In Exposing Yoga Myths, Kim, Mel and Ariana combine their extensive experience as yoga and movement professionals with their shared love of science and research to tackle yoga myths that range from the silly to the dangerous - and which they would stop class to address. Using their fun, straightforward writing style to break down the latest information in the fields of physiology, neuroscience and biomechanics, they apply it to casual discussion of health and yoga asana, making sure that you know yoga facts from yoga fiction. Whether you're a beginner, regular practitioner or yoga educator, you're likely to hear one or more of these myths at some point. But with their help, you can speak up and expose the misinformation that prevents healthy development of a yoga practice and the human body, and help improve the ways in which this growing community thinks about, speaks about, and practices yoga.
The essential guide to correcting yoga misconceptions and avoiding injuries in your practice from Judith Hanson Lasater, a yoga instructor, physical therapist, and bodywork expert. "Tuck your tailbone to protect your back." "Increase your breath." "Pull your abdominal muscles into your backbone." Following these movement cues is often believed to benefit your yoga practice and protect your body when entering and holding poses. However, what may seem like a helpful correction can actually lead to injury or physical harm. In Yoga Myths, Judith Hanson Lasater draws on almost fifty years of experience as a yoga instructor and physical therapist to address the most common mistakes in our yoga practice and provide clear instructions for correcting these errors. Focusing on the eleven "myths" most detrimental to our practice, Lasater provides a comprehensive discussion of what the myth is, why it can hurt us, and how we can avoid it through step-by-step instructions and guiding photos. This book will allow you to return to the inherent wisdom, natural goodness, and spiritual wholeness of yoga and avoid life altering injuries for as long as you practice.
Discover a modern holistic hypnobirthing book for every woman and every type of birth. This beautifully illustrated, practical guide to hypnobirthing provides you with the skills and tools to make any birth feel safe, calm, connected, and empowering - however you choose to bring your babies into the world. Whether you’re trying to get pregnant, just found out you’re pregnant, or well into your third trimester, this birthing book completely demystifies hypnobirthing, making it accessible and relevant for any mom-to-be. Anthonissa Moger (The Hypnobirthing Midwife) reveals the key things that will make the biggest, most positive difference to you and your baby as you navigate these life-changing months. This step-by-step guide enables you to embark on the benefits of hypnobirthing and create a safe space for you and your baby to return to time and again. Learn how to integrate body and mind throughout your pregnancy and birth with techniques such as deep relaxation, meditation, visualization, and breathwork exercises. Achieve the Birth You Want - For You and Your Baby Whether you’re having a natural birth or assisted birth, this mindful pregnancy book will help every woman take control of their labor for a calm, connected, and positive birth. It’s the perfect gift for expecting moms who are looking for advice and techniques for a stress-free pregnancy.
In Pursuing Perfection, authors Margo Maine and Joe Kelly explore the emotional, social and cultural factors behind the ongoing epidemic of disordered eating and body image despair in adult women at midlife and beyond. Written from a biopsychosocial and feminist perspective, Pursuing Perfection describes the many issues women encounter as they navigate a rapidly changing culture that promotes unhealthy standards for beauty and appearance. This updated and expanded edition (originally published as The Body Myth: Adult Women and the Pressure to Be Perfect) is a unique guide for anyone seeking practical tools and strategies for adult women looking to establish health and body acceptance.
The preeminent doctor and bioethicist Ezekiel Emanuel is repeatedly asked one question: Which country has the best healthcare? He set off to find an answer. The US spends more than any other nation, nearly $4 trillion, on healthcare. Yet, for all that expense, the US is not ranked #1 -- not even close. In Which Country Has the World's Best Healthcare? Ezekiel Emanuel profiles eleven of the world's healthcare systems in pursuit of the best or at least where excellence can be found. Using a unique comparative structure, the book allows healthcare professionals, patients, and policymakers alike to know which systems perform well, and why, and which face endemic problems. From Taiwan to Germany, Australia to Switzerland, the most inventive healthcare providers tackle a global set of challenges -- in pursuit of the best healthcare in the world.
