Book picks similar to
The Psoas Book by Liz Koch
health
yoga
non-fiction
body
Body Kindness: Transform Your Health from the Inside Out—and Never Say Diet Again
Rebecca Scritchfield - 2016
One indicates happiness, the other tracks how you feel about your body. If you’re like millions of people, the lines do not intersect. But what if they did?This practical, inspirational, and visually lively book shows you how to create a healthier and happier life by treating yourself with compassion rather than shame. It shows the way to a sense of well-being attained by understanding how to love, connect, and care for yourself—and that includes your mind as well as your body.Body Kindness is based on four principles.WHAT YOU DO: the choices you make about food, exercise, sleep, and moreHOW YOU FEEL: befriending your emotions and standing up to the unhelpful voice in your headWHO YOU ARE: goal-setting based on your personal valuesWHERE YOU BELONG: body-loving support from people and communities that help you create a meaningful lifeWith mind and body exercises to keep your energy spiraling up and prompts to help you identify what YOU really want and care about, Body Kindness helps you let go of things you can't control and embrace the things you can by finding the workable, daily steps that fit you best. Think of it as the anti-diet book that leads to a more joyful and meaningful life!
Deep Listening: A Healing Practice to Calm Your Body, Clear Your Mind, and Open Your Heart
Jillian Pransky - 2017
For much of her life, she subscribed to a relentless work hard/play hard mentality, burying parts of herself beneath the pursuit of busy-ness and accomplishment. It wasn’t until a devastating personal loss and health crisis thrust her into suffocating anxiety that she stopped racing around. As she began to pause and examine her actions and emotions, she found herself able to unlock deeply seated tension in her mind and body. Since then, Pransky has been devoted to studying and teaching mindfulness practices, deep relaxation, and compassionate listening.In Deep Listening, Pransky presents her signature Calm Body, Clear Mind, Open Heart program—a 10-step journey of self-exploration that she’s taught around the world. Derived from the techniques that healed her, the practice of Deep Listening invites you to pay close attention to your body, mind, and heart. You’re taught how to tune inward and relax into a state of openness, ease, and clarity. This is the new frontier in integrative wellness—mindfulness designed for healing.Pransky doesn’t ask you to “be your best self,” or “do more!” She asks you to “be here” and “do less.” She guides you gently through the stages of Deep Listening, from being present and noticing your tension to welcoming what you discover with softness and compassion. She integrates tools like guided meditations, journaling prompts, and restorative yoga poses to help you regard yourself with kindness and curiosity. Immersing yourself in the practice of Deep Listening will allow you to nurture your own well-being.
The Genius of Flexibility: The Smart Way to Stretch and Strengthen Your Body
Bob Cooley - 2005
The Program: THE MERIDIAN FLEXIBILITY SYSTEM® provides stretches for 16 unique muscle groups with physiological and psychological benefits.
Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing
Caroline Myss - 1996
Based on fifteen years of research into energy medicine, Dr. Myss's work shows how every illness corresponds to a pattern of emotional and psychological stresses, beliefs, and attitudes that have influenced corresponding areas of the human body. Anatomy of the Spirit also presents Dr. Myss's breakthrough model of the body's seven centers of spiritual and physical power, in which she synthesizes the ancient wisdom of three spiritual traditions-the Hindu chakras, the Christian sacraments, and the Kabbalah's Tree of Life-to demonstrate the seven stages through which everyone must pass in the search for higher consciousness and spiritual maturity. With this model, Dr. Myss shows how you can develop your own latent powers of intuition as you simultaneously cultivate your personal power and spiritual growth.By teaching you to see your body and spirit in a new way, Anatomy of the Spirit provides you with the tools for spiritual maturity and physical wholeness that will change your life.
Learn to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Self-Discovery and Fulfillment
David Fontana - 1999
Shows how to develop a personal meditation style through twenty-three step-by-step exercises that can lead to enhanced creativity and a secure sense of place.
Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha
Tara Brach - 2000
It doesn’t take much--just hearing of someone else’s accomplishments, being criticized, getting into an argument, making a mistake at work--to make us feel that we are not okay. Beginning to understand how our lives have become ensnared in this trance of unworthiness is our first step toward reconnecting with who we really are and what it means to live fully. --from Radical AcceptanceRadical Acceptance“Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book. This suffering emerges in crippling self-judgments and conflicts in our relationships, in addictions and perfectionism, in loneliness and overwork--all the forces that keep our lives constricted and unfulfilled. Radical Acceptance offers a path to freedom, including the day-to-day practical guidance developed over Dr. Brach’s twenty years of work with therapy clients and Buddhist students.Writing with great warmth and clarity, Tara Brach brings her teachings alive through personal stories and case histories, fresh interpretations of Buddhist tales, and guided meditations. Step by step, she leads us to trust our innate goodness, showing how we can develop the balance of clear-sightedness and compassion that is the essence of Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance does not mean self-indulgence or passivity. Instead it empowers genuine change: healing fear and shame and helping to build loving, authentic relationships. When we stop being at war with ourselves, we are free to live fully every precious moment of our lives.From the Hardcover edition.
