A creative mind is a healthy mind. Here are 10 health and wellness books to support creative and healthy living.
Many studies on creativity have found it can improve health, but building healthy habits can also improve creativity. Creative blocks are natural for the creative mind. How one deals with them can either help the process and the creative lifestyle or hurt it. If anxiety builds up and bad habits form, the creative mind can become more distracted and lead to unhealthy habits.
Why does being near water set our minds and bodies at ease? This crucial book by marine biologist Wallace J. Nichols explores the remarkable effects of water on our health and well-being. In Blue Mind, Wallace J. Nichols revolutionizes how we think about water, revealing the truths and benefits of being in, on, under, or near water. Combining cutting-edge neuroscience with compelling personal stories, Nichols shows how water can improve performance, moderate anxiety, and increase professional success. Throughout the history of mankind, creatives have sought out water for health and wellness, inspiration, and even as a tool to express creativity. Understanding our relationship with water builds healthier habits and a happier lifestyle for creativity.
In Superlife, nutritionist Darin Olien provides an entirely new way of thinking about health and well-being by identifying what he calls the life forces: Quality Nutrition, Hydration, Detoxification, Oxygenation, and Alkalization. Learn how to maintain these processes, thereby allowing your body to do the rest. Darin explains that all of this is possible without any of the restrictive or gimmicky diet plans that never work in the long term. His essential guide can help anyone maintain the human body and maximizing its potential. Learn how foods with unhealthy properties can create nutritional stress, which can affect your creative well-being.
From the best-selling author of Grain Brain comes Brain Maker, a look at the interplay between intestinal microbes and the brain. With new research, Dr. Perlmutter and his colleagues show how the brain’s health is dictated by the state of the body’s microbiome. What’s taking place in your intestines today is determining your risk for any number of brain-related conditions. Learn how your microbiome develops from birth and evolves based on lifestyle choices. It can become sick, but there are ways to nurture gut health that can alter your brain for the better. With simple dietary recommendations and a program of six steps to improve gut ecology, Brain Maker opens the door to unprecedented brain health potential. A creative mind is a healthy mind. Elements such as memory are crucial to boosting creativity. If you aren’t taking care of your gut biome, your brain may be feeling the pain.
Hygge – A quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. (Regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture)
Why are Danes some of the happiest people in the world? The answer, says Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute in Copenhagen, is Hygge. The Little Book of Hygge introduces you to this cornerstone of Danish life and healthy living. This philosophy of comfort, togetherness, and well-being can help you improve and enjoy your creative lifestyle. Hygge has been called “the art of creating intimacy” and “coziness of the soul.” In the creative life, it can be tough to slow down and enjoy the simple things. Learn how to get comfy in the here and now. Build relationships with others and yourself. Learn how to take a break from the demands of creative living. From picking the right lighting to choosing the comfiest of clothing, Meik Wiking shows you how to experience more joy and contentment the Danish way.
Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity.
In Why We Sleep, neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker gives new knowledge on the vital importance of sleep and dreaming. Learn how sleep enriches our ability to learn, memorize, and make logical decisions. Sleep helps us recalibrate our emotions, restocks our immune system, fine-tunes our metabolism, and regulates our appetite. Dreaming pacifies painful memories and creates a virtual space for the brain to blend past and present knowledge to inspire creativity. Countless creative minds have pointed to sleep for moments of insight and divergent thinking. Some of the most noteworthy ideas have come during sleep, like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. Based on new research and discoveries from the last twenty years, Matthew Walker answers some of the most important questions about sleep. How do caffeine and alcohol affect sleep? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? Improver your sleep habits to improve learning, creative thinking, mood, boost energy levels, increase longevity, and much more.
No matter what you eat, how much you exercise, how skinny or young you are, none of it matters if you’re not breathing properly. There is nothing more essential to a person’s health and wellness than breathing, but surprisingly, mankind has actually gotten worse at breathing correctly.
In Breathe, journalist James Nestor travels the world to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it. Curiously, Nestor doesn’t find answers in pulmonology labs but in the muddy digs of ancient burial sites, secret Soviet facilities, New Jersey choir schools, and the smoggy streets of São Paulo. In this health and wellness book, Nestor tracks down men and women exploring the hidden science behind ancient breathing practices like Pranayama, Sudarshan Kriya, and Tummo and teams up with pulmonary tinkerers to scientifically test long-held beliefs about how we breathe. Based on new research, Nestor discovers how proper breathing can improve athletic performance, rejuvenate internal organs, stop snoring, control asthma, strengthen the immune system, and even straighten scoliotic spines.
Breath turns conventional wisdom of what we thought we knew about our most basic biological function on its head. You will never breathe the same again, and you will never feel more healthy and creative when you learn to breathe better.
In Spark, John J. Ratey, M.D explores the science of the mind-body connection. It is the first book to explore the connections between exercise and the brain. Using case studies and ground-breaking research, he shows how exercise can help people overcome stress, lift mood, fight memory loss, depression, ADD, addiction, sharpen your intellect, and much more. Most notably, Aerobic exercise has been found to physically remodel our brains for peak performance. As you learn how to improve the mind-body connection through exercise, you won’t only improve brain function for a healthier lifestyle but also a creative lifestyle. A healthier brain naturally leads to a more creative brain.
Another great book on the importance of the gut biome is Gut: The Inside Story by Giulia Enders. This health and wellness book is an entertaining and informative tour of the digestive system. Giulia Enders explores nearly every gut topic and provides practical advice, from the best ways to sit on the toilet to how clean your kitchen should be.
She tells stories of gut bacteria that can lead to obesity, autoimmune diseases, or even suicide. This book is a fascinating primer for creatives interested in how our ideas about the gut are changing in the light of cutting-edge scientific research.
Among Americans, diabetes is more prevalent today than ever; obesity is at epidemic proportions; nearly 10% of children are thought to have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. And sugar is at the root of these, and other, critical society-wide, health-related problems. In The Case Against Sugar, Gary Taubes delves into Americans’ history with sugar: its uses as a preservative, as an additive in cigarettes, the contemporary overuse of high-fructose corn syrup. He explains what research has shown about our addiction to sweets. He clarifies the arguments against sugar, corrects misconceptions about the relationship between sugar and weight loss, and provides the perspective necessary to make informed decisions about sugar as individuals and as a society. Sugar has been found to slow creative thinking, increase the risk of depression, and can lower cognitive functions like learning and memory.
Given the current state of the world and the hardships we are all going through, learning how to eat for mental health is more important than ever. Did you know that blueberries can help you cope with the aftereffects of trauma? That salami can cause depression, or that boosting Vitamin D intake can help treat anxiety? When it comes to diet, most people’s concerns involve weight loss, fitness, cardiac health, and longevity. But what we eat affects more than our bodies; it also affects our brains. In This Is Your Brain on Food, Dr. Uma Naidoo, a board-certified psychiatrist, nutrition specialist, and professionally trained chef, draws on cutting-edge research to explain the many ways in which food contributes to our mental health. She shows how a sound diet can help treat and prevent a wide range of psychological and cognitive health issues. Creatives who are sensitive to the world know issues like anxiety and insomnia all too well. Building awareness and treating these feelings as they come up can free the mind to let the body create.
On your journey to healthy living, try some of these foods for creativity and these healthy cookbooks.
Zach is an international writer, photographer, filmmaker, martial artist, and creator of Creative Enso, the Zen art of creative living. His goal is to empower and inspire creatives to live healthier, happier, and more creative lifestyles.
