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Ten New Self-Care Books to Read This Spring

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If your annual spring clean means tossing out and sprucing up your mind and body in addition to cabinets and closets, some inspiring self-care titles might help keep the emotional and spiritual decluttering going all season long. From longevity to energy medicine to a meditation on interior design and daily mantras, here are my top ten picks for inspirational reads that will help spruce up your self-care routine.

The Six Keys by Jillian Michaels, Oct, 2018

Written as a fully comprehensive guide to living life with an eye on longevity, Jillian Michaels combines different strategies for attaining longevity that she says have only previously been written about as stand-alone books, never all together. She combines recommendations for nutrition, mind and body, environment and fitness solutions to ensure that we can feel good much longer than we thought possible. 

Energy Medicine by Jill Blakeway, April, 2019

Board-certified acupuncturist and herbalist Jill Blakeway’s new book is a deep dive into the healing powers of energy medicine modalities such as acupuncture, reiki, qigong and others. She writes both for those already on the spiritual wellness bandwagon, as well as the more skeptical: she covers her own experience as a veteran practitioner in addition to how conventional Western medicine has began incorporating energy medicine practices to solve complicated health challenges. Blakeway’s personal telling of the healing powers of Eastern-borne medicines is filled with data and clinically backed research, an inspiring read for those wanting to learn more about alternative therapies.

Living with a Green Heart by Gay Browne, March, 2019

Written by the founder of Greenopia, Living With a Green Heart covers the many ways in which we can live in a more conscious, less environmentally impactful way. Browne combines data-backed solutions such as lessening meat consumption and lessening reliance on plastic, with ones that are a bit more woo woo like applying EMF-repellent stickers to smart phones. If you’re inspired to explore the ways in which you can treat the planet and your body a little better, this little book will give you a comprehensive way to get started.

Stress Less, Accomplish More by Emily Fletcher, February, 2019

Emily Fletcher is taking pop-meditation to a new level of accessibility for meditation novices with her new book. Her signature Ziva methodology combines mindfulness, meditation and manifestation (what she refers to as the three Ms) - essentially a supercharged version of what you might find in common meditation apps. Her new book covers the many benefits of meditation before diving into a practical how-to application of her technique.

The Big Book of Less: Finding Joy in Living Lighter by Irene Smit and Astrid Van Der Hulst, April 2019

Written in response to what seems to be universal anxiety around our ‘grow at all costs’ culture, the founders of Flow magazine have released a book about the beauty and benefits of living with less. This doesn’t just mean less clutter - though there is a miniature book-within-a-book about co-founder Astrid van der Hulst's 52-week declutter. It also covers how we can savor life more with worrying less, taking in less information, controlling less, doing less, judging less, and of course, living with less ‘stuff’. Pull-out posters, workbooks, notebooks and other goodies make it a playful but inspiring book gift to give.

The Pocket Guru by Dr. Siri Sat Nam, May 2019

A compendium of 108 daily, bite-sized mantra meditations linked to help readers work through specific challenges makes The Pocket Guru a handy book to keep in your meditation room or yoga bag for a morning practice, or to toss into your backpack for an easy anxiety release on the train home after a stressful day. Dr. Sat Nam encourages readers to take on one particular meditation and revisit it every day for 40 day to change a habit before moving on to the next. Topics range from confidence to faith, happiness and regret and fear to success.

The Mood Book by Amy Leigh Mercree, March, 2019

Organized into sections organized by mood, this anthology of self-care practices ranges from essential oil treatments for anxiety or romance to bathtub cocktails for inducing zen, to workouts and guided meditation to help inspire confidence. Beautifully packaged in a rainbow gradient cover, this collection of ways to feel good is an easy-to-flip-through source for practical, metaphysical inspiration that aim to solve contemporary challenges.

The Lonny Home by Sean Santiago and the editors of Lonny Magazine, May 2019

In addition to its expected appeal as a stunning coffee table book full of full-bleed millennial design inspiration, The Lonny Home is a sort of workshop in a book. Between pages of professionally decorated interiors are instructions on how to let things go, when to treat yourself to a trend, how to create functional storage and more. Chapters are broken up into Meditation on Your Space, Letting It Go, Seeking Your Inspiration and other categories that feel equal parts self-care and home design.

Every Monday Matters by Matthew Emerzian, January, 2019

Every Monday Matters is a not-for-profit organization that helps students and corporate organizations focus on sustained personal and social change, and all proceeds from this book are donated to support their K-12 curriculum. Each chapter within is built on one week of ways to look within and live your best life, with homework to get up and do so. In contrast to many of the other introspective books on this list, Emerzian’s is entirely focused on actions to take to improve your life and the lives of those around you in the present.

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings by Randolph M. Nesse, MD, February 2019

If your idea of self-care skews less spiritual and more scientific, Nesse’s new book on why humans are so vulnerable to a variety of mental disorders is a must. In this new work, he covers both why some people get sick, as well as why natural selection left us all so vulnerable to developing mental illness. Topics covered include changes in our environment impact us, how anxiety and low mood sometimes help our genes and how social anxiety is nearly universal.

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