Summer Reads: focusing on health

It's a cool and gloomy day (and it looks like it's going to stay that way until the end of the week) but I am declaring it the first day of summer anyway! Actually, it's the first day of summer teaching - but close enough! Since regular courses are over, I have time to focus on things I've neglected. First on this list is my health. Some of the hits it took weren't my fault, of course; I had a hard time recovering from surgery and got a late season flu that became pneumonia. But I also haven't been very good about exercise or eating well.

To mark this new season (on this day I artificially chose) I got up and used youtube to find some exercise videos to get me started. I did some tae bo, some yoga (it felt great on my back!), some tai chi, some dancing to oldies (no video needed), and, finally, finished up with some meditation. As a way of marking my start (to what I hope will be a good, permanent change), I thought I would share some of my favorite health-related reads!

I got New York City Ballet Workout when I started graduate school and moved into my first apartment: a third floor walk-up with scuffed wooden floors. I'm sure I annoyed my neighbors with my "dancing" - but this book led me to youtube ballet workouts that I find very helpful (especially since I hate/ get bored with ab workouts very quickly (read: as soon as they hurt).

If I remember correctly, my introduction to tai chi was through something really stupid, like That 70s Show - but, being curious, I always tend to look for books on anything "new" I hear about! I found The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi and started reading - and practicing. I admit that I sometimes laugh at some of the video dialogue ("hug that beautiful tree") but I do enjoy the workouts!

My husband is the one who introduced me to meditation as a way to manage anxiety. I've had great success with it - but when I'm feeling good I tend to let it slide. Real Happiness isn't (in my opinion) the best title - but it's a great book to get a foundation in meditation. One of my favorite features is that it adapts all the meditation exercises to sitting, lying down, or walking - so if you're feeling too antsy to sit still, you can still practice on the move!

I'm not big on self-help books. I always (cynically) think that if they worked the industry would be pretty small! And I really don't like the recent turn toward raunchiness in self-help - as if adding the F word to titles somehow makes them adult and rebellious. Despite this, I liked the messages included in The Gifts of Imperfection. The downside (and this is probably connected to my personality more than a fault of the book) was that I felt a little like a student in math class. Everything made sense when I read it. When I closed the book and tried to apply it - that's when things got tricky!