Books

Recommend books to support a holistic, healthy lifestyle.

View required and recommended reading lists for the Professional Training by course.


Reclaiming Life After Trauma

by Daniel Mintie LCSW and Julie K. Staples Ph.D.

Reclaiming Life After Trauma
Reclaiming Life after Trauma addresses both the physical and psychological expressions of PTSD, presenting an integrative, fast-acting, evidence-based, and drug-free path to recovery. Authors Daniel Mintie, LCSW, and Julie K. Staples, Ph.D., begin with an overview of PTSD and the ways in which it changes our bodies and minds. They present research findings on cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and yoga, giving the reader insights into how these powerful modalities can counteract and reverse the physical and mental aftereffects of trauma.

The authors provide a suite of simple, powerful, and easily learned tools readers can put to immediate use to reset their traumatized bodies and minds. On the physical side, they teach four Kundalini yoga techniques that address the hypervigilance, flashbacks, and insomnia characteristic of PTSD. On the psychological side, they present 25 powerful CBT tools that target the self-defeating beliefs, negative emotions, and self-sabotaging behaviors that accompany the disorder.

Drawing on many years of clinical work and their experience administering the successful Integrative Trauma Recovery Program, the authors help readers understand PTSD as a mind-body disorder from which we can use our own minds and bodies to recover. Woven throughout the book are inspiring real-life accounts of PTSD recoveries showing how men and women of all ages have used these tools to reclaim their vitality, physical health, peace, and joy.

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Yoga Therapy & Integrative Medicine: Where Ancient Science Meets Modern Medicine

by Larry Payne Ph.D., Terra Gold M.A.LAc., and Eden Goldman D.C.

Yoga Therapy & Integrative Medicine
Yoga Therapy & Integrative Medicine brings together some of the world’s leading health professionals, researchers, and renowned yoga therapists to share clinical experiences, effective uses of yoga therapies, and knowledge to help redo how we can integrate and use yoga therapy as an essential modality within healthcare. I recommend this book wholeheartedly.”
~ Dean Ornish, M.D., Founder & President, Preventive Medicine Research Institute

“This is the first scientifically backed book on integrating yoga therapy with conventional medicine. Exceptionally written by authorities in both fields and beautifully illustrated. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the future of yoga therapy and the future of medicine.”
~ Dilip Sarkar, M.D., F.A.C.S., C.A.P., President, International Association of Yoga Therapists

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The Stressless Brain

by Madhur-Nain Webster

The Stressless Brain
Though the modern world has given us many benefits and privileges, it has also burdened us with constant stimulation and endless expectations. Feeling overwhelmed, we become distracted from our life’s purpose. Because we have lost our path, we feel emotionally, physically, and spiritually imbalanced – and this has left many of us stressed and anxious. In The Stressless Brain, I detail the importance of building a relationship with yourself through the use of Kundalini Meditation. By incorporating yogic technology into your life, you can learn to govern your thoughts and emotions in a mindful manner. Meditation offers you the tools to view your life with clarity so that you can respond, rather than react, to stressful situations.

Bridging the worlds of yogic meditation, psychology, and science, The Stressless Brain will help you thoroughly understand stress and anxiety and how it affects your entire being: body, mind, and soul. Whether you are experiencing mental hardships from your professional, personal, or romantic life, my objective is for you to find answers within yourself and make any necessary changes – all through the regular practice of meditation. If you feel powerless, then I hope the yogic insight and meditational instructions provided in this book can give you the strength to harness your mind and teach it to best serve you. Using Kundalini Meditation, you can find the courage to self-reflect so that you can self-correct.

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The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care

By Sat Bir Singh, Lorenzo Cohen, Timothy McCall & Shirley Telles

The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care
The Principles and Practice of Yoga in Health Care is a professional-level textbook with contributions by multiple expert researchers and therapists in the field. This book brings together the science and the practice of yoga therapy supports the emergence of yoga therapy as a credible profession comprehensively summarizes research findings and their practical implications for professionals who use yoga or refer patients for yoga practice includes chapter contributions by leading biomedical researchers of yoga reviews the scientific evidence base for yoga for a wide variety of medical conditions.

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Enlightened Bodies: Exploring Physical and Subtle Human Anatomy

by Nirmal Lumpkin, LMT, and Japa Kaur Khalsa, DOM

Enlightened Bodies
Enlightened Bodies inspires and elevates the approach and study of the human body, interconnecting anatomy, physiology, and ancient yogic teachings. Enlightened Bodies presents the complexities of the body in a refreshing and approachable style, integrating multiple perspectives including Human Anatomy, Ayurveda, Kundalini Yoga, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Self Care, and Other lifestyle traditions.

This is an essential book for yoga enthusiasts and healthcare practitioners who are looking for a deeper understanding of the human body and ways to incorporate complementary health practices in their treatment plan.

