Health and Wellbeing Reads

Phosphorescence: On Awe, Wonder and Things That Sustain you When the World Goes Dark – By Julia Baird

A beautiful, intimate and inspiring investigation into how we can find and nurture within ourselves that essential quality of internal happiness – the ‘light within’ that Julia Baird calls ‘phosphorescence’ – which will sustain us even through the darkest times.

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing – By Marie Kondo

Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles?

Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes tidying to a whole new level, promising that if you properly simplify and organize your home once, you’ll never have to do it again. Most methods advocate a room-by-room or little-by-little approach, which doom you to pick away at your piles of stuff forever. The KonMari Method, with its revolutionary category-by-category system, leads to lasting results. In fact, none of Kondo’s clients have lapsed (and she still has a three-month waiting list).

With detailed guidance for determining which items in your house “spark joy” (and which don’t), this international bestseller featuring Tokyo’s newest lifestyle phenomenon will help you clear your clutter and enjoy the unique magic of a tidy home—and the calm, motivated mindset it can inspire.

Outer Order Inner Calm: Declutter & Organize to Make More Room for Happiness – By Gretchen Rubin

Ask yourself: DO I NEED IT? DO I LOVE IT? DO I USE IT?

With 150 concrete clutter-clearing ideas, insights, strategies, and sometimes surprising tips, Gretchen tackles the key challenges of creating outer order by explaining how to ‘make choices’, ‘create order’, ‘know yourself’, ‘cultivate useful habits’ and, of course, how to ‘add beauty’.

At home, at work, and in life, when we get our possessions under control, we can create a more serene environment. With a sense of fun, and a clear idea of what’s realistic for most people, Gretchen suggests dozens of manageable steps to help us achieve the lives we yearn for.

How to Fight: By Thich Nhat Hanh

Learn how to bring love and compassion into an angry situation with this pocket size guide to life. Many of us don’t know how to handle strong emotions and our distorted perceptions can make us feel angry or filled with despair. here, the father of mindfulness teaches us to look deeply at the root of our anger. To see clearly, we must calm down. He shows us how, when insight is born, we will be free.

Anatomy of the Spirit: The Seven Stages of Power and Healing – By Caroline Myss

Dr Myss sets out a unique program designed to promote spontaneous physical, emotional and spiritual healing. She explores the links between spiritual and emotional stresses and the specific illnesses these create in different parts of the human energy system.

The Loudest Guest: How to Change and Control your Relationship with Fear – By Amy Silver

The Loudest Guest, explored in this book is fear. Author and psychologist, Dr Amy Silver, believes that if you reduce the control that fear has on you, you take back control of your life. Fear is merely a guest in your mind, albeit a noisy one, and you are the host.

How to Live a Good Life: Soulful Stories, Surprising Science and Practical Wisdom – By Jonathan Fields

A practical and provocative modern day manual for the pursuit of a life well lived. Everything you’ll discover is immediately actionable and subject to validation through your own experience.

The Gifts of Imperfection: By Brene Brown

What transforms this book from words on a page to effective daily practice s are the ten guideposts to wholehearted living. The guideposts not only help us understand the practices that will allow us to change our lives and families, they also walk us through the unattainable and sabotaging expectations that get in the way.

The Happiness Project: By Cretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin’s year-long experiment to discover how to create true happiness. Drawing on cutting-edge science, classical philosophy, and real-world examples, Rubin delivers an engaging, eminently relatable chronicle of transformation. This special 10th Anniversary edition features a Conversation with Gretchen Rubin, Happiness Project Stories, a guide to creating your own happiness project, a list of dozens of free resources, and more.

The Sleep Revolution: Transforming Your Life, One Night at a Time – By Arianna Huffington

We are in the midst of a sleep deprivation crisis, and this has profound consequences – on our health, our job performance, our relationships and our happiness. In this book, Arianna Huffington boldly asserts that what is needed is nothing short of a sleep revolution. Only by renewing our relationship with sleep can we take back control of our lives.

Through a sweeping, scientifically rigorous and deeply personal exploration of sleep from all angles, Arianna delves into the new golden age of sleep science that reveals the vital role sleep plays in our every waking moment and every aspect of our health – from weight gain, diabetes, and heart disease to cancer and Alzheimer’s. She also offers a range of recommendations and tips from leading scientists on how we can achieve better and more restorative sleep and harness its incredible power.

Cant Sleep? Who better to deliver the recipe for a peaceful night based on groundbreaking sleep science: Fast Asleep – By Dr Michael MosleyIn Fast Asleep, Dr Michael Mosley explains what happens when we sleep, what triggers common sleep problems and why standard advice rarely works.

