Practical Health

As the first medical director and attending psychiatrist at the World Trade Center Mental Health Program, Dr. Sue Varma worked directly with civilian and first-responder survivors in the aftermath of 9/11. There, she met people at every point of the stress and trauma continuum. She saw devastation and stagnancy as much as she saw amazing resilience and growth. She asked herself: how do some people survive, even thrive, despite profound challenges? And how can we optimize the things we have control over, while buffering ourselves from stress?

Sri Swami Rama teaches that holistic health depends on answering two questions: “What is the purpose in life?” and “How are you going to achieve that purpose?” Each of us already possesses the tools to regulate our own well-being, but through the wisdom in this book you can learn how to achieve optimum clarity and health through cleansing and nourishing, exercise and stillness, and understanding your emotions. A Practical Guide to Holistic Health is the perfect book for those who feel stuck, or are simply looking to improve the quality of their lives in a holistic way.

The difficulty and cost of training psychotherapists properly is well known. It is far easier to provide a series of classes while ignoring the more challenging personal components of training. Despite the fact that the therapist's self-insight and emotional maturity are critical for successful psychotherapy, knowledge and technical skills are the focus of most training programs. As a result, the therapist's personal growth is either marginalized or ignored. The Making of a Therapist counters this trend by offering therapists a personal account of this important inner journey.

The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga brings spirituality back to yoga. It shows how the Seven Spiritual Laws play a crucial role in yoga's path to enlightenment while providing listeners with a wealth of meditation techniques, mantras, breathing exercises, and yoga poses. Whether a newcomer to yoga or an experienced practitioner, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Yoga is a portal to yoga's deeper spiritual dimension and a beautiful step to a happier, more harmonious, and more abundant life.

Here, Dr. Lawrence Peltz, who has worked as an addiction psychiatrist for more than two decades, draws from his clinical experience and on the techniques of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) to explain the fundamental dynamics of addiction and the stages of the recovery process, and also gives us specific mindfulness exercises to support recovery.

When children "push our buttons", we find ourselves reacting in ways that are far from our principles, often further inflaming a situation. When our children are at their worst, they need us to be at our best - or as close to it as we can be. Educator and family counselor Kim John Payne, author of Simplicity Parenting, offers techniques that simply and directly shift these damaging patterns in communication and parental behavior.

What is meditation? Why practice it? Which techniques are best? How do I do it? The answers to these often-asked questions are contained in this down-to-earth book, making it of enormous value for anyone who wishes to begin and maintain a meditation practice. Written by a Western Buddhist nun with solid experience in both the practice and teaching of meditation, How to Meditate contains a wealth of practical advice on a variety of authentic techniques.

Reiki Healing for Beginners shows new reiki practitioners how to put theory into practice and start healing body, mind, and soul. This application-focused beginner's handbook explores basic reiki techniques, and teaches you how to heal over 100 common emotional and physical ailments with reiki. Through clear, step-by-step instructions this practical guide is the perfect companion for new reiki practitioners who learn by doing.

Neuroscientific discoveries have begun to illuminate the workings of the active brain in intricate detail. In fact, sometimes it seems that in order to be a cutting-edge therapist, not only do you need knowledge of traditional psychotherapeutic models, but a solid understanding of the role the brain plays as well. But theory is never enough. You also need to know how to apply the theories to work with actual clients during sessions.

When Your Teen Has an Eating Disorder will empower you to help your teen using a unique, family-based treatment (FBT) approach. With this guide, you'll learn to respectfully and lovingly oversee your teen's nutritional rehabilitation, which includes helping to normalize eating behaviors, managing meals, expanding food flexibility, teaching independent and intuitive eating habits, and using coping strategies and recovery skills to prevent relapse.

Unstressable applies Mo Gawdat's brilliant engineering mind and Alice Law's psychology and stress-management expertise to the 'stress pandemic'. This follow up to bestselling Solve For Happy will show you that chronic stress is not an unavoidable part of modern life, but a predictable - and therefore preventable - response, often as much to do with negative thought patterns as external circumstances. Mo explains how he made it through the most acutely stressful times in his own life, and the book touches on the idea of post-traumatic growth.

Over the past several years, Dr Becky Kennedy—known to her followers as “Dr Becky”—has been sparking a parenting revolution. Millions of parents, tired of following advice that either doesn’t work or simply doesn’t feel good, have embraced Dr Becky’s empowering and effective approach, a model that prioritises connecting with our kids over correcting them.

Are you looking after yourself? For so for many of us, with so much to do and think about, self care - taking care of our mental, emotional, and physical health and well-being - often falls by the wayside. The Self-Care Handbook equips you to make positive, helpful choices for incorporating self-care into your life. It explains how to take responsibility for your own well being and provides ideas and practical advice on how you can better look after yourself.

The simple truth is that PTSD can be extremely debilitating - not just for the person who has experienced trauma firsthand, but for their partners, as well. And while there are many books written for those suffering from PTSD, there are few written for the people who love them. In Loving Someone with PTSD, renowned trauma expert Aphrodite Matsakis presents concrete skills and strategies for the partners of those with PTSD.

Your partner's attention deficit disorder (ADD) may not seem like a big deal at first, but eventually, the dynamics surrounding his or her impulsivity, forgetfulness, distractibility, and restlessness can really strain your relationship. You don't want to act like a parent, yet you may feel like you can't rely on your partner to get things done. Loving Someone with Attention Deficit Disorder is your guide to navigating a relationship with someone with ADD so you can create healthy boundaries while remaining sympathetic to your partner's symptoms.

Biofeedback is the process of training your body to control its involuntary actions, such as breathing and heart rate. Minor changes to these actions can significantly improve physical and emotional well-being. In Biofeedback and Mindfulness in Everyday Life, Harvard Medical School faculty member Inna Khazan pairs biofeedback techniques with mindfulness practice to address some of life's most common ailments - from anxiety and fear to stress and insomnia. 

This book provides a much-needed resource for family and friends of the more than five million American adults suffering from bipolar disorder. From psychotic behavior that requires medication to milder mood swings with disturbing ups and down, this book offers a warm and often humorous user-friend guide for coping with bipolar loved ones, colleagues, and friends. 

Expert hypnobirthing teacher and founder of The Positive Birth Company, Siobhan Miller has made it her mission to change the way women around the world approach and experience birth. Through her teaching she seeks to educate and empower women—and their birth partners—so that they can enjoy amazing and positive birth experiences, however they choose to bring their babies into the world. Siobhan debunks common myths about hypnobirthing and explains why she believes it can make every type of birth a better experience—from a water birth at home to an unplanned caesarean in theatre.

Mindfulness is growing in popularity as a technique which teaches us to appreciate our life.This Practical Guide explores how to listen to your body to reduce stress and anxiety in all areas of your life; how to focus better at work by becoming more aware of what is happening in the present, and how to enjoy life more by bringing mindfulness into everyday actions. Free of jargon but full of straightforward advice, case studies and step-by-step instructions, this is the perfect concise start to making you happier, more focused and stress-free.

Anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum is much more common than many people know, and yet there are so few resources available to struggling new moms. The Pregnancy and Postpartum Anxiety Workbook offers powerful strategies grounded in evidence-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to help you control your worry, panic, and anxiety.