Health

Joy is not for just the lucky few–it’s a choice anyone can make. In this groundbreaking book, based on his popular course, James Baraz helps you discover a path to the happiness that’s right in front of you, offering a step-by-step program that will reorient your mind away from dissatisfaction and distraction and toward the contentment and delight that is abundantly available in our everyday lives.

You can decide to be happy. For years, James Baraz’s online Awakening Joy course has offered participants from around the world the benefits of this simple but profoundly radical proposition. Grounded in simple Buddhist principles but accessible to people of all faiths–or no faith at all–this concept provides the jumping-off point for a transformational journey toward a richer, more meaningful, more positive outlook on life. Now readers everywhere can follow the same ten steps Baraz teaches to his program participants. In this practical down-to-earth guide, you will learn how to

• make happiness a habit by inclining your mind toward states that lead to well-being
• find joy even during difficult times and avoid the pitfalls that prevent you from achieving the contentment you seek
• cultivate effective practices for sustaining joyfulness, such as reclaiming your natural sense of wonder and finding joy in the midst of everyday experiences

Each chapter of Awakening Joy consists of one step in Baraz’s ten-step program and includes engaging exercises and practical advice to make happiness your natural default setting. For everyone from the cynic despondent over life’s many sorrows to the harried commuter raging at freeway traffic, this book offers up a simple yet powerful message of hope grounded in the realization that joy already exists inside every one of us. Like a precious child, it only needs to be recognized, embraced, and nurtured in order to grow to its full potential.



Praise
"I've personally taken the Awakening Joy program and can say this unequivocally: It's fabulous and it works!  This book, filled with moving stories and rich teachings, will give you wonderful tools to experience true happiness and well-being.  It's a gem!"— Marci Shimoff, New York Times bestselling author of Happy for No Reason

"Opening to joy takes courage and intention. This book will inspire you to discover genuine happiness, and show you how. Drawing on perennial wisdom and accessible meditative practices, James and Shoshana offer teachings that can awaken your love of life."— Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance

"Awakening Joy is an important guide to transforming our everyday experience into genuine happiness.  James and Shoshana's insight, kindness, and clear and practical language make this a direct, pragmatic and valuable manual for a better life."—Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness

"In this beautiful and heartwarming book, James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander take us on a journey that truly awakens joy. There are stories that bring tears to our eyes and practices that transform our lives.  This is a loving, wise, and compassionate testament to what is possible for each one of us.  Highly recommended."—Joseph Goldstein, author of A Heart Full of Peace 

"I'm so happy that James Baraz's Awakening Joy class is now available in book form.  His class has been helpful to thousands of people.  I plan to give it to all my clients who are struggling with creating a life of meaning and happiness.  Joyfulness is our birthright.  This book shows you how to reclaim it."—M.J. Ryan, author of AdaptAbility

"This is a life-changing book that not only teaches practical, useful strategies for increasing your awareness, but also illuminates choices about how you can lead your emotional life." —Paul Ekman, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of California, San Francisco, co-author of Emotional Awareness and author of Emotions Revealed
 
"To awaken joy in oneself and others is one of life's great skills, a skill taught by sages across the centuries, and now distilled in this book."—Roger Walsh M.D., Ph.D., University of California Medical School, author of Essential Spirituality: The Seven Central Practices

"This book is an inspiring gift that will open your heart to the presence of love and joy in everyday life."—Frances Vaughan, Ph.D., psychologist, author of Shadows of the Sacred  
"Every page of this wonderful book has something that inspires faith or confidence: a new story, a memorable quote, an exercise that invites participation....From beginning to end, it is a joy to read."—Sylvia Boorstein, author of Happiness Is An Inside Job: Practicing for a Joyful Life 

"This book should be read by every person who cares about making this a better world. It can enhance the joys of working to develop a wiser and more compassionate society, and help make us both happier and more effective in challenging times."—Daniel Ellsberg, author of Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

   "This is an important book—and a great read! With its unique mix of story, philosophy, and practice we can explore our needs, free ourselves from the bonds of suffering, and innovate new ways of being that will last our lifetimes.  And, because James has woven himself and his characteristic smile throughout the book, we can have a lot of fun in the process."—Rick Foster, co-author of How We Choose to Be Happy 
 
