Three favorite 2020 books on parenting and mental health

For a lot of fam­i­lies, par­ent­ing has nev­er been hard­er than it was this year. Many have been strug­gling for months try­ing to pro­vide child care and school­ing at home while simul­ta­ne­ous­ly work­ing either along­side their chil­dren or as essen­tial work­ers in the com­mu­ni­ty, if they haven’t already lost their jobs. The theme that emerges across…

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New book shares science and techniques to breathe better and promote calmness not anxiety

Scrolling social media, amid fran­tic elec­­tion-relat­ed posts and news of esca­lat­ing COVID-19 cas­es, you may have come across a friend remind­ing every­one to just breathe. But can just-breath­ing real­ly make a dif­fer­ence? In his new book Breath: The New Sci­ence of a Lost Art, jour­nal­ist James Nestor argues that mod­ern humans have become pret­ty bad…

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New book in Spanish — El Cerebro que Cura: Descubre la mejor forma de mantener un cerebro sano como fuente de salud

Para ten­er una vida ple­na y feliz, lo más impor­tante es ten­er un cere­bro sano. Esta es la premisa que defien­den los autores: cómo una mente sana puede dar lugar a un cuer­po igual­mente salud­able. A través de sus estu­dios e inves­ti­ga­ciones, los autores pre­tenden demostrar que lle­var a cabo un patrón con­cre­to de actividad…

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New book explores nine lives impacted by rare brain disorders

Sev­er­al years ago, sci­ence writer Helen Thom­son, con­sul­tant to New Sci­en­tist and con­trib­u­tor to the Wash­ing­ton Post and Nature, decid­ed to trav­el around the world to inter­view peo­ple with “the most extra­or­di­nary brains.” In the process, as described in Unthink­able: An Extra­or­di­nary Jour­ney Through the World’s Strangest Brains (Ecco/Harper Collins 2018), Thomas dis­cov­ered that “by…

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New book on how “Forest Bathing” can promote physical and mental health

Nature deficit dis­or­der” is a mod­ern afflic­tion. With more peo­ple liv­ing in cities, work­ing in high-rise office build­ings, and becom­ing addict­ed to their innu­mer­able elec­tron­ic devices, many of us are indeed expe­ri­enc­ing a nature deficit. This is true for chil­dren and adults alike. In his new book, For­est Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find…

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