YOU & YOUR HEALTH
Bookshelf
Books for autumn Cosy up and relax with our pick of the best new books for the darker nights… Head and Heart Yoga Therapy and Art Therapy Interventions for Mental Health Ellen G Horowitz has produced a gem of a book aimed at using yoga and art therapy practices to help improve mental wellbeing. It’s useful for yoga teachers and health professionals who want to understand how yoga can enhance mental and physical treatment outcomes. It’s a great mesh of Western psychological ideas with traditional Eastern philosophy and a very pragmatic approach. There are lots of practical exercises, reflection techniques and insightful case studies as well as easy to follow photography sequences. It would be an excellent buy for anyone seeking to broaden their service portfolio since sessions would lend themselves to both individual and group classes online. Published by Handspring.
Trauma Healing in the Yoga Zone Our second selection from Handspring Publishing is Joann Lutz’s Trauma Healing in the Yoga Zone. Again, this is aimed firmly at professional yoga teachers and mental health workers, including those working within the military
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environment. Lutz offers an original and compelling model of nervous-system informed, traumasensitive yoga, drawing on classic yoga, somatic psychotherapy and neuroscience research. It is organised around the eight stages of classic yoga practice and includes scripts of chair yoga postures, the three-part deep breath, and the Integral Yoga version of yoga nidra, for use by professionals who are not certified as yoga teachers.
Tuning the Human Biofield Sound therapy is a rapidly growing area of holistic therapy. As such, Eileen Day McKusick’s updated guide to the basics of Biofield Tuning, using tuning forks to clear trauma stored in the human energy field, is a thoughtful starting point for those who wish to learn more. The technique involves using tuning forks of different frequencies to locate stored trauma in the body and then clear it. The book includes detailed maps of the energetic biofield that surrounds the body, showing where specific emotions, memories, traumas, and pain are stored. Again, this could be a useful addition to your reading list if you’re keen to explore new avenues of healing for energy workers, massage therapists, body workers and sound healers.
The Healing Power of Pleasure At its most fundamental level, Julia Paulette Hollenbery’s latest book takes the idea that what feels good to us, does us good too and helps us discover – or rediscover – sensual
pleasure and delight. She classifies these pleasures into seven spiritual “medicines”-slowing down, embodying, deepening, relating, pleasure, power, and potency to help us feel more powerful, more connected and more alive. The book is filled with reflections, practical somatic and breathing exercises, prompting questions, meditations, and energetic transmissions for each medicine. It seems particularly timely following the pandemic as we reset our priorities and values.
Homebrewed Vinegar Fermenting expert and best-selling author Kirsten K. Shockey offers a creative and comprehensive guide to making naturally fermented vinegars from a wide variety of ingredients. There are sixty different recipes included, from familiar favourites like Apple cider vinegar more exotic concoctions made from leftover juicing pulp or brown bananas, wildflowers or beer. You can even make your own balsamic vinegar as well as vinegar tonics, infused vinegars, and oxymels. It’s an ideal book for beginners, covering everything from the chemistry of vinegar making to equipment, brewing, bottling, and aging. There are insights into vinegars made around the world and the traditions associated with this ancient skill.
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