6 books to read to be healthier / happier and less stressed: including Why We Sleep

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6 books to read to be healthier / happier and less stressed: including Why We Sleep

Why do we read? Reading reduces stress, helps us sleep better, gives us new ideas about ourselves and the world around us, and gives us a deeper understanding of our behaviors and directions in life. How about reading some of the most important physical and mental health books to become healthier, happier, and less stressed?

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Humans have resorted to human development books and lectures after World War I to help them overcome the psychological and life crises they experienced at the time. Winston Churchill was a self-development lecturer before he became involved in politics.

Perhaps the last years we live in are very similar to the post-war years due to the global changes we are going through, and the disaster of the Coronavirus (Covid 19) with its consequences, which prompted readers to resort to self-help books to overcome the psychological and material crises resulting from the new and strange situation, so their sales rates increased around the world.

In recent studies, researchers found that spending just six minutes a day reading an enjoyable book reduces stress levels by 68%, and other studies have found a strong link between not reading and depression, perhaps because books reduce feelings of loneliness and give you new perspectives on yourself and the world from There is an association between daily reading and good sleep, according to the University of Liverpool English professor; Josie Billington.

Learn about the most important physical and mental health books

After the world passed through the Covid-19 pandemic, scholars have noticed a rise in book sales in general, especially physical and mental health books geared to help lead a healthier life, and in general, people have turned to fantasy to get some relief and escape from reality.

And in this article, we bring you these 6 fun books, designed to help you become healthier, happier, and less stressed…


Stressed, Unstressed: Classic Poems to Ease the Mind

Stressed, Unstressed: Classic Poems to Ease the Mind
  • Writer (Editing): Jonathan Peet, Andrew Schumann, Paula Byrne, Sophie Ratcliffe
  • Publication year: 2016
  • Publisher in the original language: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Number of pages: 224
  • Book Category: Poetry
  • Rating on Goodreads: 3:92
  • Rating on Amazon: 4.5

This book is an anthology of modern and ancient poems by Horace, Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson, and others, compiled by Dr. Paula Byrne and Professor Sir Jonathan Butt, who run the Foundation for Biblical Therapy with others, to imprint a message in our minds about how to process our fears or when we simply want to fill our minds with different ideas. And more positive. The book is designed as an introduction to the ancient art of “book therapy”: reading for well-being. But did he succeed? The short answer is yes. How did he do this?

The book itself is divided into 12 sections, each containing many poems selected to address some of our most disturbing moods; Such as “sadness” or “loneness”.

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One of the most powerful suggestions in the book is to encourage him to read the poems out loud and immerse himself in their words. And here he harnesses not only the power of words but the power of your imagination as well. Recent neuroscience findings support this. Studies show that the simple act of imagining an empathy activates the calming and regulating component of emotion in the brain.

The poems are well-chosen to illustrate the alternatives to our current mood. The conclusion by Mark Williams that links the use of the book to the practice of mindfulness is very satisfying and complementary to the whole experience.

It’s impressive that all proceeds from sales have been donated to ReLit, a campaign to relieve stress and treat other mental health conditions through mindful reading. All physicians and patients can benefit from this book’s “immersion.”

6 books to read to be healthier, happier, and less stressed: including Why We Sleep


Maximize Your Metabolism: Lifelong Solutions to Lose Weight, Restore Energy, and Prevent Disease

Maximize Your Metabolism: Lifelong Solutions to Lose Weight, Restore Energy, and Prevent Disease
  • Author: Noel McLaren, Sunita Singh McLaren.
  • Publication year: 2021
  • Publishing house in the original language: Grand Central Publishing
  • Number of pages: 336
  • Category of the book: Self-help
  • Rating on Goodreads: 3.13
  • Rating on Amazon: 4.5

This book represents a revolutionary, sustainable, and scientific approach to help you lose weight, restore energy, clear your mind, and prevent disease.

The authors decide that each of us has a metabolism as unique as our fingerprints. Using the health and nutritional advice contained in it, your metabolism will change as you progress through life, shaping your mental and physical abilities.

However, one in four of us will have metabolic problems. Dr. Noel MacLaren, award-winning endocrinologist, and Sunita Singh MacLaren, medical anthropologist, share their new approach to Regulating Metabolism that combines health and behavioral practices to help balance your weight, energy, cognition, and abilities.