Prone to insomnia, he has taken part in numerous sleep experiments and tested every remedy going. The result is a radical, four-week program, based on the latest science, designed to help you re-establish a healthy sleep pattern in record time.

With plenty of surprising advice including tips for teenagers, people working night shifts and those prone to jet lag, plus recipes which will boost your deep sleep by improving your gut microbiome, Fast Asleep provides the tools you need to sleep better, reduce stress and feel happier.

Eat Move Sleep – By Tom Rath

In Eat Move Sleep, #1 New York Times bestselling author Tom Rath delivers a book that will improve your health for years to come.  Eat Move sleep reveals his greatest passion and expertise.

Quietly managing a serious illness for more than 20 years, Tom has assembled a wide range of information on the impact of eating, moving, and sleeping. Written in his classic conversational style, Eat Move Sleep features the most proven and practical ideas from his research. This remarkably quick read offers advice that is comprehensive yet simple and often counterintuitive but always credible.

Eat Move Sleep will help you make good decisions automatically in all three of these interconnected areas. With every bite you take, you will make better choices. You will move a lot more than you do today. And you will sleep better than you have in years.

More than a book, Eat Move Sleep is a new way to live.

Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation for Everyday Life – By Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness is considered the heart of Buddhist meditation. But its essence is universal and of deep practical benefit to everyone. Jon Kabat-Zinn maps out a simple path for cultivating mindfulness in our lives and awakening us to the unique beauty and possibilities of each present moment. He shows us how this simple meditation technique can enable us to be truly in touch with where we already are, so that we can be fully aware at all times.

How to Connect: By Thich Nhat Hanh

One breath, one step is all we need to feel at home and comfortable in the here and now. In this enlightening series, Thich Nhat Hanh shares the essential foundations of mindful practice and mediation. From unlocking the connection to our inner self, forging deeper and more meaningful bonds with those around us to discovering a true sense of oneness with our natural work,. this is the essential guide to help you master the art of connection.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones – By James Clear

No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving – every day. James Clear, one of the leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviours that lead to remarkable results.

Happy Teachers Change the World: A Guide for Cultivating Mindfulness in Education – By Thich Nhat Hanh & Katherine Weare

The instructions in Happy Teachers Change the World are offered as basic practices taught by Thich Nhat Hanh, followed by guidance from educators using these practices in their classrooms, with ample in class interpretations, activities, tips, and instructions, Woven throughout are stories from members of the Plum Village community around the world who are applying these teachings in their own lives and educational contexts.

The Miracle of Mindfulness: The Classic Guide – By Thich Nhat Hanh

Thich Nhat Hanh explains how to acquire the skills of mindfulness. Once we have these skills, we can sloe our lives down and discover how to live in the moment – even simple acts like washing the dishes or drinking a cup of tea may be transformed into acts of meditation. Gentle anecdotes and practical exercises help us to arrive at a greater self-understanding and peacefulness.

The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness through Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness – Hugh Van Cuylenburg

Hugh van Cuylenburg was a primary school teacher volunteering in northern India when he had a life-changing realisation: despite the underprivileged community the children were from, they were remarkably positive. By contrast, back in Australia Hugh knew that all too many children struggled with depression, social anxieties and mental illness. His own little sister had been ravaged by anorexia nervosa.

How was it that young people he knew at home, who had food, shelter, friends and a loving family, struggled with their mental health, while these kids seemed so contented and resilient? He set about finding the answer and in time came to recognise the key traits and behaviours these children possessed were gratitude, empathy and mindfulness. Hugh explains how we can all get the tools we need to live a happier and more fulfilling life.

How to Relax: By Thich Nhat Hanh

How to relax guides you in achieving deep relaxation, controlling stress, and renewing mental clarity. With sections on healing, relief from non-stop thinking, transforming unpleasant sounds, solitude and more. How to relax included meditations you can do to help you achieve the benefits of relaxation no matter where you are. 

Mindfulness 150 Little Ways to make a Big Change: 

Over 150 inspirational tips and quotes inside show the way to living, caring, confident, mindful and happy life. 

The Blue Zones Kitchen: 100 Recipes to Live to 100 – Dan Buettner

Building on decades of research, longevity, expert Dan Buettner has gathered 100 recipes inspired by the Blue Zones, home to the healthiest and happiest communities in the world. Each dish uses ingredients and cooking methods proven to increase longevity, wellness and mental health. Complemented by mouth watering photography, the recipes also include lifestyle tips, including the best time to eat dinner an proper portion sizes, thereby improving your health, extending your  life and filling your kitchen with happiness.

