Health Studies

For modern science, the transitional states of consciousness lie at the forefront of research in many fields. For a Buddhist practitioner, these same states present crucial opportunities to explore and transform consciousness itself. This book is the account of a historic dialogue between leading Western scientists and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. Revolving around three key moments of consciousness - sleep, dreams, and death - the conversations recorded here are both engrossing and highly listenable.

In this no-nonsense guide for men, psychologist Jonas Horwitz presents straightforward, jargon-free strategies to help you identify and overcome depression, once and for all. With this unique guide, you'll learn why it's so important to take your severe depression seriously - just as you would if you had cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or any other life-threatening illness. In addition, by viewing your depression into a separate entity - The Beast - you'll discover how it tries to trick you when you are most stressed to do things that leave you feeling much more depressed.

Since its release in 1949, The Hero with a Thousand Faces has influenced millions of readers by combining the insights of modern psychology with Joseph Campbell's revolutionary understanding of comparative mythology. In this book, Campbell outlines the Hero's Journey, a universal motif of adventure and transformation that runs through virtually all of the world's mythic traditions. He also explores the Cosmogonic Cycle, the mythic pattern of world creation and destruction.

This confessional self-help guide explores the complex emotional truth of what it’s like when food, weight, and body image take priority over every other human impulse or action. Activist author Marissa LaRocca’s revelatory tale includes her struggle with her secrets, including sexuality, and how she emerged as an outspoken advocate for gay rights and women’s health issues.

More than 30 years ago, nutrition researcher T. Colin Campbell and his team at Cornell University, in partnership with teams in China and England, embarked upon the most comprehensive study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease. What they found, when combined with findings in Campbell's laboratory, opened their eyes to the dangers of a diet high in animal protein and the unparalleled health benefits of a whole foods, plant-based diet.

At a time when many people around the world are living into their 10th decade, the longest longitudinal study of human development ever undertaken offers some welcome news for the new old age: Our lives continue to evolve in our later years and often become more fulfilling than before. Begun in 1938, the Grant Study of Adult Development charted the physical and emotional health of over 200 men, starting with their undergraduate days. The now-classic Adaptation to Life reported on the men's lives up to age 55 and helped us understand adult maturation.

In this stunning audiobook, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of "outliers" - the best and the brightest, the most famous, and the most successful. He asks the question: What makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are from: That is, their culture, their family, their generation, and the idiosyncratic experiences of their upbringing.

This audiobook goes far beyond hot flashes and gets to the very heart of the midlife journey, helping women find their unique voice and speak their truth in an era of #MeToo and #ChurchToo. Coming alongside listeners as a wise spiritual guide, pastor and theologian Cheryl Bridges Johns identifies seven key developmental "tasks" of menopause and gives practical ways women can embrace each one. She encourages women to view these tasks as gifts as they experience the remarkable physical, emotional, and spiritual transformation that occurs in this stage of life.

In Patient Zero, Richard A. McKay presents a carefully documented and sensitively written account of the life of Gaetan Dugas, a gay man whose skin cancer diagnosis in 1980 took on very different meanings as the HIV/AIDS epidemic developed - and who received widespread posthumous infamy when he was incorrectly identified as patient zero of the North American outbreak.

In an age riven by "fake news," "alternative facts," and disputes over the validity of everything from climate change to the size of inauguration crowds, the authors argue that social factors, not individual psychology, are what's essential to understanding the persistence of false belief and that we must know how those social forces work in order to fight misinformation effectively.

Human sacrifice still goes on uncomfortably close to home - cases have been found in the U.S., Europe, and the United Kingdom. In other parts of the world, such as South America, ritual killing is almost commonplace. Human Sacrifice investigates the terrifying current spate of human sacrifices and ritual killings. Jimmy Lee Shreeve draws on police reports and interviews with the victims' families to paint a horrifying picture of ritual sacrifice at home and abroad.

It's not a surprise that our fast-paced, overly analytical culture is pushing people - especially women - to spend countless hours thinking about negative ideas, feelings, and experiences. Renowned psychologist Dr. Susan Nolen-Hoeksema calls this "overthinking". Her groundbreaking research shows that an increasing number of women - more than half of those in her extensive study - are doing it too much and too often, hindering their ability to lead a satisfying life.

Shortly before he died, Plenty Coups, the last great Chief of the Crow Nation, told his story - up to a certain point. "When the buffalo went away the hearts of my people fell to the ground", he said, "and they could not lift them up again. After this nothing happened." It is precisely this point - that of a people faced with the end of their way of life - that prompts the philosophical and ethical inquiry pursued in Radical Hope. In Jonathan Lear's view, Plenty Coups' story raises a profound ethical question that transcends his time and challenges us all.

Sex is cheap. Coupled sexual activity has become more widely available than ever. Cheap sex has been made possible by two technologies that have little to do with each other - the Pill and high-quality pornography - and its distribution made more efficient by a third technological innovation, online dating. Together, they drive down the cost of real sex, and in turn slow the development of love, make fidelity more challenging, sexual malleability more common, and have even taken a toll on men's marriageability. Cheap Sex takes listeners on an extended tour inside the American mating market.

This is a new edition of the classic Colin Wilson collection The Essential Colin Wilson (first published in 1985), updated and introduced by Wilson's bibliographer Colin Stanley. It is the only book to contain extracts from Colin Wilson's most important work in one volume, including The Outsider, A Criminal History of Mankind, The New Existentialism, The Occult, New Pathways in Psychology, and Mysteries, as well as three of his novels and many other texts.

We produced this book solely for the purpose of education and instruction. After spending several decades as a teacher of behavioral statistics, the author, who became internationally regarded for his pedagogical prowess, desired to create a textbook that would apply the most effective classroom approaches to the printed page. This book achieves exactly that by utilizing a variety of different strategies, such as timely pointing and highlighting devices, strategic reviews and reminders, a focus on the most relevant material, and opportune anticipation of the student's perspective.

A definitive history of mescaline that explores its mind-altering effects across cultures, from ancient America to Western modernity. Mescaline became a popular sensation in the mid-20th century through Aldous Huxley's The Doors of Perception, after which the word "psychedelic" was coined to describe it. Its story, however, extends deep into prehistory: The earliest Andean cultures depicted mescaline-containing cacti in their temples.

Based on seven years of ground-breaking research and hundreds of interviews, I Thought It Was Just Me shines a long-overdue light on an important truth: Our imperfections are what connect us to each other and to our humanity. Our vulnerabilities are not weaknesses; they are powerful reminders to keep our hearts and minds open to the reality that we're all in this together.

Perhaps no book in this generation has had a more profound impact on our intellectual and spiritual lives than The Road Less Traveled. With sales of more than 7 million copies in the United States and Canada, and translation into more than 23 languages, it has made publishing history, with more than 10 years on The New York Times best seller list.

This book offers a unique, interdisciplinary, and thoughtful look at the challenges and potency of Black women's struggle for inner peace and mental stability. It brings together contributors from psychology, sociology, law, and medicine, as well as the humanities, to discuss issues ranging from stress, sexual assault, healing, self-care, and contemplative practice to health-policy considerations and parenting.