Imagine metabolism as a deceptive jigsaw. We all fall into one of four types of “metabolic personality,” based on the body’s levels of insulin sensitivity. Maximize Your Metabolism offers a comprehensive self-assessment test to reveal your answer.

Drawing on data from a person’s genetics, appetite signals, and mental resilience, this book will enable you to create a plan that is unique to your needs and will help you maintain your mental health and build a strong physique, including:

  • Enhance your cognitive abilities by limiting grains and fruits; The brain’s ability to absorb glucose declines from the late 40s onwards.
  • Optimize your weight by limiting the amount of simple carbohydrates versus complex carbohydrates that suits your type of metabolism.
  • Overcome constant insulin-related fatigue and increase your muscle energy efficiency through resistance and exercise.
  • Protect yourself from disease-causing internal infections by choosing the prebiotics found in artichokes, leeks and onions and avoiding certain “healthy” foods.

Dr. Noel MacLaren and Sunita Singh MacLaren have helped thousands of patients in their practice for over fifteen years, by reversing these metabolic imbalances. The book is packed with time-tested, specific tips, with over 30 healthy and delicious recipes.


Reasons to Stay Alive

Reasons to Stay Alive
  • Author: Matt Haig
  • Publication year: 2015
  • Publisher in the original language: Canongate Books
  • Number of pages: 264
  • Category of the book: Self-help
  • Rating on Goodreads: 4.13
  • Rating on Amazon: 4.8

When British author Matt Haig was 24, he began to suffer from severe depression. In his memoirs, he tells the story of how he learned to manage his mental health as well as exploring what helped him through the crisis: from literature to love, running, yoga, and – but above all – time.

With one in five people now suffering from depression at some point in their lives, the turmoil in public debates about mental health appears to be futile, making books like Matt Haig’s Anatomy of the Depression and Anxiety he experienced between the ages of 24 and 32 apt. Just like trying to get out of similar situations.

Haig describes the physical onset of his symptoms as “throbbing” in his head, “as if a butterfly were trapped inside”; When he returned home, the slight movement was a source of great panic.

Oddly enough, humorously pervades Haig’s writing of a list called Things To Think About During Your First Panic. It is followed by a list of things to think about during a thousand panic attacks; Other lists cover topics such as “things people say to a depressed person that they don’t say in other life-threatening situations” and “things that have happened to me that engender more empathy than depression.”

What worked for Haig were non-medical things; Like literature, love, running, yoga, travel, and, ultimately, time. He also discussed medications briefly. It is noteworthy that there is no discussion of treatment, presumably a route that Haig himself did not explore. Among the most influential passages in the book are three “Conversations Through Time”: dramatic dialogues in which “I Now” and “Then Me” assure that the fire in the brain will one day be extinguished and life will once again be full of promise.

The book is an individual and creative response to a profound crisis, and an explanation of what has pushed a human being away from the brink. The solutions you find in it are necessarily personal, but they aim, says Haig, to give hope to others in knowing themselves.


Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams

Why We Sleep: The New Science of Sleep and Dreams
  • Author: Matthew Walker
  • Publication year: 2017
  • Publisher in the original language: Penguin Random House
  • Number of pages: 368
  • Book Category: Scientific
  • Rating on Goodreads: 4.35
  • Rating on Amazon: 4.6

Considered “Why do we sleep?” The most important physical and mental health book to become healthier, happier, and less stressed is a book full of amazing information about the effects of lack of sleep. And Walker’s title is misleading – as he mentioned in the first pages – it suggests that there may be only one reason why we sleep. Sleep offers a panacea for a bewildering array of conditions that cause the slow decline of body and mental health.

One of the book’s real strengths is its illustration of the harm caused by our collective ignorance of the importance and complexity of sleep in our lives, and the difficulty many of us today have to sleep peacefully at night.

The book divides humans according to their natural sleeping inclinations into two broad groups: morning sparrows and night owls. Each group operates on different daily streaks, and there is nothing owls can do to become sparrows! Since work and study schedules greatly favor early risers; Owls are often forced to burn daily in the sun, contrary to the nature of their brains.

Thus, the greater health deterioration caused by lack of sleep affects owls, including higher rates of depression, anxiety, diabetes, cancer, heart attack, and stroke.

