Search Results for: Mindfulness for Health

Anxiety disorders can rob you of independence, happiness and self-esteem. In this book, the authors describe simple self-help techniques and practical tips derived from years of helping people with anxiety problems. This book enables the reader to: assess what changes you need to make; create a personal recovery programme; set realistic goals and work towards them; change unhelpful ways of thinking; and, take back control of your life. The techniques can be used for all forms of anxiety: phobias (including Agoraphobia and Social Phobia), Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Panic Attacks and General Anxiety Disorder. However bad your anxiety, and however long you’ve had it, you can recover. Using true life examples from anxiety sufferers, this book shows you just how you can do it.

Contents: Who this Book is for; Acknowledgements; Dedication; 1 The Black Hole of Anxiety; PART ONE; 2. Are You Sure it’s Anxiety? 3. Depression; 4. Anxiety Disorders; 5. Helping Yourself to Overcome Anxiety; 6. Two Key Skills: Goal Setting and Relaxation; 7. Causes of Anxiety Disorders; 8. The Connection between Mind, Body and Spirit; 9. Taking Exercise to Help Anxiety; 10 Examining Your Diet; 11. More about Diet; 12. Understanding Alcohol, Nicotine and Other Drugs; 13. Your Sleep Patterns; 14. Positive Experiences; 15. Achieving Life Balance and Managing Your Time; 16. Review – Lifestyle Changes; PART TWO; 17. Taking the Next Step; 18. Examining Anxiety Behaviours; 19. What Do You Want to Achieve? 20 Looking at Change and Risk; 21. How Your Anxiety Affects Your Friends and Family; 22. Learning about Exposure Work; 23. Planning Your Exposure; 24 Exposure for OCD; 25. Working with a Helper; 26. Exposure – Coping Skills; 27. Exposure – Your First Goal; 28. Plateaux and Setbacks; PART THREE; 29. Anxiety on Trial; 30. Let the Trial Commence; 31. The First Two Charges Against Anxiety; 32. Anxiety is Charged with Distorting Your Personality; 33. Anxiety is Charged with Extreme Thinking; 34 Anxiety is Charged with Selective Attention; 35 The Final Charges Against Anxiety; 36. Another Approach – Logical Argument; 37. The Verdict; 38. Other Techniques to Use to Change Your Thinking; 39. More about Thought Processes; 40. The Vicious Circle; 41. Working on Your Negative Core Beliefs; 42. Changing Your Negative Core Beliefs; 43. Summary of Work with Core Beliefs; PART FOUR; 44. Why Me?; 45. Dealing with Withheld Feelings; 46. Assertiveness; 47. Self-confidence and Self-esteem; 48. Problems and Decisions; 49. The Meaning of Life; 50. Dealing with Maintenance Factors – Summary; 51. Finale; 52. It’s Okay to be Me; Extra Information; Appendix 1; Appendix 2; Appendix 3; Index.

Western therapeutic approaches have often put considerable emphasis on building self-esteem and enhancing a positive sense of self. This book challenges the assumption behind this approach. Most of us protect ourselves against being fully alive. Because we fear loss and pain, we escape by withdrawing from experiences and distracting ourselves with amusements. We fall into habitual ways of acting and limit our experience to the familiar. We create an identity which we think of as a ‘self’, and in so doing imprison our life-energy.

For 2500 years Buddhism has developed an understanding of the way that we can easily fall into a deluded view. It has shown how the mind clings to false perceptions and tries to create permanence out of an ever changing world. Written by a practising therapist and committed Buddhist, this book explores the practical relevance of Buddhist teachings on psychology to our everyday experience. By letting go of our attachment to self, we open ourselves to full engagement with life and with others. We step out of our self-made prison.

Since 1980 the Bristol Cancer Centre has offered new hope to tens of thousands of people diagnosed with cancer. At Bristol treatment is based on the restoration of calm and in adopting a lifestyle to strengthen mind and body. The Bristol Approach sets out to reduce fear and increase understanding, to improve health and energy levels through dietary and visualisation methods, meditation and relaxation, that work hand in hand with medical treatment.
To reach those who cannot go to Bristol this first handbook gives a clear, informative background to the centre and its philosophy, describes what former patients have found here, and offers a practical guide to applying Bristol Approach techniques.

