions with your highest goals, creating lasting change and greater peace and joy.

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Book cover for how K dramas can transform your life, with title in white speech bubbles on a turquise and pinky purple background.How K-Dramas can Transform your Life

How K-Dramas Can Transform Your Life by therapist Jeanie Y. Chang reveals how the stories we binge can boost mental health, foster belonging, and guide us through life’s challenges. Chang shows how K-Dramas help us process grief, build cross-cultural connections, and embrace jeong—the Korean concept of deep emotional bond. Both entertaining and insightful, this book is a must-read for fans and anyone curious about how pop culture can inspire healing, resilience, and self-discovery.

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Book cover for the resilient mind, with a multi-couloured illustration of a head, cool blues on one side, and blurred pinks, reds and yellows on the other.The Resilient Mind

A practical guide to transforming challenges into opportunities and living with greater clarity, purpose, and balance. Demartini shows readers how to reduce stress, resolve conflict, and dissolve limiting perceptions that hold you back. With insights and tools for enhancing communication, strengthening relationships, and aligning your life with your highest priorities, this book helps you break through barriers and discover your true potential for fulfillment and inspired living.

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Book cover for wellness wellplayed, with headphones and triangular colours over the top on the front.Wellness Wellplayed

Music is powerful. It soothes us, sorts us out, and transports us to a different place. It helps us to remember, and can help us to forget. Put on the right song at the right time, and you will smile, cry, tap your feet, or just breathe a contented “ah.” In Wellness, Wellplayed, acclaimed music therapist Jennifer Buchanan shows us how to use music playlists with purpose, as a bridge to something deeper within ourselves—and a way to address our human need to feel, create, and connect.

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Book cover for social anxiety, with brigh colours and eyes on the front.Social Anxiety: Hidden Fears and Shame in Teens and Adults

This book broadens the definition of social anxiety, showing it often includes deep, persistent shame about past or present thoughts as well as fear of social situations. Through 22 case examples and research-based insights, it explores the causes, effects, and treatments of this hidden struggle. Written for both professionals and everyday readers, it offers a compassionate guide to understanding and addressing social anxiety.

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Updates 

📚 Your library account

Did you know you can request books, renew loans, save favourites, and manage your account by logging in to your Library Account? It's available to all students, staff and faculty. Simply sign in using your SAIT single sign-on credentials to access your Library Account, Library Search or full-text e-Resources.  

🚩 Occupancy limits explained

You might have noticed "Maximum occupancy” stickers pop up in our study spaces recently. These indicate how many people are allowed to use the study space at one time. Please help us prevent overcrowding and noise by sticking to the limits:

👩 1 person maximum per study carrel

👩👩 2 people maximum per workstation

👩👩👩👩 4 people maximum per study table

If your group is larger than 4, please book a group study room. If your group is larger than 8, please find alternative spaces around campus to study together. Thank you!  

📢 Self-checkout kiosk is getting an upgrade

Our Meescan self-checkout kiosk is being sent away for an upgrade, but don’t worry – you can still use the Meescan App on your phone to check books onto your account. 

Once you’ve downloaded the Meescan App, you can sign in with your SAIT single-sign-on and scan the barcodes of your items with the camera on your phone. Don't forget to place your items on one of our RFID pads to desensitize the security tags, and click on "Finish" to complete your checkout.

When our Meescan kiosk returns, you’ll be able to simply tap your eCard to borrow! 

Top 5 tips: Research and assignment help

1️⃣ Watch our online research tutorials, a series of short videos with worksheets to help guide you through the research process.

2️⃣ View our online subject guides, with curated collections of resources, helpful tips and the most relevant information for your program, course or topic.

3️⃣ Refer to our online citation guides, the best source of information on how to cite your sources, no matter what format they're in. 

4️⃣ Ask a quick question at our information desk, in person, or via online chat!

5️⃣ Meet Your Librarian for one-on-one help with search strategies, resources, citation and to answer your questions - each librarian is dedicated to a school at SAIT and has a knowledge of relevant resources. If you're not sure who your librarian is, you can contact library@sait.ca

Meet Your Librarian
a view of the moutains and stream in between

Oki, Âba wathtech, Danit'ada, Tawnshi, Hello.

SAIT is located on the traditional territories of the Niitsitapi (Blackfoot) and the people of Treaty 7 which includes the Siksika, the Piikani, the Kainai, the Tsuut’ina and the Îyârhe Nakoda of Bearspaw, Chiniki and Goodstoney.

We are situated in an area the Blackfoot tribes traditionally called Moh’kinsstis, where the Bow River meets the Elbow River. We now call it the city of Calgary, which is also home to the Métis Nation of Alberta.