"Faith, hope, and love have long been considered the essential virtues of the religious life. James Baraz has done us all a great service by elevating joy to its rightful place alongside the trinity of sacred emotions. What a gift is it, to be surprised by joy, and to awaken, in the midst of a difficult world, the impulse to rejoice."—Patricia E. de Jong, Senior Minister, First Congregational Church of Berkeley

"Awakening Joy is an inspirational and practical resource which helps us identify where we are or are not experiencing joy in our lives. This original book addresses the primary obstacles or beliefs that hinder our access to joy, and includes timeless practices and ways in which we can expand, cultivate, express, and experience more joy in our lives and within our own nature. Well-written, informative, and a significant contribution to everyone's well-being."—Angeles Arrien, Ph.D., cultural anthropologist, and author of award-winning Second Half of Life: Opening to the Eight Gates of Wisdom

"In our pursuit of happiness, this moving book should be a dog eared, worn out companion....As you work through this elegant material, you will find yourself laughing a little longer, dancing a little more, and awakening to the beauty of what lies inside you and in those nearby."—Dacher Keltner, Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley, and author, Born To Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life

"I have been deeply touched and inspired by James Baraz's accessible, practical wisdom.  His genuine caring for people and enthusiasm for life generously pour forth and permeate everything that he teaches--now in the pages of this book."—Rabbi Margie Jacobs, Institute for Jewish Spirituality 
 
"Awakening Joy is a wise treasure house of valuable information, anecdotes, potent quotes, and creative suggestions to step into one's power and live life to the max. This book is a rich, inspiring resource I'm excited to share with my yoga students."—Gabriel Halpern, founder and director of the Yoga Circle [Chicago] 

Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical "condition" distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and those impacted by it. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own "high-status" addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

We have all seen the segments on television news shows: A fat person walking on the sidewalk, her face out of frame so she can't be identified, as some disconcerting findings about the "obesity epidemic" stalking the nation are read by a disembodied voice. And we have seen the movies—their obvious lack of large leading actors silently speaking volumes. From the government, health industry, diet industry, news media, and popular culture we hear that we should all be focused on our weight. But is this national obsession with weight and thinness good for us? Or is it just another form of prejudice—one with especially dire consequences for many already disenfranchised groups?

For decades a growing cadre of scholars has been examining the role of body weight in society, critiquing the underlying assumptions, prejudices, and effects of how people perceive and relate to fatness. This burgeoning movement, known as fat studies, includes scholars from every field, as well as activists, artists, and intellectuals. The Fat Studies Reader is a milestone achievement, bringing together fifty-three diverse voices to explore a wide range of topics related to body weight. From the historical construction of fatness to public health policy, from job discrimination to social class disparities, from chick-lit to airline seats, this collection covers it all.

Edited by two leaders in the field, The Fat Studies Reader is an invaluable resource that provides a historical overview of fat studies, an in-depth examination of the movement's fundamental concerns, and an up-to-date look at its innovative research.

For nearly as long as women have been around, they have been going through menopause. It is a bodily process as old as human birth, death, and of course, menstruation. Like many normal biological events, menopause was gradually medicalized, and with the rise of pharmaceutical medicine, women and their doctors were convinced that it was an "estrogen deficiency disease" that could be treated by supplementing the body's declining estrogen levels with hormones. By 2002 hormone treatment had been on the market for more than fifty years when doctors and women alike were shocked by the results of a massive clinical trial, the Women's Health Initiative: women taking hormones had more heart attacks, breast cancer, strokes, pulmonary embolisms, and blood clots than women who did not, and patients were left scrambling to find new and sometimes difficult answers to their menopause and midlife health questions.

In The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause, Barbara Seaman, a legendary figure in the women's health movement, and Laura Eldridge have written a comprehensive, easy-to-use resource that will give you all the information you need to make smart and informed decisions that will put you in control during this time of transition -- medically, psychologically, sexually, and even financially.