‘The Bristol Cancer Help Centre saved my life. At a time of sheer desperation, confusion and panic I was given a clear way to re-find my health and am now living a happier, stronger, more fulfilled life than ever before.’
Sheila Hancock, former patient.

By 1812, when Napoleon invaded Russia, his Empire covered most of Europe. The invasion was to be its crowning glory. Instead it ended in disaster, defeat and humiliation, and marked the beginning of his decline.

Here, with a brilliant use of sources and gripping narrative, the French campaign is followed day to day within the most intimate context of the Emperor’s state of mind, bad health and indecision. As the invasion heads towards its climax among the flames of Moscow the great disaster that ensued can clearly be seen as the product of innumerable mistakes and omissions.

The greatest military leader of modern times lost his army not by folly but by default; the Russians saved their country more by accident than by strategy.

Now available in one tremendous volume is a compelling and remarkable history spanning over two thousand years of the greatest unsolved mysteries known to mankind, including:

Atlantis • the Bermuda Triangle • Bigfoot • crop circles • crystal skulls • the Holy Shroud of Turin • the Hope Diamond and other cursed jewels • the mystery of the Mary Celeste • mummies and their curses • poltergeists • sea monsters • spontaneous human combustion • Tunguska and other falling meteors • vampires • zombies

Includes a mystery never examined before – the missing maps of Atlantis
Colin Wilson is an acknowledged expert in the field of the unexplained and is in constant demand by the media
Colin has a track record of proven successes with the Mammoth series, including, most recently, The Mammoth Book of Murder

A successful career move involves people matching their ideas, passions and goals to the needs of employers and vice versa. Full of practical examples of what works and what doesn’t in the world of work, this book explains what employers need and how you can place yourself to deliver it. Whether you are looking for a new career or want to move to a different job, here you will find out how to know yourself, identify what you have to sell, structure your job search, target your CV, network successfully, respond to advertisements, conduct interviews and get the best out of agencies. Plenty of sample letters and CVs, exercises and useful addresses will make sure that your next career move is a move in the right direction.

Contents: Acknowledgements; Preface to the fourth edition; Introduction; 1. What do you really want to do?; 2. Your main marketing tool; 3. The best way – networking; 4. The next best way; 5. Helping others to help you; 6. Meeting of minds; 7. The negotiation game; 8. In the new position; Appendices; Bibliography; Useful addresses; Index.

Overcoming app now available via iTunes and the Google Play Store.

Depression and low mood affect a significant portion of the general public. Sadly, those with depression often experience other problems such as low self-esteem, relationship problems and sleeping problems. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is an extremely effective treatment for depression and low mood and is used widely in the NHS.
The companion book to the popular Complete CBT Guide for Anxiety, this practical self-help book contains essential information about the nature of depression and covers a range of topics including insomnia, relationships, bipolar disorder and postnatal depression. It also provides information on some of the latest treatments such as Mindfulness, Behavioural Activation and Compassion-Focused Therapy.
The chapters on individual techniques or problem areas are written by the leading experts in that field.
Includes individual chapters on:
Low self-esteem by Melanie Fennell
Insomnia and sleep problems by Colin Espie
Rumination by Ed Watkins
Relationship problems by Donald Baucom
Bipolar Disorder by Warren Mansell
Depression in the elderly – Ken Laidlaw
Postnatal Depression – Peter Cooper & Lynne Murray
Depression and ill health – Stirling Moorey
Behavioural Activation by David Richards
Compassion – Paul Gilbert
Mindfulness – Willem Kuyken & Halley Cohen
Imagery – Ann Hackmann & Jon Wheatley

Many of us in the modern world are unhappier than they need to be, and mindfulness offers a solution that works. Science and clinical practice have only recently ‘discovered’ the profound potential of mindfulness-based practices for increasing our wellbeing. However, mindfulness has been practised for thousands of years as an attention-training technique that can reduce physical and psychological suffering and enhance health and happiness. Derived from ancient contemplative practices in many cultures and wisdom traditions, mindfulness practice simply involves directing our attention to what is (reality), rather than to what isn’t (our ideas of reality).

Mindfulness for Life is written by two experts on mindfulness with many years of personal and clinical experience. The authors have come together to provide both a medical and a psychological perspective on mindfulness and related conditions such as depression and substance abuse. The result is a book that translates the scientific principles underlying mindfulness into a simple, practical and accessible life manual.