“A timely, telling look at rape culture on campus, Sarah Henstra’s The Red Word boldly goes to the places where memoir can’t but fiction can.”—PopSugar As her sophomore year begins, Karen enters into the back-to-school revelry—particularly at a fraternity called GBC. When she wakes up one morning on the lawn of Raghurst, a house of radical feminists, she gets a crash course in the state of feminist activism on campus. GBC is notorious, she learns, nicknamed “Gang Bang Central” and a prominent contributor to a list of date rapists compiled by female students. Despite continuing to party there and dating one of the brothers, Karen is equally seduced by the intellectual stimulation and indomitable spirit of the Raghurst women, who surprise her by wanting her as a housemate and recruiting her into the upper-level class of a charismatic feminist mythology scholar they all adore. As Karen finds herself caught between two increasingly polarized camps, ringleader housemate Dyann believes she has hit on the perfect way to expose and bring down the fraternity as a symbol of rape culture—but the war between the houses will exact a terrible price. Named One of the Best New Books of the Month by Harper’s Bazaar, PopSugar, Bitch, Fast Company, and Read It Forward “The smartest, most provocative novel I’ve read in a long time. Sarah Henstra dives headlong into some murky, turbulent waters—gender politics, campus sexual assault, complicity, moral responsibility—and emerges with a book that’s as shocking as it is essential.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Times-bestselling author “Will get you fuming, laughing, cheering, and most of all, thinking.”—Cosmopolitan
Millions of people meditate daily but can meditative practices really make us ‘better’ people? In The Buddha Pill, pioneering psychologists Dr Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm put meditation and mindfulness under the microscope. Separating fact from fiction, they reveal what scientific research – including their groundbreaking study on yoga and meditation with prisoners – tells us about the benefits and limitations of these techniques for improving our lives. As well as illuminating the potential, the authors argue that these practices may have unexpected consequences, and that peace and happiness may not always be the end result. Offering a compelling examination of research on transcendental meditation to recent brain-imaging studies on the effects of mindfulness and yoga, and with fascinating contributions from spiritual teachers and therapists, Farias and Wikholm weave together a unique story about the science and the delusions of personal change.
This seminal work, written by the creator of the Pilates method himself, guides you through a series of precisely designed exercises that strengthen the body, enhance flexibility, and promote overall well-being. With detailed instructions and accompanying photographs, Joseph Pilates demonstrates how his innovative approach to fitness can help you achieve a renewed sense of vitality, improve your posture, and gain mastery over your physical and mental health. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced practitioner, this timeless classic is an essential resource for anyone seeking to unlock their body's full potential and embark on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth.
In this landmark book the renowned scholar of religion Mircea Eliade lays the groundwork for a Western understanding of Yoga, exploring how its guiding principle, that of freedom, involves remaining in the world without letting oneself be exhausted by such "conditionings" as time and history. Drawing on years of study and experience in India, Eliade provides a comprehensive survey of Yoga in theory and practice from its earliest foreshadowings in the Vedas through the twentieth century. The subjects discussed include Patañjali, author of the Yoga-sutras; yogic techniques, such as concentration "on a Single Point," postures, and respiratory discipline; and Yoga in relation to Brahmanism, Buddhism, Tantrism, Oriental alchemy, mystical erotism, and shamanism.
What story would Eve have told about picking the apple? Why is Pandora blamed for opening the box? And what about the fate of Cassandra who was blessed with knowing the future but cursed so that no one believed her? What if women had been the storytellers? Elizabeth Lesser believes that if women’s voices had been equally heard and respected throughout history, humankind would have followed different hero myths and guiding stories—stories that value caretaking, champion compassion, and elevate communication over vengeance and violence. Cassandra Speaks is about the stories we tell and how those stories become the culture. It’s about the stories we still blindly cling to, and the ones that cling to us: the origin tales, the guiding myths, the religious parables, the literature and films and fairy tales passed down through the centuries about women and men, power and war, sex and love, and the values we live by. Stories written mostly by men with lessons and laws for all of humanity. We have outgrown so many of them, and still they endure. This book is about what happens when women are the storytellers too—when we speak from our authentic voices, when we flex our values, when we become protagonists in the tales we tell about what it means to be human. Lesser has walked two main paths in her life—the spiritual path and the feminist one—paths that sometimes cross but sometimes feel at cross-purposes. Cassandra Speaks is her extraordinary merging of the two. The bestselling author of Broken Open and Marrow, Lesser is a beloved spiritual writer, as well as a leading feminist thinker. In this book she gives equal voice to the cool water of her meditative self and the fire of her feminist self. With her trademark gifts of both humor and insight, she offers a vision that transcends the either/or ideologies on both sides of the gender debate. Brilliantly structured into three distinct parts, Part One explores how history is carried forward through the stories a culture tells and values, and what we can do to balance the scales. Part Two looks at women and power and expands what it means to be courageous, daring, and strong. And Part Three offers “A Toolbox for Inner Strength.” Lesser argues that change in the culture starts with inner change, and that no one—woman or man—is immune to the corrupting influence of power. She provides inner tools to help us be both strong-willed and kind-hearted. Cassandra Speaks is a beautifully balanced synthesis of storytelling, memoir, and cultural observation. Women, men and all people will find themselves in the pages of this book, and will come away strengthened, opened, and ready to work together to create a better world for all people.
