If I'm going to believe anything, I'd need a longitudinal study of about 5 years.

I find 5 years to be a good hallmark to see whether something had an actual strong impact in my own life (e.g. regarding reading self-help books such as Search Inside Yourself [1] or Steve Pavlina's blog post on how to rock at university [2] -- sorry for being slightly off-topic but these two things changed my life).

[1] https://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Ach...

[2] https://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/05/10-tips-for-colleg...

That google guy who wrote the book disagrees:

https://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Ach...

p.s. book is worth read IMO.

This is very good book teaching about mediation in a geeks way: https://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Ach...

Highly recommended.

Asking a book to change one's life within the course of a year seems like a tall order.

That said I recommend Chade-Meng Tan's 'Search Inside Yourself'[0].

Chade-Meng Tan began his career at Google as software engineer and later transitioned to teach a course – that this book describes – on emotional intelligence, mindfulness, and self-awareness. Allegedly, the course was quite popular at Google. I highly recommend the book.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achi...

I really recommend you read this book http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achi...

Written by a google engineer for other engineers. TLDR: practicing meditation gives you the ability to react to stress and anxiety before it blows up.

I found the OP very interesting because they are essentially trying to delivery some of the benefits of mindful practices via a technical means.

I've tried quite a few things and the most useful thing for me has been https://www.headspace.com/ . It's "daily" guided meditation (that after not too long is barely guided). The narrator's voice is really good, not too hippie, very calming. Everything is pleasant and well-designed.

This was also pretty good, if you'd rather read a book: http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achi...

First comment on NH ever for me - because I really think meditation can be the answer to your problem. I read this book about a year ago - Search Inside Yourself (http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achi...). I started practicing meditation - maybe a couple of times a week only and more whenever i am stressed out. It has helped me deal with all kinds of stress and i am more focused then ever before.

This book was written by one of early Google engineers who has learned meditation and created a class that he has taught to thousands of Google employees. Unlike much of other writing or classes on meditation this one is written in plain language and cites lots of neuro research. It is not even that long.

So go read first half of this book, practice it for 3 months and then reevaluate.

Depending on your definition of "no bullshit", this might be relevant :

http://www.amazon.com/Search-Inside-Yourself-Unexpected-Achi...

This is a mindfullness meditation guide in disguise. It is clearly geared toward "down-to-earth" readers (being written by an early google engineer), and stocked with references to neuroscience and psychology studies.

That still leaves open the debate about the validity, relevance, variety and trustworthiness of the sources - which I'm unfortunately quite unequiped to tackle. I don't know if the book has had to be debunked.

And I would not blame anyone for the "Google Kool-Aid hipster zealot fad" gut reaction ;)