Below are a few of my favorite books and authors:
Breathing for Yoga: Applying the Science Behind Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World, by Patrick McKeown and Anastasis Tzanis
OxyAt (September 15, 2023)
What if you are only tapping into 75% of the full potential of yoga?
If there was a simple and free way to harness the other 25% and make major improvements in both your asana practice and overall health, would you want to know what it is?
This revolutionary yoga and breathing manual unites modern science, with clinically-proven breathing techniques, and the (mostly) forgotten wisdom of ancient Yogis to enhance your yoga practice. Written by international breath expert Patrick McKeown and leading yoga educator Anastasis Tzanis, this is an essential book for every practitioner and instructor.
In this Book, you will learn how to:
● Enhance your physical practice and lower the risk of injury
● Learn breathing techniques to self-regulate, gain control over your nervous system, and
diminish stress, anxiety, and panic attacks
● Increase mindfulness and cultivate a deeper mind-body connection
● Learn the connection between physiology and the mind, and how to optimise gas
exchange and open the lungs
● Reduce breathlessness during yoga, and boost stamina, endurance, and recovery time
● Learn the three pillars of sleep, breath, and the mind, and their interconnection
● Optimise energy flow and strengthen your connection to self
● Dramatically reduce snoring, sleep apnea, and insomnia; decongest the nose; and
improve menopause symptoms
● Enhance your overall health and wellbeing
“In your hands is the operating manual for new and old yogis alike. For the past 20 years, McKeown has researched why so many of us breathe so poorly and how we can do it better and improve our lives. He’s spent several more years piecing together this carefully constructed compendium of yoga knowledge and distilling it into step-by-step directions, illustrations, scientific context, biomechanics, biochemistry, and more! My advice: Take a seat, shut your mouth, breathe it in.” – James Nestor
Oxygen Advantage: The Simple, Scientifically Proven Breathing Techniques for a Healthier, Slimmer, Faster and Fitter You, by Patrick McKeown
Achieve more with less effort: The secret to weight loss, fitness, and wellness lies in the most basic and most overlooked function of your body—how you breathe. One of the biggest obstacles to better health and fitness is a rarely identified problem: chronic over-breathing. We often take many more breaths than we need—without realizing it—contributing to poor health and fitness, including a host of disorders, from anxiety and asthma to insomnia and heart problems.
In The Oxygen Advantage, the man who has trained over 5,000 people—including Olympic and professional athletes—in reduced breathing exercises now shares his scientifically validated techniques to help you breathe more efficiently. (William Morrow, September 2016)
The Breathing Cure: Develop New Habits for a Healthier, Happier, and Longer Life, by Patrick McKeown
NOSES ARE FOR BREATHING, MOUTHS ARE FOR EATING
“Many people believe that taking a deep breath increases body oxygenation. The opposite is the case.” — Patrick McKeown, bestselling author of The Oxygen Advantage
Imagine a breathing technique that can increase oxygen uptake and delivery to the cells, improve blood circulation, and unblock the nose. Perhaps it can help open the airways of the lungs, enhance blood flow and oxygen delivery to the brain, improve sleep and bring calmness to the mind. It might even restore bodily functions disturbed by stress, build greater resilience and help you to live longer. You might think this description sounds farfetched. But it isn’t.
The essential guide to functional breathing, learn techniques tried and tested by Olympic athletes and elite military. Clear your blocked nose, stress and relax your nervous system, improve lung function, prepare for competition and more. For use at home, in professional/amateur sports, by breathing instructors, dentists, doctors, physical therapists, strength and conditioning coaches, Pilates and yoga teachers, and anyone interested in health and fitness – from everyday wellbeing through to sporting excellence. (Humanix Books, July 27, 2021)
Breath: The New Science of a Lost Art, by James Nestor
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing: take air in, let it out, repeat twenty-five thousand times a day. Yet, as a species, humans have lost the ability to breathe correctly, with grave consequences.
Drawing on thousands of years of medical texts and recent cutting-edge studies in pulmonology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology, Breath turns the conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again. (Riverhead Books, May 2020)
Conscious Breathing: Discover the Power of Your Breath, by Anders Ollson
We spend an enormous amount of time, money and effort on the quest for improving our health, our looks, our weight, our fitness, our sleep, our energy, and our sex lives. But the fact is that we already have the secret to all of these and more. What’s more, it doesn’t require you to spend a single penny.
