Blog
January 20, 2018
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By BROOKE SIEM @brookesiem
With a little over 60 days until our inaugural Mindflow Performance event, we’re brushing up on our mind/body science and literature by re-reading some of our favorite books that focus on the art of mindfulness and how it affects our body, mind, and athletic performance.
So grab a blanket, some hot tea, and hunker down for a cozy afternoon of fascinating reading that also improves your life.
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MINDFULNESS FOR A CALM & CLEAR MIND:
The Happiness Trap: Stop Struggling, Start Living. A Guide to ACT.
Russ Harris
Are you, like millions of Americans, caught in the happiness trap? Russ Harris explains that the way most of us go about trying to find happiness ends up making us miserable, driving the epidemics of stress, anxiety, and depression. This empowering book presents the insights and techniques of ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) a revolutionary new psychotherapy based on cutting-edge research in behavioral psychology. By clarifying your values and developing mindfulness (a technique for living fully in the present moment), ACT helps you escape the happiness trap and find true satisfaction in life.
Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life Jon Kabat-Zinn
First published in 1994, the national bestseller remains more relevant than ever before. Written for both the meditation newbie and longtime practitioners, this concise and often poetic work shows readers how to implement mindfulness into their everyday, modern life.
MINDFULNESS FOR KIDS & TEENS:
Teaching Mindfulness Skills to Kids and Teens
Christopher Willard & Amy Saltzman
Packed with creative, effective ideas for bringing mindfulness into the classroom, child therapy office, or community, this book features sample lesson plans and scripts, case studies, vignettes, and more. Leading experts describe how to harness the unique benefits of present-focused awareness for preschoolers, school-age kids, and teens, including at-risk youth and those with special needs.
A Still Quiet Place for Teens: A Mindfulness Workbook to Ease Stress & Difficult Emotions
Amy Saltzman
In this workbook, mindfulness expert Amy Saltzman offers a comprehensive program to help you manage daily stressors and challenges in your life, whether at home, in school, or with friends. Using proven-effective mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) techniques, this book will help you be fully present in the moment, cultivate kindness and curiosity toward yourself and others, and find constructive ways of dealing with the pressures of being a teen.
Amy Saltzman
A Still Quiet Place presents an eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program that therapists, teachers, and other professionals can use to help children and adolescents manage stress and anxiety in their lives, and develop their natural capacities for emotional fluency, respectful communication, and compassionate action.
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MINDFULNESS FOR PROFESSIONAL & ATHLETIC PERFORMANCE:
One Second Ahead: Enhance Your Performance at Work with Mindfulness Rasmus Hougaard, Jacqueline Carter, Gillian Coutts
Based on a program in corporate mindfulness designed by Hougaard and the partners of The Potential Project, One Second Ahead provides practical tools and techniques as well as real-world examples and lessons from organizations that have implemented mindfulness on a large scale. Thoroughly tested in a diverse range of industries, this program has resulted in measurable increases in productivity, effectiveness, and job satisfaction.
The Mindful Athlete: Secrets to Pure Performance
George Mumford
Michael Jordan credits George Mumford with transforming his on-court leadership of the Bulls, helping Jordan lead the team to six NBA championships. Mumford also helped Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom and countless other NBA players turn around their games. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford is sharing his own story and the strategies that have made these athletes into stars in The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance.
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MINDFULNESS FOR HEALTH & WELLNESS:
Dr. John Sullivan & Chris Parker
The Brain Always Wins is the practical guide to improving your life through better brain management. It is based on one simple fact: Our brain controls and determines everything we do! How we perceive, understand and respond to the world, how we survive, adapt and communicate, how we learn and remember, the decisions we make and the emotions we feel, are all determined by our amazing brain.
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Dr. Bruce Lipton
This profoundly hopeful synthesis of the latest and best research in cell biology and quantum physics puts the power to create a healthy, joyous life back in our own hands. When we transform our conscious and subconscious thoughts, we transform our lives, and in the process help humanity evolve to a new level of understanding and peace.
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Dr. John Sarno
Musculoskeletal pain disorders have reached epidemic proportions in the United States, with most doctors failing to recognize their underlying cause. In this acclaimed volume, Dr. Sarno reveals how many painful conditions -including most neck and back pain, migraine, repetitive stress injuries, whiplash, and tendinopathies - are rooted in repressed emotions, and shows how they can be successfully treated without drugs, physical measures, or surgery.
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All the books reviewed in this article can be found in the MindFlow Performance Book Store.
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