The writer stresses that the lack of sleep for seven hours a day exposes the vast majority of people to damages such as smoking or drinking alcohol. Permanent fatigue becomes the baseline. In the long run, this threatens mental efficiency and physical vitality and causes ill health.

The book carries a lively and realistic message about the centrality of sleep to the healthy development of young minds. And how starting school before 7.20 am is a disaster for teens’ mental health. And that there is substantial evidence that poor sleep is a factor in the onset of depression and schizophrenia.

In general, the tone is gentle, endearing, and reminiscent, and he is excellent at explaining complex neurological phenomena to the general readership. He sometimes gets involved in unwise wordplay, but Why We Sleep may save your life.

6 books to read to be healthier / happier and less stressed: including Why We Sleep


An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System

An Elegant Defense: The Extraordinary New Science of the Immune System
  • Author: Matt Rachel.
  • Publication year: 2020
  • Publisher in the original language: HarperCollins Publishers
  • Number of pages: 448
  • Book Category: Scientific
  • Rating on Goodreads: 4.04
  • Rating on Amazon: 4.5

The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked intense interest and big questions about the immune system. Why does the virus kill some people while having little or no effect on others even if they are of the same age and background? What happens inside the body when it is exposed to a new virus? And what happens when we are injected with the vaccine? What is herd immunity?

If you’re asking these kinds of questions in your head, you should read this book. The book was written before the pandemic, which means there’s nothing here about COVID-19 or the virus that causes it. However, it gives you everything you need to understand immunology.

The book tells the stories of four real people whose health challenges illustrate the features of the immune system, the most poignant of which is the story of the author’s friend Jason Greenstein, a street vendor diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. And while reading about the four people, you will absorb a lot of useful and interesting science.

For example, you’ll learn about all the key components of the immune response, the ways pathogens use to overpower our defenses, how stronger women’s immune systems lead to longer lives on average, how sleep, meditation, and exercise improve immune function, and why the pursuit of immortality is Foolish, and why following the “five-second rule” of eating food that falls on the floor is a healthy thing to do!

Most importantly, you will get a much better understanding of the enormous complexity of our immune system and how it works.

Matt Richell describes powerful new treatments that help our immune systems target our cells that have gone rogue. Through the stories of lupus patient Meredith Branscombe and rheumatoid arthritis patient Linda Segre, help us understand new drugs that suppress the immune system of those with autoimmune disorders.

After reading Elegant Defense, you will have a deeper and more accurate appreciation of the system that is at the core of humanity’s fight against COVID-19 and everything the World Health Program is trying to do.

6 books to read to be healthier / happier and less stressed: including Why We Sleep


Forest Bathing: How Trees can help you find Health and Happiness

Forest Bathing: How Trees can help you find Health and Happiness
  • Author: Li Cheng
  • Publication year: 2018
  • Publisher in the original language: Penguin Audio
  • Number of pages: 320
  • Category of the book: Self-help
  • Rating on Goodreads: 3.99
  • Rating on Amazon: 4.7

Forest bathing or Shinrin-yoku is a Japanese term meaning spending more time around trees, and it has been scientifically proven to lower heart rate and blood pressure, reduce stress, boost the immune system, and improve an overall sense of well-being. Here, Dr. Cheng Li, the world’s leading expert in forest medicine, summarizes her research finding that bathing in the forests boosted the number of immune cells that kill viruses and tumors.

In more than 100 beautiful photos, the book explains how bathing in the woods can lower your stress levels, strengthen your immune and cardiovascular systems, and even help you lose weight and live longer.

This book will give you deeper knowledge about how trees can help your body fight cancer, stay healthy, get inspired and be creative, and improve your quality of life. It also teaches you a lot about forests in Japan.

It shares information about how important trees are to the overall health of the planet and the people who live on it. Plus tips for bringing nature into your home through the use of plants and essential oils.

The book is packed with great insights, tips, and research information regarding the important connection we have with nature and everything we can do to improve our lives.

This is a book that I hope everyone reads. It gives an important message about how trees can help you find health, happiness, and get to know yourself!

At the end of our conversation, this was a quick tour of the most important physical and mental health books to become healthier, happier, and less stressed.

6 books to read to be healthier / happier and less stressed: including Why We Sleep

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