The Practice of Natural Movement: Reclaim Power, Health, and Freedom
Erwan Le Corre - 2014
It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Wild animals simply move the way nature intended, and they become powerful, healthy, and free in the process. So why should it be any different for us? We have become "zoo-humans," separated from nature and living movement-impoverished, unnatural lifestyles. As a result, we are suffering physically, mentally, and spiritually. Exercise has become artificial and boring—a chore, if not a punishment. We are training parts of our bodies, not the whole, and we have lost our drive for movement. What we need is not a better understanding of exercise physiology or more variety in fitness programs and modalities. What we need is simplicity, meaning, purpose, inspiration, and enjoyment. We need to get back to natural movement. In The Practice of Natural Movement, Le Corre demonstrates our innate and versatile ability to perform practical and adaptable movements. With countless techniques and movement variations, as well as strategies for practicing anytime and anywhere, he will inspire you to build a naturally strong and flexible body and to form yourself anew into a mindful, skillful, and physically capable human being.
Easy Strength
Dan John - 2011
And that is absolutely true in every sport and every game. It's a rare track meet that you don't hear someone rhapsodize about training numbers and then see him or her lose badly. In football, we have a phrase for this: 'Looks like Tarzan, plays like Jane.' Pavel and my goal in writing this book is to clarify the role and impact of strength training in fitness, sports, and life. We are committed to clarity, even though at times, it's impossible to navigate the sea of conflicting information regarding the lifting sports. Pavel's experience and research provides grounding and a confidence to "Do this!" as we often joke.What can you expect from reading this book?.You will learn some history. You will discover that almost everything discussed in the fitness industry has been done before-and often better..You will reexamine the role of strength training as it applies to sport. Doing so may serve as the greatest timesaver in history!.You will find that, like a medical doctor, a strength coach must be committed above all to "Do no harm"-a pledge that's often disregarded..You will be exposed to the concept of systematic education and the need to build an athlete (or anyone!) using some kind of intelligent approach..You will be exposed to another educational system-along with a way to harness its powers-that will give you clarity into all the various fitness, health, and nutritional information being tossed at you daily..You will discover the tools for teaching an entire team to improve in a sport-and why these great tools may be of no value to you in your training!.You will be exposed to what the best in sports do in the weight
Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving
Pete Walker - 2013
I also wrote it from the viewpoint of someone who has discovered many silver linings in the long, windy, bumpy road of recovering from Cptsd. I felt encouraged to write this book because of thousands of e-mail responses to the articles on my website that repeatedly expressed gratitude for the helpfulness of my work. An often echoed comment sounded like this: At last someone gets it. I can see now that I am not bad, defective or crazy…or alone! The causes of Cptsd range from severe neglect to monstrous abuse. Many survivors grow up in houses that are not homes – in families that are as loveless as orphanages and sometimes as dangerous. If you felt unwanted, unliked, rejected, hated and/or despised for a lengthy portion of your childhood, trauma may be deeply engrained in your mind, soul and body. This book is a practical, user-friendly self-help guide to recovering from the lingering effects of childhood trauma, and to achieving a rich and fulfilling life. It is copiously illustrated with examples of my own and my clients’ journeys of recovering. This book is also for those who do not have Cptsd but want to understand and help a loved one who does. This book also contains an overview of the tasks of recovering and a great many practical tools and techniques for recovering from childhood trauma. It extensively elaborates on all the recovery concepts explained on my website, and many more. However, unlike the articles on my website, it is oriented toward the layperson. As such, much of the psychological jargon and dense concentration of concepts in the website articles has been replaced with expanded and easier to follow explanations. Moreover, many principles that were only sketched out in the articles are explained in much greater detail. A great deal of new material is also explored. Key concepts of the book include managing emotional flashbacks, understanding the four different types of trauma survivors, differentiating the outer critic from the inner critic, healing the abandonment depression that come from emotional abandonment and self-abandonment, self-reparenting and reparenting by committee, and deconstructing the hierarchy of self-injuring responses that childhood trauma forces survivors to adopt. The book also functions as a map to help you understand the somewhat linear progression of recovery, to help you identify what you have already accomplished, and to help you figure out what is best to work on and prioritize now. This in turn also serves to help you identify the signs of your recovery and to develop reasonable expectations about the rate of your recovery. I hope this map will guide you to heal in a way that helps you to become an unflinching source of kindness and self-compassion for yourself, and that out of that journey you will find at least one other human being who will reciprocally love you well enough in that way.