The Whole Body Microbiome: How to Harness Microbes – Inside and Out for Lifelong Health – By Dr Brett Finlay and Dr Jessica Finlay

In this eye opening new take on the significance of the microbiome, the Finlay’s offer empowering knowledge, surprising myth busters, and simple yet effective daily tips that prove “dirty” is the new clean. Whether it’s by changing your diet, enjoying a glass of wine, getting more exercise, trading your antibacterial gel for good old soap and water, or spending time outdoors, you can change your life today, so that you and your microbes live longer and prosper.

The New Optimum Nutrition Bible: By Patrick Holford

The New Optimum Nutrition Bible presents the latest research from Britain’s top nutrition expert Patrick Holford. You’ll learn to analyse your symptoms, lifestyle, and eating habits in order to formulate a personal idea eating plan and vitamin regimen. Once optimum nutrition is in place, you can look forward to a consistent high level of energy, emotional balance, alertness, physical fitness, resilience against infectious diseases, and longevity.

The New Hot: Taking on the Menopause With Attitude and Style – By Meg Mathews

The New Hot is Meg Mathews no-holds-barred guide to menopause designed to entertain and empower women in equal measure. It’s full of Meg’s personal insights as well as the latest information and advice from a wide range of menopause and lifestyle experts. Together they cover a wide range of issues, including:

– What the hell is going on? (a meno-audit of the 34 possible symptoms and how to start taking control)
– Hey Doc! I need help (how to ask your GP for the right support and treatment for you)
– Eat to beat your hormones (food as medicine, gut health, supplements and a meno-friendly eating plan)
– Look alive (skin-saving beauty and style tips)
– Vagina SOS (all about ‘down-there’ healthcare and two pelvic floor exercises that really help)
– To HRT or not HRT? That is the question (the hot topic of benefits, options, risks and who can have it)
– Menopause au naturel (managing menopause symptoms naturally when HRT isn’t for you)
– Let’s get physical (why exercise matters, how to do it and a 5-minute workout)
– Meg’s meno-dictionary (a quick guide to medical terms your doctor might use

Women’s Wellness Wisdom: What Every Woman Needs to Know – By Dr Libby Weaver

In this unique approach to wellness., designed to specifically address the issues that women of all ages face, readers gain a deep understanding of their body and what it needs in order to not just survive but thrive.

Wellbeing The Five Essential Elements – By Tom Rath & Jim Harter

Wellbeing: The Five Essential Elements provides you with a holistic view of what contributes to your wellbeing over a lifetime. Written in a conversational style, this book is filled with fascinating research and innovative ideas for boosting your wellbeing in each of these five areas. As a complement to the book, you’ll have the opportunity to use Gallup’s online Wellbeing Finder to track and improve your wellbeing. By the time you finish reading this book, you’ll have a better understanding of what makes life worthwhile. This will enable you to enjoy each day and get more out of your life while boosting the wellbeing of your friends, family members, colleagues and others in your community.

Wellness Leadership – Creating Supportive environments for healthier and more product employees by Judd Allen

Wellness Leadership explains how you can help your work group become a healthy culture. Your leadership will make it possible for employees to finally be able to achieve difficult wellness goals such as losing weight, getting fit, quitting smoking, overcoming addictions, avoiding injury, reducing stress, following medical advice and enjoying the good life. Such changes save lives, cut medical costs, enhance productivity, improve morale and add new vitality to your work group. This guidebook is for managers, wellness committee members and all those interested in effectively promoting healthier and more productive lifestyles.

Workplace Wellness That Works – By Laura Putnam

Workplace Wellness That Works provides a fresh perspective on how to promote employee wellbeing in the workplace. In addressing the interconnectivity between wellness and organisational culture, this book shows you how to integrate wellness into your existing employee development strategy in more creative, humane, and effective ways. Based on the latest research and backed by real-world examples and case studies, this guide provides employers with the tools they need to start making a difference in their employees’ health and happiness and promoting an overall culture of wellbeing throughout the organisation. You’ll find concrete, actionable advice for tackling the massive obstacle of behavioural change and learn how to design and implement an approach that can most benefit your organisation.

Promoting wellness is a good idea. Giving employees the inspiration and tools they need to make changes in their lifestyles is a great idea. But the billion-dollar question is: what do they want, what do they need, and how do we implement programs to help them without causing more harm than good? Workplace Wellness That Works shows you how to assess your organisation’s needs and craft a plan that actually benefits employees.

• Build an effective platform for wellbeing
• Empower employees to make better choices
• Design and deliver the strategy that your organisation needs
• Drive quantifiable change through more creative implementation

Today’s workplace wellness industry represents a miasma of competing trends, making it nearly impossible to come away with tangible solutions for real-world implementation. Harnessing a broader learning and development framework, Workplace Wellness That Works skips the fads and shows you how to design a smarter strategy that truly makes a difference in employees’ lives—and your company’s bottom line.