With the latest research on everything from hormone replacement therapy to skin creams to preventing osteoporosis, The No-Nonsense Guide to Menopause is the definitive manual on this important subject. You'll find out which changes are expected and natural and which can be a cause for concern; how hormonal shifts can affect your heart, your sex life, and your mood; and what you can do to address these issues. Whether the authors are discussing the risk factors for heart disease, the benefits of lifting weights, or if you should consider a hysterectomy, they offer unbiased, straightforward information and advice with a signature blend of wisdom and sensitivity.

Perhaps most important, you'll learn how to evaluate what you read in magazines, hear on the news, and are told by your doctor, so you can distinguish between solid facts and dubious claims. By learning how to read and evaluate scientific studies and becoming familiar with what goes on behind the scenes in research labs, at doctors' offices, and at pharmaceutical companies, you will be able to become your own advocate. The next time you go to the doctor's office, you will know how to make the most of your visit and leave feeling confident, informed, and in command. There is no one way to experience menopause and no single way to handle the challenges it can present, but as a no-nonsense patient, you will have the tools you need to make decisions that are right for you.

The Medical Committee for Human Rights was organized in the summer of 1964 by medical professionals, mostly white and Northern, to provide care and support for Civil Rights activists who were organizing black voters in Mississippi. They left their lives and lucrative private practices to march beside and tend the wounds of demonstrators from Freedom Summer, to the March on Selma, to the Chicago Democratic Convention of 1968. Galvanized, and sometimes radicalized, by their firsthand view of disenfranchised communities, the MCHR soon expanded its mission to encompass a range of causes from poverty to the war in Vietnam, and later took on the whole of the United States healthcare system. The MCHR doctors soon realized that fighting segregation would mean not just caring for white volunteers, but exposing and correcting the shocking inequalities in segregated health care. They pioneered community health plans and brought medical care to underserved, or unserved, areas.

Though education was the most famous battleground for integration, the appaling injustice of segregated health care had equally devastating consequences. Award-winning historian John Dittmer, author of the classic Civil Rights history Local People, has written an insightful and moving account of a group of idealists who put their careers in the service of the belief, stated in their motto, that "Health Care Is a Human Right."

• How to choose equipment
• Proper riding technique
• Safety tips
• Accessories
• Easy rules on where, when, and how to ride

  As this book says, anyone can ride a bike and look good doing it. You don’t have to go fast, and you don’t have to go far. You just have to go.

  Chip Haynes has been a year-round commuter for a decade, and he owns too many bicycles. He writes about bicycling for The Wire Donkey and is known as “the neighborhood bike guy” in Clearwater, Florida.

Announcing a brand new, cover-to-cover revision of America's pregnancy bible. What to Expect When You're Expecting is a perennial New York Times bestseller and one of USA Today's 25 most influential books of the past 25 years. It's read by more than 90% of pregnant women who read a pregnancy book—the most iconic, must-have book for parents-to-be, with over 14.5 million copies in print.

Now comes the Fourth Edition, a new book for a new generation of expectant moms—featuring a new look, a fresh perspective, and a friendlier-than-ever voice. It's filled with the most up-to-date information reflecting not only what's new in pregnancy, but what's relevant to pregnant women. Heidi Murkoff has rewritten every section of the book, answering dozens of new questions and including loads of new asked-for material, such as a detailed week-by-week fetal development section in each of the monthly chapters, an expanded chapter on pre-conception, and a brand new one on carrying multiples. More comprehensive, reassuring, and empathetic than ever, the Fourth Edition incorporates the most recent developments in obstetrics and addresses the most current lifestyle trends (from tattooing and belly piercing to Botox and aromatherapy). There's more than ever on pregnancy matters practical (including an expanded section on workplace concerns), physical (with more symptoms, more solutions), emotional (more advice on riding the mood roller coaster), nutritional (from low-carb to vegan, from junk food–dependent to caffeine-addicted), and sexual (what's hot and what's not in pregnant lovemaking), as well as much more support for that very important partner in parenting, the dad-to-be.

Overflowing with tips, helpful hints, and humor (a pregnant woman's best friend), this new edition is more accessible and easier to use than ever before. It's everything parents-to-be have come to expect from What to Expect...only better?.