The key to better looks, greater sex, improved health, reduced stress, and a much healthier, trimmer and more energetic body lies in something that is such a natural and fundamental part of our lives that we rarely even think about it–namely, our breathing!
Anders Olsson is the founder of Conscious Breathing. He has educated over one thousand breathing instructors and helped tens of thousands of people create massive change in their lives through the power of their breath. In this book he draws on his vast experience, as well as countless hours studying all aspects of the human breath, as he reveals how to:
- Normalize your blood pressure, circulation and heart rate
- Get restful sleep and energize your working hours
- Boost your body’s ability to burn fat
- Strengthen your immunity system
- Improve your health, looks and sex drive
- Unlock your turbo and cultivate calm and relaxation
- Expand your awareness and accelerate your personal and spiritual growth and development with every breath you take
- And much, much more
Conscious Breathing – Discover the Power of Your Breath is the definitive step-by-step guide to reshaping your breathing habits — and your life.
(Sorena AB; 3rd edition (August 1, 2014)
Meet Anders Olsson – Founder of Conscious Breathing – Conscious Breathing Institute
The Saad Truth About Happiness: 8 Secrets for Leading the Good Life, by Gad Saad
The Quest for Happiness is a Universal fact.
It is a scientific fact, which means we can measure it, we can assess it, and we can devise strategies to make ourselves happy and fulfilled human beings.
Or so says, Professor Gad Saad, author of the sensational national bestseller The Parasitic Mind and popular host of The Saad Truth podcast. Professor Saad roams through the scientific studies, the wisdom of ancient philosophy and religion, and his extraordinary personal experience as a refugee from war-torn Lebanon turned academic celebrity to provide one of the most provocative, helpful, and entertaining listens you are likely to encounter.
In The Saad Truth about Happiness, you’ll learn the secrets to living the good life. (Regnery Publishing, July 25, 2023)
Death: An Inside Story — A book for All Those Who Shall Die, by Sadhguru
Death is a taboo in most societies in the world. But what if we have got this completely wrong? What if death was not the catastrophe it is made out to be but an essential aspect of life, rife with spiritual possibilities for transcendence? For the first time, someone is saying just that. In this unique treatise-like exposition, Sadhguru dwells extensively upon his inner experience as he expounds on the more profound aspects of death that are rarely spoken about. From a practical standpoint, he elaborates on what preparations one can make for one’s death, how best we can assist someone who is dying and how we can continue to support their journey even after death. Whether a believer or not, a devotee or an agnostic, an accomplished seeker or a simpleton, this is truly a book for all those who shall die! (Penguin Ananda, February 2020)
The Yoga of Jesus, Understanding the Hidden Teachings of the Gospels, by Paramahansa Yogananda
In this remarkable book, Paramahansa Yoganada reveals the hidden yoga of the Gospels and confirms that Jesus, like the ancient sages and masters of the East, not only knew yoga but taught this universal science and God-realization to his closest disciples.
Compiled from the author’s highly praised two-volume work, The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, this insightful and compact book transcends the centuries of dogma and misunderstanding that have obscured the original teachings of Jesus, showing he taught a unifying path by which seekers of all faiths can enter the kingdom of God. (Self-Realization Fellowship, 2007)
“Jesus went very deep in teachings that appear on the surface to be simple — much deeper than most people understand . . . . In [his teachings] is the whole science of yoga, the transcendental way of divine union through meditation.” ~Paramahansa Yogananda
The Socratic Method: A Practitioner’s Handbook, by Ward Farnsworth
Drawing on hundreds of quotations, this book explains what the Socratic method is and how to use it. Chapters include Socratic Ethics, Ignorance, Testing Principles, and Socrates and the Stoics. Socratic philosophy is still startling after all these years because it is an approach to asking hard questions and chasing after them. It is a route to wisdom and a way of thinking about wisdom. (Godine, October 2021)
NOTE: the above summaries and reviews are either from the book’s jacket or copied from Amazon.