Books
Recommended Reading
Students and clients often want to do more reading and investigation into yoga or meditation. These are the books that I most often refer them to. They are also the books that I most often turn to for my own reference.
Books on Meditation and Relaxation Techniques
Books on Yoga
Meditation and Relaxation Techniques
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Beyond the Relaxation Response: How to Harness the Healing Power of Your Personal Beliefs In this follow-up to The Relaxation Response Benson concludes that combining meditation with faith in a healing power, either inside or outside the self, is even more powerful in combating stress. This highly rated book clearly conveys the power of mental strategies in influencing health and the healing process. |
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Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness Kabat-Zinn blends his personal story with compelling and practical guidance for self-healing. He encourages mindful awareness as a safe haven where we can restore ourselves and rest in harmony, tranquility, creativity and joyfulness in the current moment, not in some hoped for future time. |
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Full-Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness The program of the stress reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center invites the reader to embark upon a journey of self-development, self-discovery, learning and healing. Originally developed to help persons with life-threatening illness, the program has been thoroughly researched and found to be useful in reducing stress and increasing health and wellbeing. |
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The Long Road Turns to Joy: A Guide to Walking Meditation For those who struggle with sitting still for meditation, this simple book offers a wonderful alternative: walking meditation. Practical techniques guide the reader to use this most ordinary of daily activities to deepen one’s mindful awareness of the present moment, increase relaxation and concentration, and reduce stress. A classic on walking meditation. |
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The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation A Vietnamese Buddhist monk’s lucid and simple guide to Eastern meditation practices. It is filled with anecdotes and practical exercises which demonstrate that opportunities for mindfulness exist in every moment. |
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A Path With Heart: A Guide through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life Since 1974, Kornfield has been teaching Westerners how to integrate Eastern teaching into their daily lives. Through generous story-telling and unmitigated warmth, Kornfield presents this excellent guidebook on living with attentiveness, meditation and compassion. |
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Peace Is Every Step: the Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life The deceptively simple practices of Peace Is Every Step encourage the reader to work for peace in the world as he or she continues to work on sustaining inner peace by turning the ‘mindless’ into the mindful. |
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The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment Tolle’s message is simple: living in the now is the truest path to happiness and enlightenment. He shares ideas about personal integration with uncommon eloquence and a deep understanding of the human condition. A spiritual guidebook that has the potential to inspire the reader to live more fully in the present. |
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Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations and Exercises From The Power of Now This manual makes an excellent companion guide to Tolle’s The Power of Now and is rich in exercises and meditations to help readers get out of their minds so they can live more peacefully in their bodies. |
The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook This fifth edition self-help classic offers many self-assessment tools and calming techniques to help overcome anxiety and promote physical and emotional wellbeing. It presents a comprehensive look at stress, its physical manifestations and the multiple ways it can be managed. Chapters on breathing, relaxation, meditation, thought stopping, stress management, time management, assertiveness training, and body awareness offer the reader focused approaches to dealing with the many varieties of stress. |
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Back Care Basics: A Doctor’s Gentle Yoga Program for Back and Neck Pain Relief This clearly written book has helped many people free themselves of chronic back and neck pain. Dr. Schatz offers simple, practical techniques to correct alignment problems, cope with stress, and help you become more aware of the early warning signs of painful flare-ups. I use many of her techniques with my clients who are in pain. |
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B.K.S. Iyengar Yoga: The Path to Holistic Health This definitive resource on the Iyengar system by yoga master, B.K.S.Iyengar, is illustrated with color photographs and filled with detailed instructions for postures in all levels of difficulty. The strength of this book is its photographs and texts, which illustrate and explain how to perform yoga postures correctly and safely and outline the health benefits of all postures. Includes sections on: props that help beginner develop the necessary flexibility and strength; yoga therapy; and a 20-week course that slowly fosters and develops muscle tone, flexibility and inner peace. |
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Moving Toward Balance: Eight Weeks of Yoga with Rodney Yee Internationally renowned yoga instructor Rodney Yee offers yoga practitioners a two-month regimen that they can adopt as a home practice. Anatomy lessons, advice on breathing, photographs and detailed directions enhance this friendly guide. Easy to follow, clearly written. |
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The New Yoga For People Over 50: A Comprehensive Guide for Midlife and Older Beginners Using the Iyengar system of precise bodily alignment, this fully illustrated book teaches how to begin and maintain a yoga program for increasing the health of every system of the body. Not just for those over 50! This is a useful book for beginners at any age. |
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Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga For Stressful Times Experience the best rest of your life with restorative yoga. Relax and Renew contains a general sequence of supported yoga poses and breathing methods to heal and counter the effects of chronic stress, as well as programs for back pain, headaches, insomnia, jet lag, and breathing problems. There is a special section for women during menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause as well as a guide to using props and a section on resources. Comprehensive and well-illustrated. |
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Thirty Essential Yoga Poses: For Beginning Students and Their Teachers Judith Lasater draws on her wealth of yoga practice and teaching experience as well as her training as a physical therapist to present this inclusive guidebook for beginning students. Sequences are presented with photographic charts for easy visual reference; resources for further study are included. |
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The Woman’s Book of Yoga and Health: A Lifelong Guide to Wellness Sparrowe, former editor of Yoga Journal, and Walden, a widely respected senior teacher, have created this well-illustrated book which focuses on specific postures and sequences for women. Included are health-enhancing yoga sequences for bringing balance to the body, chapters on befriending the body, honoring the menstrual cycle, pregnancy, dealing with difficult emotions and aging. |
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Yoga, The Iyengar Way: The New Definitive Illustrated Guide A comprehensive, practical, and authoritative guide to the method developed by B.K.S. Iyengar. Provides 100 key postures with detailed step-by-step instructions and photographs. |
