Book Review - Mindfulness made Simple : an introduction to finding calm through mindfulness and meditation Forward by Elisha Goldstein PHD

Mindfulness made Simple shows you how to bring mindfulness and meditation into your daily life. Mindfulness is widely recognised for its calming, healing and restorative effects.

This book contains a step by step guide to your first meditation plus a further 5 basic and 8 advanced meditations to deepen your practice.
The book contains a number of inspiration quotes and tips. I found chapter 5 very helpful as it lists a number of simple meditations for common concerns eg stress and negative thought patterns. I found this book to be very helpful in deepening my meditation practice. It is easy to read and contains clear and concise instructions to follow. Anne

Book Review - Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily joy and lasting fulfilment by Tal Ben-Shahar Ph.D.

In this book by popular Harvard University teacher Ben-Shahar Ph.D, it combines scientific studies, research, self help and spiritual enlightenment. The course he ran at Harvard based on Positive Psychology and Happiness was Harvard’s most popular and life changing course. The book is divided into 3 parts

·         What is happiness

·         Happiness applied

·         Meditations on Happiness

Ben-Shahar has created a set of principles in Happier to follow and to apply into your daily life to achieve more happiness.

‘It is easy to see how this is the backbone of the most popular course at Harvard today’-Martin E.P Seigman author of Authentic Happiness.

I especially enjoyed the chapter on reconciling present and future and enjoyed working through the time-in exercises and meditations. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, I got a lot out of it and will be rereading it again soon.

Anne