10 Best Books to Read for Learning Meditation!

 Meditation is the process of redirecting your thoughts to calm your mind. It may also improve your overall quality of life.

1. Tiny Buddha: Simple Wisdom for Life’s Hard Questions – Lori Deschene

Created from the input of many readers of the Tiny Buddha blog, this book offers many insights to ponder.

Deschene and others explore change, happiness, fate, pain, and more. It also includes tips and exercises.

2. 365 Tao: Daily Meditations – Ming-Dao Deng

The simple yet profound wisdom contained in this book is evergreen.

The backdrop of Chinese philosophy, with its centuries-old insights, is a delight to readers.

3. Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy – Sarah Ban Breathnach

“The authentic self is the soul made visible.” This is a mere taste of what you can expect from this collection of essays.

While its focus is on the spiritual journey of women, men also can find truth here.

Be sure to read, “Standing knee-deep in a river and dying of thirst.”

4. The Book of Life: Daily Meditations with Krishnamurti – Jiddu Krishnamurti

Taken from his 1000+ lectures and writings, this book of daily mediations opens your soul.

The meditations go beyond the mind’s interpretation of the world and ask us to see our inner self.

Krishnamurti explains that we are the totality of human existence. This classic book is timeless. There’s something for everyone seeking to live more fully.

5. How to Meditate: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Mind – Pema Chödrön

If you are having a difficult time getting your practice started, then this is a great book to set you on your path.

Chödrön’s down-to-earth manner is refreshing. The book is comprehensive touching on technique and how to manage thoughts and emotions.

Pay particular attention to the “Six points of posture” chapter. The book includes exercises.

6.Moments of Mindfulness: Daily Inspiration – Thich Nhat Hanh

This book combines Nhat Hanh’s quotes with simple meditation instruction and blank journal pages. The messages center on peace, love, understanding, compassion, and insight.

Each week you focus on one meditation.

 

The design of the book allows one to start on any day of the week. Here is an example of meditation you can think about this week:

“There is no distinction between the one who gives, the one who receives, and the gift itself.”

7. You Are Here: Discovering the Magic of the Present Moment – Thich Nhat Hanh

In a brief 141 pages, Nhat Hanh distills what you need to know about practicing mindfulness.

He begins by explaining that happiness and peace are possible. It is easy to believe that this is not true when we are at war with ourselves.

In the final chapter, he brings everything together and tells us how to become truly alive. This book is available as an audiobook.

8. Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond – Julian Daizan Skinner

Another book in the Rinzai tradition, this one offers an easy-to-follow guide.

Skinner provides a precise sequence of techniques, including the use of koans.

Written in a down-to-earth style, this book keeps your attention.

9. Guided Meditation: Six Essential Practices to Cultivate Love, Awareness, and Wisdom – Jack Kornfield

Kornfield has many guided meditation audiobooks.

His voice is soothing and at the same time, engaging.

There is an emphasis on sensations, particularly related to the breath.

10. Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program – Sharon Salzberg

If you are a beginner, check out this number one Kindle bestseller.

Salzberg walks you through a 28-day insight meditation program. You will learn the how and why of meditation, breathing, and about sensations.

She also discusses dealing with difficult emotions and loving-kindness meditation. It is available free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers. Be aware that it includes audio files that might be inaccessible.

This is the best books you're looking for. So what are you waiting for? Try it now.

8 Best Bloggers to Follow for Making Healthy Bread

 A lower-calorie diet that included whole grains, such as whole wheat bread, lost more belly fat than those who ate only refined grains, such as white bread and white rice.

"A slice of bread eaten is a million times more nourishing than a loaf of bread imagined"

1. The Fresh Loaf - Floyd Mann

The Fresh Loaf Handbook is a distillation of some of the baking wisdom of The Fresh Loaf community. The Fresh Loaf, a community for amateur artisan bakers and bread enthusiasts! Its mission is to share the love of bread: recipes, lessons, reviews, and so on.

thefreshloaf.com/

2.  Breadtopia - Eric Rusch

Tt’s all about reviving an artful alternative to the bland, nutrition-less, mass-produced food on grocery store shelves. And make no mistake: using inexpensive, but premium raw ingredients and a nominal amount of baking gear, you can make the best loaf of bread you’ve ever had — at home in your kitchen — with a total labor investment of about ten minutes.

