There’s something about having an actual book in your hands – not an e-book you downloaded or a book on an electronic device but a REAL, solid book with pages! I love opening a new book. I remember at school each year when we’d get our new book for the term – I would open it and smell the pages.
There are books for everything especially books that help you improve things in your life whether these are physical problems you’re having or mental health issues.
Here are 3 of my favourite books which have helped me:
Natural Posture for Pain-Free Living
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This book is written by Kathleen Porter and introduces the idea of having good posture to improve and ultimately get rid of back and neck pain.
It’s not the usual advice of pulling your shoulders back and standing up straight that we’ve been told in the past. This is more about finding the correct centre and ensuring everything is aligned.
Since using the information in the book I have definitely felt better. I’m also much more aware of when I’m slouching and the fact that I’m not only hurting my neck but also squashing my internal organs!
Self Analysis
This is a great self-help book to relieve stress, improve memory and generally feel happier about life. It can help improve reaction time and even help you sleep better.
To begin with, there are a few interesting chapters about life; surviving well or badly; how emotional pain in life can affect us; why the world doesn’t look as bright as it did when we were young; happiness and how to find it and more.
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Next comes a self-evaluation test to see where you find yourself on a “tone scale”. One’s emotional tone changes during days/weeks as we react to good news, bad news, have wins and losses. For example, going to a concert of your favourite band increases tone and makes one feel great. In contrast, if you lose your job your emotional tone drops and you may feel anxiety. Apart from this day-to-changes in mood, there is a chronic – long term – level on the tone scale and this is what you discover during this self-evaluation.
After that comes a series of questions which help you look at the past and the present. Full instructions are given on how to do this and the questions are very specific. There are different sections which cover different aspects of life. Answering these questions – you don’t write them down, just answer them for yourself – helps you examine things and look at them in a different light.
After going through a number of the lists it’s a good idea to do the tone scale test again and you might find you’ve actually changed for the better!
Personally, I’ve found this very helpful in improving my emotional tone. It helped to lift me out of things I was kind of stuck in and put my attention on something else. I became happier as a result of doing the lists and felt my emotional tone improve.
I think this would be a very useful tool if you’re feeling depressed, run-down or anxious. Or even if you just want to feel happier than you do!
Callanetics Countdown
This may be an old book but it doesn’t make it any less effective. Callanetics was an exercise toning system developed by Callan Pinckney. It involves very small repetitive movements that help to tone the muscles.
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The book is divided into phases and each phase covers a certain number of days. For example, Phase I is for days 1-4, Phase II is for days 5-9 etc. This gives you a gradual build-up of each exercise so it starts very easy and builds from there. Each phase has a set of exercises which covers various areas of the body.
Each exercise has a calendar which tells you how many repetitions to do for that day. For example “The waist away” is an exercise that tightens up the waist. The calendar shows 25 repetitions for day 1, 30 repetitions for day 2, 40 repetitions for day 3 and 50 repetitions for day 4.
Having a calendar for each exercise makes it easy to see what you have to do that day and you can cross it off with a pencil so you know where you got to.
Each exercise is explained in detail with accompanying photos. If you ever had the video from the 90s, you’ll quickly pick it up but if not the explanations are very good.
I have to confess I’ve never made it through all 30 days, but whenever I did get through at least half of it a few times and definitely noticed the difference with my clothes getting loser and people asking me if I’d lost weight. Time to dust off my copy and get going again I think!