5 health & wellbeing books to help you feel and perform at your best
If you’d like to feel more vibrant and take your mental and physical performance to the next level, the following health and wellbeing books are some of my top recommendations.
All are science-based, quick reads with a focus on practicality (each includes workouts, recipes, or practices that you can begin implementing immediately), and each has positively influenced my own wellbeing and performance in some way.
I hope they challenge what you think you know (like they have me!) and inspire you to get curious about experiments you can undertake in order to unleash even more of your potential.
What the Fat?
by Grant Schofield, Dr Caryn Zinn, and Craig Rodger
I used to view food as simply fuel for my body (calories in, calories out) without much regard for what sorts of foods those calories were coming from.
But after learning about the substantial, scientific evidence behind the low-carb, healthy-fat (LCHF) lifestyle - as well as experiencing the benefits of it myself over the past couple of years - my perspective has shifted significantly.
Food can be a natural medicine. It has the potential to enhance wellbeing and performance, as well as to heal.
Without a doubt, adopting LCHF has been one of the most life-changing, wellbeing-enhancing experiments I’ve ever tried. This book offers an overview of the research, plus case studies and recipes, making it one of the best guides I’ve found for getting started.
What the Fast!
by Grant Schofield, Dr Caryn Zinn, and Craig Rodger
Humans didn’t evolve to eat multiple meals, every day, from morning to night. There are actually certain biological processes, like apoptosis and autophagy (our cells’ natural clean up and repair processes), that can only run when we’re not engaged in the energy intensive task of digestion.
Fasting isn’t about starvation. It’s simply letting our digestive systems rest occasionally for long enough that our bodies’ natural spring-cleaning and anti-ageing processes can kick in.
And if you’re fat-adapted (see the What the Fat? book above), it’s even easier to fast without feeling hungry!
This is Your Brain on Food
by Uma Naidoo
Remember what I mentioned earlier about the healing potential of food? The author of this book combines her unique background in psychiatry, nutrition, and culinary arts to explain how, through the incredible gut-brain connection, the food we eat can either help or harm our mental health and wellbeing.
It turns out that simply changing what we eat can be a natural, side-effect-free way to improve cognitive function, boosting our moods, energy, and concentration.
From insomnia and fatigue to anxiety and depression, this book explains what to eat (and what foods to avoid) in order to feel and perform your best.
The One-minute Workout
by Martin Gibala
Exercise might be the only activity our bodies require for optimal health that we’re not biologically preprogrammed to carry out. This may explain why, sadly, it’s often the first thing to drop off of many busy people’s schedules.
The good news? Scientists have now discovered that when it comes to reaping the benefits of exercise, intensity is actually more important than duration or distance covered. That means it’s actually better for many people’s health to exercise hard for a short amount of time than it is to exercise easy for a long amount of time. And the harder you go, the more time-efficient and potent the workout’s fitness benefits can be.
Exactly how low can you go? As the title of this book suggests, sprint as hard as you can for twenty seconds, rest, then repeat twice more for a total of three sprints. Voilà - you’ve just done the most potent workout available.
Breath
by James Nestor
We each take about 25,000 breaths a day. There is nothing more essential to our health and wellbeing than breathing.
Yet if you’re like most people, you probably haven’t given much thought to whether or not you’re doing it well. In fact, scientists have found that about 90% of us are breathing incorrectly, causing or aggravating a laundry list of issues.
From athletic performance to anxiety to snoring to ADHD and more, a whole host of conditions can be improved simply by changing the way we inhale and exhale.
Given the volume of breaths we’re going to be taking over our lifetimes, this is undoubtedly a process worth optimizing!
