rē•spin Your End of Summer Reading List

Reading is undoubtedly a powerful tool. Through books, we can gain knowledge and expand our minds. This is true whether we are teaching ourselves something entirely new, developing our understanding of a topic, or understanding another perspective or approach to something.

With the end of summer and a new season on the horizon, we’re ushering in autumn with a reading rē-fresh. Along with the selection of HB Books from Bed in the rē•spin marketplace, we’ve rounded up a reading list of titles rooted in wellness to help promote better health of the mind, body, and spirit.

Part of the curated HB Books from Bed, “Lighter: Let Go of the Past, Connect with the Present, and Expand the Future,” emphasizes looking inward to clear our pathways so we can heal ourselves and the world around us. The author struggled on his healing path. Past drug abuse weighed down his mind, body, and spirit. Rather than continue repressing, he chose to address his fears and anxieties. This led him to feel a deeper connection to himself. 

Through practices including meditation and following his intuition, Yung Pueblo was able to clear the mental weight and release the love he had for himself and others deep within. In this book, the author helps readers focus on our healing, starting with self-compassion to release the strain our innermost thoughts may be causing to our existence. And once the burdens slip away, we are presented with an opportunity to rē•connect in the present day. With time, we can strengthen our abilities and find balance for all, including ourselves.

In the United States, approximately one-half of all adults will experience at least one traumatic event in their lives. Trauma can be inescapable and can affect the sanctity of our minds and body. Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a leading expert on trauma, has spent more than three decades with trauma survivors, learning how it pools into our everyday life. Whether that’s our ability to engage or showcase self-control, feel pleasure, or even trust another person.

With traumatic events looming in our past, whether years prior or recent, feelings of anxiety and irritability can linger. They can bleed into our day-to-day lives and prevent us from carrying on everyday tasks. In addition, with our bodies ending up in a fight or flight mode, they can secrete stress hormones. This affects our immune system and expected bodily functions. To regain balance and bring our wellness to the forefront, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk brings forth modalities to cope. Trauma processing, meditation, yoga, and more showcase the power of relationships and ourselves to support healing.

It’s not uncommon to have a health condition related to food. Instead, it is an allergy or an intolerance. In the United States, approximately 32 million people have a food allergy. There is a spectrum of food-related health conditions. As we know, nourishment and what we consume affect our physical, mental, and emotional wellness. Without a comprehensive understanding of these allergies and intolerances, while they are rising across the country, identifying them and finding a treatment path can be challenging. 

With her book “Food Without Fear,” Dr. Ruchi Gupta looks to rē-frame and debunk common myths about intolerance and allergies. She wants us to understand our triggers, including ones in the environment, to better understand our microbiome’s role. The goal is to identify these issues so we can feel empowered to treat, manage, and prevent them. Then we can feel liberated in our daily dietary habits.

Dr. Michele Harper is an emergency room physician, hailing from Washington D.C. before she moved to Philadelphia after medical school. Before becoming a physician, Dr. Harper recalls a complicated family situation growing up and the end of her marriage two months before moving to Philadelphia. These situations caused what felt like irreparable damage in her adult life to her physical, emotional, and mental health. 

Through “The Beauty in Breaking,” Dr. Harper explores themes of self-healing by understanding where our pain is rooted. She discusses what we can do to alleviate the immense feelings building within, and how we can pave a healthy path for ourselves moving forward. Dr. Harper took lessons from her life and job, rē-packaging these moments for herself to learn new things about herself. These include how to recover from these extended breaks in ourselves, how we can release the fear we store within, how to pull the honesty from ourselves, and lessons on compassion. And above all, how we must find peace with our pasts to find balance in the present.

When we think of detox, we tend to associate it with dietary practices and physical health rather than mental and emotional well-being. Dr. Caroline Leaf has dedicated three decades to researching the connection between our mind and brain. She has helped numerous individuals find methods of detoxing the brain. In turn, they have found balance and success in all areas of life. Today, we’re presented with a cycle of negative feelings — anxiety, depression, stress, and everything in between.

Through “Cleaning Up Your Mental Mess,” Dr. Leaf provides methods of clearing out these toxic thought patterns to bring forth healthier emotions. In the book, she creates a five-step plan to find the root cause of these intrusive thoughts and feelings. Thus, eliminating them to benefit every aspect of our well-being. Rather than a detox of physical foods that we consume, we’re clearing out the mental clutter to regain balance and clarity of the mind and spirit.