100 books like Draw Breath

This book is about a new and elegant approach to healthcare called ‘energy management’. Dr. Manga’s passion is in bringing mindfulness into medicine and in inspiring conscious living as a way of restoring and supporting health and wellbeing. She teaches high performers how to access authentic energy instead of relying on adrenalized energy. Dr. Manga offers simple yet powerful ways to integrate what she calls “recovery loops” into our everyday lives. This book is full of real-life stories about the effects of stress and is a treasure trove of practical tips for preventing and recovering from it. In fact, I believe that this book will do more to help you prevent and recover from stress and burnout than anything you have learned or that has been published to date.

Jim is the creator of Therapeutic Breathwork. He was the first clinical psychologist in America to fully integrate breathwork into his practice, and he has been a leading voice in the breathing world for nearly fifty years. He brings a wealth of experience in the healing of trauma, and he teaches people to use breathwork to meet everyday challenges, for life-long personal growth, and for spiritual awakening. He introduces a brilliant model of “Six Body Themes” and “Six Major Breathing Patterns” with specific coaching tips and goals related to each. This book addresses breathwork ethics and standards. It contains game-changing advice and techniques for professional practitioners, bodyworkers, counselors, therapists, and anyone interested in self-actualization and liberation.

The “Breath Guy” has studied with some of the world’s most well know breathing experts and authorities, and he has become one of the world’s leading practitioners of breathwork. He incorporates movement and posture and stretching into breathing practices. He has put together a collection of powerful breathwork exercises that will help you awaken your energy and your body and will also help you up-level your emotional and psychological health. He offers some simple breathing tests to check your skills, and he gives us several morning rituals, afternoon boosters, stress busters, and evening calmers. And he has included a great 21-day program to optimize your day-to-day breathing so that you feel great and perform at your best.

Patrick is the Ninja of Nose Breathing! He is one of those special people who learned how to pick himself up by his own bootstraps! He healed himself of asthma and has helped thousands of others do the same. His first book, The Oxygen Advantage, was a game-changer. And his most recent book, The Breathing Cure takes the Oxygen Advantage to the next level! It is packed with practical teachings and filled with evidence-based exercises and resources guaranteed to help you improve a host of health issues, including stress, anxiety and panic disorders, snoring, Insomnia, lower back pain, high blood pressure, even diabetes, Epilepsy, and more!

Breathe Like a Bear is part of a series of seven books called Mindfulness Moments for Kids. I absolutely love this book as a way to immediately have real and effective tools to calm your toddler. The exercises in this book are simple, quick, and effective. Breathe Like a Bear is also illustrated so beautifully with vibrant colors to really keep young kids really engaged in the process. If you are looking to go further than identifying feelings and want to move into practices and tools to help regulate your child’s emotions, this is an excellent option. 

I Am Peace is part of a wonderful series by this well-known team. The series explores topics such as compassion, empathy, resilience, and what it is to be a feeling human being. I Am Peace is about a child (gender not identified) who worries about the past and future and learns how to comfort and ground themselves by noticing the here and now, breathing evenly, and practicing kindness toward themselves and others. The simple, sparse text expresses these rather deep ideas in ways that all children can understand: “I can watch my worries gently pop and disappear. I let things go"; “I can hug a tree and thank it for its beauty and strength.” The back matter features a discussion of mindfulness and a guided meditation.

In this colorful book about pigs learning to meditate, we see their stressful world and how it is sometimes hard to manage emotions such as anger and frustration: “So it’s good to have a peaceful place inside.” In simple, accessible language, the author shows how, through meditation, the pigs learn, among other things, to accept what “is,” instead of wishing it were otherwise. A sweet scene showing a dead goldfish that can’t be wished back to life gently makes this point. Themes of self-care, self-acceptance, and kindness add to the strong message. Back matter includes a meditation instruction, how to make a glitter jar, and notes about family meditation. A great introduction to how to do the formal practice of meditation. 

Even if Yoga isn’t a regular practice for you, I still highly recommend picking up this book as the potent wisdom it holds inside will definitely invigorate your perspectives and has the potential to awaken you further. I’ve had the honor of doing AcroYoga with Jason, the co-founder of AcroYoga, and the spiritual transmissions and activations that happen are indescribable! If you are ready to expand, ready to invite more play, joy, and laughter into your life, ready to connect more deeply with yourself, your body, and others – this book is a must-have. You will learn not only how to do AcroYoga but also how this practice can take your life in entirely new directions.

I had the great fortune of doing my mindful outdoor leadership training with the author, Micah, a few years ago.

This book is a sweet dive that introduced me to the concept and practices associated with rewilding–mindfulness in nature, forest bathing, and ancestral skills like fire building.

It’s a go-to resource that I share with students and others who are interested in reconnecting to nature as a holistic practice. 

I love this book because it addresses the issues we have with body image and how to heal ourselves from our negative words, thoughts, and beliefs. We get to dig deeper into our relationships with our bodies through the yoga practice. This book shows us mindful steps on how to listen, learn, love, and live with specific practical practices that can change our lives. If you live in the world today you have been faced with lots of body blaming and shaming. This read will help you find body peace and contentment.