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Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body

by David Emerson and Elizabeth Hopper, PhD

Overcoming Trauma Through Yoga
Survivors of trauma—whether abuse, accidents or war—can end up profoundly wounded, betrayed by their bodies that failed to get them to safety and that are a source of pain. In order to fully heal from trauma, a connection must be made with oneself, including one’s body. The trauma-sensitive yoga described in this book moves beyond traditional talk therapies that focus on the mind, by bringing the body actively into the healing process. This allows trauma survivors to cultivate a more positive relationship to their body through gentle breath, mindfulness, and movement practices.

Overcoming Trauma through Yoga is a book for survivors, clinicians, and yoga instructors who are interested in mind/body healing. It introduces trauma-sensitive yoga, a modified approach to yoga developed in collaboration between yoga teachers and clinicians at the Trauma Center at Justice Resource Institute, led by yoga teacher David Emerson, along with medical doctor Bessel van der Kolk.

David Emerson is the director of yoga services at the Trauma Center, and in 2003 he codesigned the Trauma Center Yoga Program that includes classes and teacher training programs. He lives in Cambridge, MA. Elizabeth Hopper, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in traumatic stress and works as the associate director of training at the Trauma Center. She lives in Somerville, MA.

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A Woman’s Book of Yoga

by Machelle M. Seibel, MD and Hari Kaur Khalsa

A Woman's Book of Yoga
“Simple practices to help you stay healthy, calm, and strong, and to carry you forward in a natural progression toward wisdom, real beauty, and the strength of realized grace that belongs to all women,” promise Machelle M. Seibel, M.D., and Hari Kaur Khalsa, authors of A Woman’s Book of Yoga.

The authors, a gynecologist and a yoga instructor, offer prescriptions for the transitions in women’s lives. They teach the health and stress-reduction benefits of breathing, postural, and meditation exercises, including particular activities for menstruation, pregnancy, perimenopause and menopause, sexuality, and digestion. Spiritual as well as physical health benefits are stressed: “The goal of yoga is to reveal the connection between the human being and the Divine Self.”

This is not a simple self-help book, but a serious, mindful guide for a beginning study of kundalini yoga: philosophy, spirituality, postures (illustrated), meditations, and health advantages are addressed. “The yoga itself is not the goal, but it is the key to opening the door to health, self-love, and self-realization,” write the authors. –Joan Price

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Yoga as Medicine

by Timothy McCall, MD

Yoga as Medicine
Timothy McCall, MD, is the medical editor of Yoga Journal and author of our featured book, Yoga as Medicine. Timothy and I met at the Yoga Journal Conference in Estes Park, Colorado in September 2001 around a conversation on how instructing yoga to people with illness requires different skills than teaching a general yoga class. We discovered a shared understanding and approach to the art of yoga therapeutics. A few months later when he began work on the book he phoned me to discuss his ideas further. As a result, one of the chapters of Yoga as Medicine focuses on our early work teaching Kundalini Yoga to people with HIV disease.

Testimonials about the book:

“This is a remarkable book. The chapter featuring Kundalini Yoga and HIV goes straight to the heart. Thank you, Shanti Shanti Kaur, for sharing this story and the yogic approach for this difficult health condition.”
~ Katherine, Wisconsin

“Wow. Yoga as Medicine is an amazing book, elegantly weaving story, yogic technique and medicine. The HIV chapter captured the essence of teaching Kundalini Yoga to people with illness of any kind. Compassionate, sensitive, clear. Buy this book!”
~ Sharon, Los Angeles

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Kundalini Postures and Poetry

by Shakti Parwha Kaur Khalsa (view all books by author)

Kundalini Postures And Poetry
A handbook of classic yoga poses illustrated with vintage photos of the Master, Yogi Bhajan, Ph.D. This book is the companion volume to “Kundalini Yoga: The Flow of Eternal Power.”

Kundalini Postures and Poetry takes an unusual approach—using poetry to describe what these traditional yoga postures can do for you. Included in this unique “rhyming photo album” are simple instructions for everything from meditation to chanting to breathing, plus sets of Kundalini Yoga as taught by the Master, Yogi Bhajan, himself. Kundalini Yoga can help you handle stress, improve health, overcome depression, increase energy, add enjoyment to life, enhance overall well-being, and accelerate your journey of self-discovery.

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Meditation as Medicine

by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa

Meditation as Medicine
Long-term meditators experience 80 percent less heart disease and 50 percent less cancer than non-meditators, according to a large body of studies. Meditation has been shown to improve sleep and reduce chronic pain. Not all meditation is equally effective, however. Dharma Singh Khalsa, M.D., has developed a form of advanced meditation he calls “Medical Meditation,” which “more fully addresses every element of our physical and ethereal makeup…a full-service approach.” Medical Meditation is an adaptation of kundalini yoga combined with meditation, using specific breathing patterns, posture and movements, mantras, and mental focus.

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