There has been an upsurge in books, television programmes, films and websites exploring the reality or otherwise of the spirit world. Not since the founding of The Ghost Club in 1862 and the Society for Psychical Research in 1882 has ghost hunting been so popular. Television and the internet, in particular, have fueled this new level of interest, creating a modern media phenomenon that spans the globe. But while the demand for information is high, good information remains scarce.

A Brief Guide to Ghost Hunting leads us through the process of ghost hunting, from initially weighing the first report, to choosing equipment, and investigating and identifying the phenomena, with an analysis of the best places to go looking, methods of contacting the spirit world, how to explain paranormal activity and, crucially, how to survive the encounter.

However, it is also a book about ghost hunting itself, drawing on 130 years of research in the cavernous archives of the Society for Psychical Research and even older history to find the earliest ghost stories. A Ghost Hunting Survey makes use of interviews with those billing themselves as ghost hunters to find out their views, motivations and experiences.

New and original research makes use of statistics to map the nebulous world of apparitions while a Preliminary Survey of Hauntings offers an analysis of 923 reported phenomena from 263 locations across the UK.

This is, as far as possible, an objective presentation of ghosts and ghost hunting. It is no wonder that mainstream science largely refuses to deal with the subject: it is too complicated. Without trying to convince you of any viewpoint, this book is intended to help you understand more.

New mysteries, as well as variations on recurring ones, continue to surface on a weekly basis around the globe, from showers of frogs over Hungary to birds falling to earth in Arkansas. This compendious round-up of unexplained phenomena examines everything from the experiments being done with the Large Hadron Collider to classic maritime mysteries involving inexplicably missing crews, via UFOs, mediums, cryptozoology, panics, paranoia and a universe proving stranger in fact than we’d imagined.

Over 400 entries from more than 100 contributors cover everything from the incidents and witnesses involved to the concepts at stake and experts’ personal position statements. Entries range from alien abductions, the Fantasy Prone hypothesis and JAL Flight no 1628, to the Lakenheath-Bentwaters Episode, mind control by aliens and Roswell. The contributors include: Isaac Asimov, Jerome Clark, Erich von Daniken, Peter Davenport, Hilary Evans, Timothy Good, Marvin Kottmeyer, Jenny Randles, Carl Sagan, Whitley Streiber and Jacques Vallee. There are over 300 images, eyewitness drawings and photographs.

Mindfulness is a way of paying attention that originates in Eastern meditation traditions but is increasingly discussed and practised in Western culture. It is usually defined as focusing one’s complete attention on present-moment experiences in a non-judgemental and accepting way. Buddhist traditions suggest that the cultivation of mindfulness through the practice of meditation reduces suffering and cultivates positive qualities, such as insight, wisdom, compassion and equanimity.

In recent years, the Western mental health community has adapted mindfulness meditation practices for use in medical and mental health settings, and several interventions based on mindfulness training are now widely available. Those with the best scientific support include mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT), dialectical behavior therapy (DBT), and acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). These treatments can be applied to a wide range of problems, disorders and populations and the evidence increasingly supports their efficacy.

Practising Happiness is the first self-help book to integrate the wisdom, skills and practices available from the four leading evidence-based mindfulness treatments (MBSR, MBCT, DBT and ACT).

FREE audio content and guided meditations are available at http://www.practising-happiness.co.uk

Humanity has always used symbols-material objects used to denote difficult, abstract concepts-to describe thoughts and feelings, or to protect secret truths from common knowledge.

This concise A-Z guide is a fascinating work of reference that brings to light all the symbols and symbolisms of the world, many aspects of which have been lost to time, including Freemasonry, the Kabbalah, the tarot, astrology, alchemy, Zoroastrianism, and ancient cultures from Egypt to Japan.

In a world where finding even ten minutes to ‘do nothing’ can be difficult, the benefits of meditation can be profound. Meditation is simply a way of giving our brains a well-deserved break and can actually help our brains to function healthily and happily.

This beautifully illustrated guide is an inspiring and practical book which shows you how to meditate without the need for uncomfortable lotus positions or prayer beads! With his typical gentle and insightful humour, Matthew’s guide to meditation will enable to you to feel more present, more youthful, have more energy and greater concentration, improve your mood and sleep more soundly.

From Most Haunted to Buffy the Vampire Slayer, from Underworld to Twilight, from Doom to Resident Evil, The Brief Guide to the Supernatural goes in search of the unearthly with unexpected results; combining history, science, psychology and myth he explores the allure of the paranormal – why so many people still believe in ghosts and angels – as well as the many ways people have tried to contact and record the impossible.