When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress
Gabor Maté - 2003
With great compassion and erudition, Gabor Maté demystifies medical science and, as he did in Scattered Minds, invites us all to be our own health advocates.
Yoga for Everyone: 50 Poses for Every Type of Body
Dianne Bondy - 2019
It's time for the opposite--for readers to demand that yoga conform to their individual needs. It's time for a yoga book to reflect the broader population that would benefit from a yoga practice geared toward them. It's time for Yoga for Everyone!This book offers yoga for every type of body: those who are big, small, elderly, pregnant, or of various physical abilities--everyone. No matter who you are or what you look like or what your abilities are, you can do all 50 poses in this book. The variations to classic poses in this book will also allow you to perform all 10 sequences, which combine different poses into one singular experience and focus on specific physical and mental benefits.So forget what you've heard. Yoga isn't just for the privileged few. It's meant to be enjoyed by everybody and every body. Yes, you can do yoga--and Yoga for Everyone will show you how!---------------------------------"Dianne is a wonderful teacher with a voice and a message that's absolutely needed not only in the yoga community but also in the world. I'd go as far as to say that this book is the most important yoga book released this year. This book smashes the myth of the thin, able-bodied yogi and provides a safe introduction to the art of yoga in a way that's accessible to all. Yoga is for everyone!"-- Rachel Brathen, author of Yoga Girl "Dianne Bondy is truly a leader in the yoga world. Her unwavering commitment to accessibility and inclusiveness is demonstrated perfectly in her new book, Yoga for Everyone. This is a great book for yoga teachers and yoga students of all levels. If you're intimated by the conventional imagery of yoga, if you think yoga isn't for you, or if you're a teacher looking for tools to make the practice approachable for everyone, this book will be a valuable tool. Yoga is an ancient science of the soul, and Dianne's work aims to bring these universal teachings to different kinds of folks with the heart and wisdom that's a vital part of her contribution to the world."-- Kino MacGregor, yoga instructor"Dianne is a force, a personal inspiration, and someone who knows her power and uses it to uplift others. Western yoga and wellness spaces are severely lacking safety and inclusion. Oftentimes, walking into those spaces can feel more marginalizing than healing. Dianne's book is full of resources anybody can use--teacher or student--to create an accessible and welcoming space. The visual representation of diverse bodies and abilities provides a needed reminder that yoga in indeed for all of us. Thank you, Dianne!"-- Dana Falsetti, yoga instructor
Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha
Satyananda Saraswati - 1969
Since it's first publication by the Bihar School of yoga in 1969 it has been reprinted thirteen times and translated into many languages. It is the main reference text used by Yoga teachers and students of Bihar Yoga/Satyananda Yoga within the International Yoga Movenet, and many other traditions as well.This comprehensive text provides clear illustrations. step by step directions and details of chakra awareness. It guides the practitioner or teacher from the simplest to the most advanced practices of hatha yoga system. A therapeutic index is provided for use by doctors and yoga therapists incorporating recent information from research into yoga. This edition successfully brings the exposition of yoga practices to the standard of a university text.
Do Your Om Thing: Bending Yoga Tradition to Fit Your Modern Life
Rebecca Pacheco - 2015
Have you ever wondered how would it feel to bring that experience of awareness and calm out of the yoga studio and into your everyday life? After all, we know that practicing yoga can give us a leaner body and more sculpted limbs, but isn't its most important benefit the way it makes us feel?In Do Your Om Thing, master yoga teacher and creator of the popular blog OmGal.com Rebecca Pacheco shows us that the true practice of yoga is about much more than achieving the perfect headstand or withstanding an hour-long class in a room heated to 100 degrees. "Yoga is not about performance," she tells us, "it's about practice, on your mat and in your life. If you want to get better at anything what should you do? Practice. Confidence, compassion, awareness, joy—if you want more of these—and who doesn't?—yoga offers the skills to practice them."In her warm, personal, and often hilarious prose, Rebecca translates yogic philosophy for its twenty-first-century devotees, making ancient principles and philosophy feel accessible, relatable, and genuinely rooted in the world in which we live today. And by illuminating how the guiding principles of yoga apply to our modern lives, Rebecca shows us that the true power of a yoga practice is not physical transformation, but mental and spiritual liberation.
How to Breathe: 25 Simple Practices for Calm, Joy, and Resilience
Ashley Neese - 2019
The book first introduces you to the foundations of breathwork, outlining the research-supported benefits of the practice and explaining how the breath relates to emotions and resilience. Neese then offers 25 customized practices that she has created for clients over the last decade. Each practice features an introduction explaining the origin, benefits, and purpose of the breathwork, followed by step-by-step instructions and post-practice notes. With transporting photography and modern design, How to Breathe shows how small exercises can have a huge impact on daily health and happiness.