Five Good Minutes in Your Body: 100 Mindful Practices to Help You Accept Yourself and Feel at Home in Your Body

Jeffrey Brantley · Wendy Millstine

Jan 2009 · New Harbinger Publications

About this ebook

Five Good Minutes in Your Body offers simple yet effective activities to help us restore and recharge our relationships with our bodies. With these tools we can create a life that is more fulfilling-a life in which we are no longer at the mercy of the stress of our day. The practices can transform the mundane into the extraordinary, and renew our sense of vitality and passion for life.

Learning to be mindful of our bodies can be hard in this fast-paced, stressful world. Some of us live from the neck up, forgetting to nourish and appreciate-or even be comfortable in-our bodies. In the western world we often live nearly entirely in the mind. Through mindful practices, this book will help bring us back into our bodies and help us reduce stress, breathe again, and actually enjoy our bodies. We're also incredibly self-critical of our bodies. Who among us hasn't wished they were just a little skinnier, more muscular, taller, had a narrower foot, darker hair, lighter eyes... the list of our inadequacies is endless. We are very self-critical of our bodies and often have distorted perceptions of ourselves. We needlessly compare ourselves to some unattainable-and airbrushed-ideal. This often leads to feeling cut off from our bodies and, ultimately, disembodied. We then end up making unhealthy choices, such as eating foods that don't make us feel good, drinking too much, or even over-exercising, all in an effort to try to feel better about ourselves.

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About the author

Jeffrey Brantley, MD, is professor emeritus in the department of psychiatry and human behavior at Duke University Medical Center. He is founder and former director of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) Program at Duke Integrative Medicine. He has represented the Duke MBSR program in numerous radio, television, and print interviews. He is author of Calming Your Anxious Mind, and coauthor of the Five Good Minutes series.

Wendy Millstine, NC, is a freelance writer and certified holistic nutrition consultant who specializes in diet and stress reduction. With Jeffrey Brantley, she is coauthor of the Five Good Minutes® series, Daily Meditations for Calming Your Anxious Mind, and True Belonging. Millstine is also coauthor of Calming the Rush of Panic. She lives in Santa Rosa, CA.