Many of us have a tendency to measure our self-worth by comparing ourselves to others. But when we fail to reach our own, families, communities or societies ‘ideals’ this often results in feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and low mood. We may become self-critical, experience shame and a sense of being different from others.

Although an improvement in ‘self-esteem’ is what we may feel we want this is not necessarily what we need. This is because self-esteem is often associated with times when things are going well but can fail us when things do not go to plan. In contrast self-confidence, built from self-compassion, can help us when things are going well and make us more resilient when things are difficult.

This book uses the ideas and practices of Compassion Focused Therapy to help build self-confidence. Attention is also paid to difficulties that often come hand in hand with lack of self-confidence such as anxiety, depression, substance use and anger.

We’ve all seen the ads on TV and in magazines: “50 is the new 30!” or “60 is the new 40!” A nice sentiment to be sure, but CEO of AARP Jo Ann Jenkins disagrees. 50 is 50, and she, for one, likes the look of it.

In Disrupt Aging, Jenkins focuses on three core areas–health, wealth, and self–to show us how to embrace opportunities and change the way we look at getting older. Here, she chronicles her own journey and that of others who are making their mark as disrupters to show readers how we can be active, healthy, and happy as we get older. Through this powerful and engaging narrative, she touches on all the important issues facing people 50+ today, from caregiving and mindful living to building age-friendly communities and making our money last.

This is a book for all the makers and doers who have a desire to continue exploring possibilities, to celebrate discovery over decline, and to seek out opportunities to live the best life there is.

Life,personally and professionally,is lived to the fullest as a mosaic, encompassing a rich and complex set of diverse experiences that provide purpose, meaning, happiness, and success.Yet, the pressures of modern society push us toward narrower focus and deeper specialization in our lives and careers. Our pursuit of specific expertise risks us becoming isolated from those different from us our lack of shared experience fosters suspicion and conflict. Today we have businesspeople and government officials who persistently distrust and demonize each other a fortunate swath of society with professional and financial security, increasingly isolated from those left behind and community leaders who struggle to relate to and connect with the communities they serve. In every walk of life we have allowed ourselves to be pushed into self-defining cocoons from which it is difficult to break out.Nick Lovegrove’s compelling vision provides the way out of this contemporary trap. He supplies vivid portraits of those who get it right (such as Paul Farmer, the physician whose broad and imaginative choices bring health and hope to the world’s poorest people) and those who get it deeply wrong (such as Jeffrey Skilling, the former CEO of Enron) and connects their experiences with a blueprint of six skills, a moral compass, transferrable skills, contextual intelligence, prepared mind, intellectual thread, and extended network. The Mosaic Principle will help you to succeed in an ever-changing, more complex, and diverse world, and build a more remarkable and fulfilling life.

Brazen, uproarious, slyly prescriptive, and always entertaining, Ali Adler is a sex and relationship guru who knows what women want. As a gay woman, she has both the equipment and the experience to give straight men (and the women who love them) advice on both how to get more sex and how to get this job done right. In her day job as a comedy writer and TV producer, Ali is sometimes the only woman in a room full of comedy writers. She became legendary for offering frank, sometimes insightful, often bossy reality checks and for translating female sexuality into words a man could understand. In her book, How to F*ck a Woman – 20 percent explicit instructions, 80 percent relationship advice, and 100 percent hilarious – she brings together essential advice for men (even the ones who insist they could write this book) and the women who want their lovers to truly understand them, both mind and body. With illustrations by New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly.

In Beyond the Cleavage , beauty icon and award-winning actress Raquel Welch talks, woman to woman, about her views on all that comes with being a member of the female sex. And, with the luxury of hindsight and benefit of experience, she has plenty to share, speaking her mind freely on the subjects of love, style, health, body image, career, family, forgiveness, aging, sex, and coming of age. Raquel invites readers to look back on her life, from her childhood dominated by a volatile father her first love, marriage, and divorce her early struggles as a single working mother in Hollywood her battles for roles and respect as an actress and her daring decision never to lie about her age. Looking forward, she offers women a compass to guide them at every crossroad of life, from menopause through the empty-nest years, to dating younger men and beyond. Deeply personal (Welch wrote every word herself- no ghostwriter), Beyond the Cleavage is Raquel Welch’s gift to every woman who longs to look and feel her best, and be at peace with herself.

