Life-changing books I’ll keep forever.
Over the past several years, I have fallen in love with reading again. Although I can absolutely appreciate a good fiction novel, I truly love books related to health and self-development. My 20’s for me have been all about internal growth, stepping into my own, discovering my passions, and digging deep, and I feel like these books have helped me do just that. Some are more practical while others are a bit more spiritual – I love both for different reasons. These are my 5 (plus one extra) favorite health and self-development books that have made the biggest impact on my life.
I’ve read all of these books within the last 3 years and they’ve all been life-changing in some way. If any of these books interest you, I hope you give them a read!
1. Taking Charge of Your Fertility – Toni Weschler
If you’ve followed my blog or my Instagram, then you probably know by now that I’m obsessed with this book. I recommend it to anyone and everyone. It’s packed with important info that ALL females need to learn and understand.
This book talks all about how to prevent birth control naturally (or achieve pregnancy if that is your goal) and reproductive health. It goes into detail about how to chart your cycle and use temperature tracking to understand your body, as well as understanding the two other fertility signs. It’s also just an all-around great book for learning how to improve the health of your cycle.
If you’re looking to get off of birth control pills and either avoid pregnancy or get pregnant, then this book is for you. The author writes in a way that is easy to understand and also includes lots of charts and images to help you learn. I recently wrote a blog post all about my experience getting off of hormonal birth control, so if that’s something you’re thinking about possibly doing, then I suggest you give it a read!
I will say…this book is LARGE! It’s basically a textbook, but you don’t have to read it all – you can pick and choose what is relevant to you. Some chapters may not be useful for you, while others are incredibly important.
But this is my #1 most recommended book for females to help understand their bodies, their cycles and improve their reproductive health.
2. You Can Heal Your Life – Louise Hay
This is an incredibly popular book and for good reason. I’ve actually read this book from front to back at least 3 times and every time I always benefit from it. In this book, Louise Hay talks about how to restructure your life and create the life you truly want. It’s heavily based around affirmations, our beliefs and perspective, and how changing our thoughts can change our life.
She also talks about how our emotions can create physical pain in the body, and while I do agree that emotions can heavily influence the way our body works and can create problems and symptoms, I don’t think they’re the only reason. I don’t agree 100% with everything she says, but I still love the book nonetheless. To be honest, I love reading books that sometimes have a different perspective of my own and that make me think differently.
The end of the book has a chart that lists different physical ailments and what she believes to be the corresponding emotional cause. And I will say, it’s been pretty spot on with things I’ve dealt with in the past.
Either way, this book helps me to actively try and create the life I want by changing the way I think and behave. It reinforces the fact that we have more control than we realize and that we can live happily + blissfully if we choose to create that for ourselves.
3. Super Attractor – Gabrielle Bernstein
This book is similar to the last in that it’s about manifesting the life you want. She basically breaks down the process of manifestation into clear, easy-to-read steps that just make sense.
However, this book also has a spiritual component which I really love. It might not be for everyone, but it was something that resonated with me personally. If you’re opening the door to a spiritual path, I think you would really enjoy it and benefit from it.
So basically if you want to learn more about manifestation and spirituality, get this book.
After all the chaos that’s ensued over 2020 so far, I feel like I really need to pick up this book and read it again. Because this year has been so rocky, I think it’s caused me to be more anxious and focus my energy on things I don’t want instead of the things that I do want. Reading this book again will give me the reminders I need to create the life and vision I have for myself and my future.
4. In The Flo – Alisa Vitti
I’ve also mentioned this book a ton already and that’s because it was so life-changing for me. In The Flo talks all about the concept of cycle syncing: how to live in alignment with our cycle so we’ll feel healthier, create more flow, have more energy, and get more done. In this book, you’ll understand the different phases of your menstrual cycle, why it’s important to support each phase uniquely, and how to do it.
This book also walks you through how best to eat, exercise, work, and support your relationships depending on what phase you’re in. While that may sound a little extreme, after reading this book it will all make sense and you’ll question why we never learned this stuff earlier.
If you want to know if this book is for you, take a look at one of my most popular blog posts all about cycle syncing. If it’s something that intrigues you and you feel like you should learn more about it, then I highly recommend you purchase this book! It’s packed full of incredible information.
5. Atomic Habits – James Clear
Atomic Habits is a very practical, straightforward book all about how to change and build habits. It’s easy-to-read and follow along and has short concise chapters (my fav!). He breaks the habit process down step-by-step and makes creating better habits (or breaking bad ones) seem much more achievable.
James Clear says that “habits are the compound interest of self-improvement” and he’s right. He talks about how one seemingly small habit change can make a big impact. If we keep up those good habits over time, the benefit will be even larger than we can imagine.
This book is crazy popular on Amazon and for good reason. If you’re trying to improve your daily habits (who isn’t?) then check out this book – it’s a good one!
And another one just because…
The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
This book, at least for me personally, was a lot harder to read than the rest. To be honest, the first time I tried to read it, I read about 50 pages then put it back on the bookshelf. I picked it up a year later after learning more about spirituality and that’s when it started to click.
The Power of Now is all about living in the present. Ekhart Tolle talks about how the mind can be one of our greatest enemies and can be a big reason for our pain + suffering. It’s definitely a little more “out there” than the rest of the books I mentioned, but if you’re headed down a spiritual path, then this might be for you.
After I read this book, I immediately felt more peace in my day-to-day life. I appreciated the simple things more and easily experienced gratitude for everything around me. Now that I’m writing this, I should probably give this a read, again, too!
If you think someone might benefit from one of these books, be sure to share this blog post with them!
Have you read any of the books I mentioned above? If so, what did you think? And let me know if you’re planning on giving any of these a read!
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