The best books for reclaiming wellness

Why am I passionate about this?

As a wellness educator, executive coach, and herbalist, I help people reclaim wellness and nutritional practices that can help them reclaim their natural state of wellness. They helped me in my own wellness journey and now I shared them with clients, students, and in my speaking engagements. These books have been in my library and recommendation list for more than 10 years.


I wrote...

Reclaiming Wellness: Ancient Wisdom for Your Healthy, Happy, and Beautiful Life

By Jovanka Ciares,

Book cover of Reclaiming Wellness: Ancient Wisdom for Your Healthy, Happy, and Beautiful Life

Jovanka Ciares

Many of the most popular approaches to mind, body, and spirit wellness are rooted in age-old practices from around the world and come from communities of color. But today they are typically promoted and used only by dominant culture elites. No more. In Reclaiming Wellness, Jovanka Ciares reclaims these time- and science-proven modalities to make them affordable and easy to implement for anyone.

After years of suffering from IBS, ulcers, and fibroids, Ciares embraced alternative therapies like Ayurveda, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and herbalism. Her fifteen-year journey toward self-healing, peace, and happiness became her motivation to inspire and support thousands of others to do the same, especially those like herself — educated women of color who are rarely represented in the billion-dollar industry of health and wellness.

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of By Any Greens Necessary: A Revolutionary Guide for Black Women Who Want to Eat Great, Get Healthy, Lose Weight, and Look Phat

Jovanka Ciares Why did I love this book?

This is one of those books that will inspire you to do more for your own health and longevity. I was a semi-plant-based vegan back in 2010 and losing motivation to stick to my new diet. With this book, I was able to embrace veganism in a healthy, tasty, and cost-saving way.

By Tracye Lynn McQuirter,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked By Any Greens Necessary as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

* The first vegan guide geared to African American women

* More than forty delicious and nutritious recipes highlighted with color photographs

* Menus and advice on transitioning from omnivore to vegan

* Resource information and a comprehensive shopping list for restocking the fridge and pantry

 

African American women are facing a health crisis: Heart disease, stroke, and diabetes occur more frequently among them than among women of other races. Black women comprise the heftiest group in the nation—80 percent are overweight, and 50 percent obese. Decades of studies show that these chronic diseases can be prevented and even reversed…


Book cover of In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto

Jovanka Ciares Why did I love this book?

This is a follow-up with Michael Pollan’s best-selling, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. It helps answers the ever-pressing questions of what and how to eat, one meal at a time. This is one of the books that answers Mr. Pollan’s now-famous quote: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

By Michael Pollan,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked In Defense of Food as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

#1 New York Times Bestseller from the author of This is Your Mind on Plants, How to Change Your Mind, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and Food Rules

Food. There's plenty of it around, and we all love to eat it. So why should anyone need to defend it?

Because in the so-called Western diet, food has been replaced by nutrients, and common sense by confusion--most of what we’re consuming today is longer the product of nature but of food science. The result is what Michael Pollan calls the American Paradox: The more we worry about nutrition, the less healthy we see…


Book cover of Manifest Your Destiny: Nine Spiritual Principles for Getting Everything You Want

Jovanka Ciares Why did I love this book?

This was the very first self-help/wellness book I ever wrote. I was new to New York City and trying to find answers like any other 20-something looking to find her place in the world. To this date, it is one of the most powerful reads I’ve had on the subject of attracting one’s needs and desires into one’s life.

By Wayne W. Dyer,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Manifest Your Destiny as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, affectionately called the "father of motivation" by his fans, is one of the most widely known and respected people in the field of self-empowerment. Manifest Your Destiny is a remarkable guidebook that show us how to obtain what we truly desire.


Book cover of Clean: The Revolutionary Program to Restore the Body's Natural Ability to Heal Itself

Jovanka Ciares Why did I love this book?

I am a passionate advocate for the process of using foods and supplements, especially natural herbal ones to aid the body in the cleansing and detoxification process. This is one of the best books describing this process to help support and rejuvenate from the inside out.

By Alejandro Junger,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Clean as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A Life-Changing Medical Breakthrough Clean is an M.D.'s program designed to be easily incorporated into our busy schedule while providing all the practical tools necessary to support and rejuvenate our bodies. The effect is transformative: nagging health problems will suddenly disappear, extra weight will drop away, and for the first time in our lives, we will experience what it truly means to feel healthy. Expanded Edition Includes: New Introduction * New Recipes * How to Become Clean for Life


Book cover of Yesterday I Cried: Celebrating the Lessons of Living and Loving

Jovanka Ciares Why did I love this book?

A powerful book where the author describes her journey from extreme hardship through hope and into renewal, wisdom and healing. This book will teach you that the pain of your past doesn’t have to be your reality today and how to rise above.

By Iyanla Vanzant,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Yesterday I Cried as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This self-help resource demonstrates how some of life's most important and joyous lessons can come from life's hardest knocks.


You might also like...

Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children

By Felice Picano,

Book cover of Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children

Felice Picano Author Of Six Strange Stories and an Essay on H.P. Lovecraft

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

Author

Felice's 3 favorite reads in 2023

What is my book about?

Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood.

Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into the mindless bigotry of a middle school teacher who insists that left-handedness is "wrong," and his idyllic world falls apart.

He uncovers the insatiable appetites of a trio of neighboring sisters, falls for another boy with a glue-sniffing habit, and discovers the hidden world of adult desire and hypocrisy. Picano exits his boyhood sooner than most, but with this sense of self intact and armed with a fuller understanding of the world, he is about to enter.

Controversial when it first came out, Ambidextrous was burned on the docks of London in 1989 by Her Majesty Inland Service and decried by many. This reprint, with a Foreword by the author, discusses its banned book history and how it has become a classic depiction used by professionals involved in modern childhood studies.

Ambidextrous: The Secret Lives of Children

By Felice Picano,

What is this book about?

Bold, funny, and shockingly honest, Ambidextrous is like no other memoir of 1950s urban childhood. Picano appears to his parents and siblings to be a happy, cheerful eleven-year-old, possessed of the remarkable talent of being able to draw beautifully and write fluently with either hand. But then he runs into the mindless bigotry of a middle school teacher who insists that left-handedness is "wrong," and his idyllic world falls apart. He uncovers the insatiable appetites of a trio of neighboring sisters, falls for another boy with a glue-sniffing habit, and discovers the hidden world of adult desire and hypocrisy. Picano…


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