Are you one of the thirty percent of women who has difficulties with orgasm? Do you want to experience greater sexual satisfaction? In easy to read language, The Elusive Orgasm provides a full overview of women’s sexual pleasure, covering sexual triggers, stages of arousal, the power of mind, and how women differ from men. Longtime clinical psychologist and sex therapist Dr. Vivienne Cass reveals all the causes of women’s orgasm difficulties , and how to remedy them. In The Elusive Orgasm, you’ll learn: What an orgasm is How the clitoris is much more than “a little button” The stages of a woman’s arousal The five types of orgasm difficulties The twenty-five causes of those difficulties Self-awareness via quizzes and questionnaires Sexual and non-sexual changes to help you orgasm Step-by-step plans to help you and your partner An extraordinarily thorough, all-inclusive exploration of every possible reason why women have orgasm challenges, The Elusive Orgasm gives you the tools to discover the source of your own orgasm difficulties, along with straightforward remedies.

The Alexander Technique (AT) is a remarkably simple but powerful method for learning to skillfully control how your brain and body interact, allowing you to better coordinate your movements while increasing the accuracy of your mind’s thoughts and perceptions. Now, in How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live , leading Alexander Technique master teacher Missy Vineyard sheds a completely fresh light on this revolutionary method and, in the process, offers path-breaking insight into the mind-body connection. Vineyard thoroughly explains and teaches the central skills of the AT through simple self-experiments, and she offers engaging stories of students in their lessons to show its effective application across a range of disciplines, including the performing arts, athletics, health, psychology, and education. How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live introduces us to a world within ourselves that we know surprisingly little about- and thereby helps us to understand why we often cannot do what we should be able to do, why we harm ourselves with chronic tension and anxiety, and why our thoughts often seem beyond our control. Vineyard is also the first AT teacher to draw on cutting-edge research in neuroscience and to synthesize those findings with AT theories and techniques. She fully illuminates the benefits to be reaped by mastery of the Alexander Technique, which include: Release from acute or chronic physical pain Enhanced mental attention and focus Reduced anxiety Improved balance and coordination Relief from tension and stress Increased ease and efficiency performing precise movement skills

To anyone who is not a new mother, babyhood may seem like a nanosecond long–a quick blip on the radar of life. But to a new mother, it feels never-ending. A child is born, a thunderstorm comes barreling in, and the idea of buckling down to raise said baby seems like an eternity–and feels totally impossible. How will I ever make it through?

This is especially true for women today, who are raised to foster strong personal and professional identities. Becoming a mother is a complete restructuring of one’s life, and there’s a necessary psychic reckoning that gets buried under dirty diapers and lost amid the nipple shields and mashed peas.

Loaded with unfettered support from a mom who has been through it, You Are a F*cking Awesome Mom offers a welcome acknowledgement that motherhood is a mind f*ck–and that women deserve more than trite oversimplifying and sugarcoating about the miracles of child-rearing. It is not a parenting book, it’s a mama book, one with an irresistible, irreverent voice, sharp insight, and some welcome doses of “truth salad,” plus a few experts thrown in for good measure. It’s You Are a Badass for new mothers, and a long-awaited life raft for all the mothers drowning in maternal confusion and terror.

In the last decade, studies have reported a drastic rise in teens who experience anxiety, panic, and an inability to cope with the pressures of daily life. As mental health challenges become less stigmatized, young people are more likely than ever before to know how to identify their feelings and ask for help. Even celebrity teen icons like Selena Gomez are “coming out” as anxiety sufferers.

Zen Teen addresses this epidemic with powerful coping mechanisms and creative tools-including two fun quizzes, tons of engaging exercises and a cool playlist-designed for the teenage mind. With topics like “The Unique Genius of You” and “Rock-Star Rituals,” Tanya Carroll Richardson prompts teens to get calm by engaging in mindful tasks, like identifying gurus, tapping into warrior energy, mastering meditation, practicing realistic optimism, becoming a self-awareness samurai, learning to surrender, discovering personal dharma, finding a spirit animal, expressing challenging emotions, living loving-kindness, protecting the planet, and making vision boards that embrace “the Tao of Cool.”

Smart and fresh, Zen Teen helps teens thrive while navigating and managing the pressures of everyday life.