breadtopia.com/blog

3. The Brotdoc  Wolfgang Schüttler

That's pretty clever. Beer, especially dark stout beer, is not necessarily so great for the usual raising agents due to the alcohol content, it can inhibit the rising of the dough. The recipe works right away and the bread is divine.

brotdoc.com

4. Reddit | Breadit - Inquebiss

Breadit is a community for anything related to making homemade bread!

 reddit.com/r/Breadit

5.  Bakery Bits - Dan Lepard

Baking bread the artisan way. At BakeryBits you will find all you need to start or indulge your passion for real bread! A wealth of recipes from BakeryBits showing how to make all manner of breads using yeast or sourdough and how to get the most of our equipment and ingredients.

bakerybits.co.uk

6. The Perfect Loaf Maurizio

Bread is Something that tastes exceptional when the baker takes their time to prepare it, to let the yeast and bacteria work with the flour and water to create something transcendent.The Perfect Loaf is a work in progress designed to help make you a better baker. It’s continuously evolving because I’m constantly evolving, learning more as a baker.

theperfectloaf.com/

7. The Knead For Bread

All nutritional supplements give the body the nutrients it lacks. It is known that in order to have good health, we must follow a balanced diet and we practice. The body needs all the nutrients to function properly. The whole procedure is simple but sometimes takes a long time.

thekneadforbread.com/

8. Bake from Scratch Breads - Lisa Ludwinski

Bake from Scratch is a seasonal publication from Hoffman Media. Create beautiful, artisan baked goods, discover the world's best bakeries, movers, and shakers in today's baking culture, products that should be in every baker's pantry, new cookbooks, and more.

bakefromscratch.com/

Switching white bread for a more healthful version is a quick and easy way to improve the diet.

 

10 Best Relaxation Techniques for Busy People

It’s important to find the right relaxation technique that works for you and brings you a sense of ease, release from tension and hopefully physiological benefits into the bargain.

Here is a list of 10 Best Relaxation Techniques for Busy People.

 

1.   Progressive muscle relaxation was developed by the physician Edmund Jacobson in the early 1920s. Jacobson argued that since muscle tension accompanies anxiety, one can reduce anxiety by learning how to relax the muscular tension. Recent research has demonstrated many long-term benefits of progressive muscle relaxation, including decreased blood pressure, heart rate and even headaches. Those of you who find exercise a good way to ‘switch off’ may also find progressive muscle relaxation techniques suit you. If you would like to give this a try, Tamar has an intro to this here.

2.   Guided imagery has been component of ancient medicine, religions and cultures for thousands of years, but was first presented in an academic context in 1982. It involves exploring the image of a safe, comfortable place (specific to you) using all your senses and linking aspects of this image to your relaxed physiological state. There is research demonstrating its benefits for a multitude of health concerns including depression, stress reduction, asthma and pain management. Take a 20-minute Guided Imagery trial with Tamar here.

3.   Diaphragmatic breathing, ‘belly’ or deep breathing is marked by expansion of the abdomen rather than the chest when breathing. Daily practice in inhaling and exhaling more deeply and slowly will have immediate benefits to calm you down, and help you feel more grounded and ready to tackle the next thing in your day. The longer-term benefits are a reduction in anxiety, asthma and hypertension. If you can master concentrating on your breathing, then meditation and mindfulness might also be beneficial. You can try Tamar’s process here, or alternatively we recommend Breathe2Relax.

4.   Autogenic training is a self-relaxation procedure in which the individual learns a set of directions/exercises that command the body to relax and control breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and body temperature. There are six standard exercises that – with the use of visual imagination and verbal cues – make the body feel warm, heavy, and relaxed. Studies have shown the technique to positively impact tension headache/migraine, mild-to moderate hypertension, coronary heart disease, asthma pain disorders, anxiety disorders, mild to-moderate depression/dysthymia, and some sleep disorders. There is a practice to experiment with here.

5.   Relaxation response is a simple practice that, once learned, takes 10 to 20 minutes a day to achieve relaxation. It involves: a) repetition of a word, sound, prayer, thought, phrase or muscular movement, through which concentration is achieved b) passive return to the repetition when other thoughts intrude. During the process, the body moves to a state of physiological relaxation, where blood pressure, heart rate, digestive functioning and hormonal levels return to their normal state. The originator of the approach was Dr Herbert Benson and he explains how to do it here.

6.   Biofeedback is a process that teaches an individual how to change physiological activity in their body for the purposes of improving health and performance. Precise instruments measure physiological activity such as brainwaves, heart function, breathing, muscle activity, and skin temperature. These instruments rapidly and accurately ‘feed back’ information to the individual. The presentation of this information — often in conjunction with changes in thinking, emotions, and behaviour — supports desired physiological changes. Over time, these changes can endure without continued use of an instrument. Biofeedback has been used successfully for the treatment of headaches, the control of high blood pressure and type II diabetes and cardiac disease. This technique is done with a trained practitioner and equipment. For more information see here. Audrey has been experimenting with one bit of tech using EEG neurofeedback during meditation and enjoying this!

7.   Mindfulness-based stress reduction reduction is a structured 8-week group program employing mindfulness meditation to alleviate mental and physical suffering, associated with physical, psychosomatic and psychiatric disorders. It has been used successfully in the management of anxiety and depression, diabetes, in chronic disease and in chronic pain. It may also improve patients‘ psychosocial adjustment to cancer and offer psychological and health benefits to cancer patients. A more detailed explanation can be found here.

8.   Emotional Freedom Technique has been shown to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress. Once the distress is reduced or removed, the body can often rebalance itself, and accelerate healing. It involves the person tapping on nine acupoints on their body, while speaking aloud a specific, meaningful short phrase. According to the literature, this acupressure paired with imaginal exposure reduces brain hyperarousal and counter-conditions anxiety and traumatic memories. It can result in reduced pain perception and has been shown to be an effective intervention for some phobias, anxiety and depression, psychological trauma and PTSD. You can find out more here.

9.   Transcendental Meditation is a simple, psychophysiological stress reduction procedure, introduced to the West by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a scholar of the ancient Vedic tradition of India. The technique is simple and easily learned (from a practitioner): in effect it is a 20 minute practice twice daily, sitting with your eyes closed and repeating a ‘mantra’ – a meaningless sequence of sounds specific to you – to promote a natural shift of awareness to a wakeful but deeply restful state. Studies show that regular practice of TM has a positive impact on the brain functioning and attention and builds resilience to stressful situations. To watch a video explaining the technique in more detail, go here.

10.                   Cognitive behavioural therapy is an established, evidence based structured and time-limited psychological treatment for several health conditions such as anxiety disorders, major depression, and health problems such as insomnia, headache, and tinnitus among others. The individual works with a trained practitioner to gain awareness of detrimental beliefs and thought habits and replace these with life-enhancing thoughts and beliefs. Further information can be found here.

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8 Best Art Therapy Resources You Should Check Out Today

 Art therapy has also been used to help individuals, particularly young children, develop social skills and raise self-confidence. It’s a fantastic addition within positive psychology as, at its core, it seeks to help individuals overcome emotional or psychological challenges to achieve a greater sense of personal well being.

"Art is a wound turned into light." ~ Georges Braque

Check this 8 Best Art Therapy Resources You Should Check Out  Today!

1. Psychology Today: The Healing Arts: 

Cathy Malchiodi posts topics about advocacy, art therapy intervention ideas, and more. 

2. Dancing Mindfulness Expressive Arts: 

Jamie Marich is a dancer, musician, performer, writer, clinical counsellor, and registered expressive arts therapist. Her ultimate mission: bringing the art and joy of healing to others.

3. Art Therapy: 

If you want to find out the basics of this practice, as well as find books, ideas, and other resources, this is the blog to check out.

4. Expressive Art Inspirations: 

Counselor and expressive arts educator Shelley Klammer shares personal examples of creative practices for the healing of emotional pain through expressive art. 

5. Colors of Play: 

This blog provides creative art and play therapy for children, adolescents and young adults with special needs, autistic spectrum disorders, behavioural problems, and children coping with loss & bereavement and emotional & traumatic issues.

6. Art of Life with Mairead: 

This transpersonal art therapist writes about mental health research, community awareness, music, movement, art, and comedy.

7. The Painting Experience: 

This blog's contributors are educators, counselors, artists, activists, meditators and mavericks.

8. Mullumbimby Art Therapy: 

This Creative Arts Therapist has fused her passion, interests and life experiences into her own unique approach to ar therapy.