Health & Fitness

Fairy tales, though they were originally folk tales told to adults, have been a key part of childhood for centuries and remain popular today. Their patterns and morality have a profound influence on the developing mind of children; they shape the way children understand ideas of good and evil, poverty and riches, beauty and ugliness. They stimulate the imagination and provide much-needed heroes and heroines.

The deeper meaning of these tales, however, has often been lost. Rudolf Meyer explores key themes and images, such as the prince, animals, the tailor or enchantment, in well-known fairy tales. He shows how characters such as Snow White and Cinderella represent particular aspects of our own nature and how there is a deep wisdom to be found in their stories.

This book will be fascinating and insightful reading for parents and teachers.

Eurythmy is a modern art of movement, and eurythmists work in the realms of art, healing and education. The benefits as a healing social art, for both children and adults, are well known.

Rudolf Steiner gave a course on eurythmy therapy in which he described the process of 're-enlivening the whole physiology'. The authors of this book have researched eurythmy therapy for many years and this book is a comprehensive overview of their work.

What do we, as parents, need to give our children to ensure they grow up to be happy, well-balanced and resilient people?

Parenting tutor and mother of two Christiane Kutik tells us that, above all, children need their parents to give them strong values to help them find their way in life.

Many of us consider values to be an old-fashioned concept but Kutik suggests that by fostering twelve vital values, parents can provide their children with all the tools they need to flourish, to discover the worth of non-material rewards and to have an emotionally enriching life.

Parenting with Values encourages parents to reflect on which values they want to pass on to their children. In twelve short, easy-to-digest chapters, Kutik discusses the essential qualities that children need, and explains how each one is learned and passed on from parent to child.

The twelve essential values Kutik identifies are:

• Self-esteem
• Compassion
• Honesty
• Respect
• Sensibility
• Humor
• Security
• Capacity to manage conflict
• Independence
• Interest in the world
• Soulfulness
• Connection the natural world

This engaging and readable book is filled with practical everyday examples of values in action. It will provide inspiration for parents who wish to proactively encourage positive development in their children.

When a child is sick, parents need clear, reliable information to help them take action quickly. This fully comprehensive guide to child health and wellness, draws on anthroposophic medicine, combining conventional treatments with complementary therapies.

A Waldorf Guide to Child Health includes:

• First aid guidance for help in emergencies
• Treatments to relieve common complaints such as pain, fever, vomiting, allergies and asthma
• Recommendations to deal with common illnesses such as chickenpox, glandular fever and ear infections
• Advice on coping with serious disorders such as meningitis, diabetes, chronic illnesses and hospital stays

Including current medical advice alongside tried-and-tested tips, this book empowers parents to look beyond the surface symptoms and better understand their child as a whole, in body, soul and spirit.

Based on the bestselling A Guide To Child Health, this essential reference guide has been fully revised and updated for today's parents.

Takes mindfulness one step further�a key guide to using your brain to fix your body.

Our bodies have an amazing capacity for repair and regeneration, healing a broken ankle or grazed knee. The power to heal exists within all of us, but few people learn how to support it and harness it in our times of greatest need -- illness and disease.

In this unique book, experienced alternative therapist Josef Ulrich argues that drawing on our innate spiritual creativity, authenticity and self-will can lead to active healing, where the patient is no longer a victim of their condition but a vital contributor to their recovery.

With plenty of case studies, exercises, observations and check lists, this readable and practical book sets out to empower us to boost our immune system and, in partnership with conventional treatments, give us the best chance of healing.

In modern medicine, for all its brilliant achievements and progress, there is little concept of 'healing'. As human beings have become more separated from nature, many disciplines, including medicine, have lost sight of the bigger, holistic picture.

In this book, Ralph Twentyman, a homeopathic physician for many years, studies the workings of the human organism in conjunction with nature and the larger world around us. He explores the background and effects of various key elements in health and healing, ranging from sulfur and lead to silver, fungi and sepia, and also considers specific diseases such as migraine, asthma, cancer and AIDS.

He argues that as we stand, we will never fully be able to address and treat such illnesses without new understandings being forged between mechanical medicine, psychology and homeopathy.

In 1921, Rudolf Steiner gave a series of lectures on curative eurythmy. Over the subsequent years, as advice was sought in particular cases of illness, he added to the initial exercises and indications. For the benefit of those who did not attend the original courses, Dr Kirchner-Bockholt published the basic principles, along with an authentic collection of Steiner's advice.

This is Dr Kirchner-Bockholt's comprehensive handbook. It is both a guide for curative eurythmists in their work, and an introduction to the therapy for the general practitioner.

• How can education work in harmony with a child's developing relationship with the world around it?
• How can education take account of body, soul, and spirit?

Bernard Lievegoed takes a child's full humanity -- body, soul and spirit -- as his starting point. From this, a philosophy and pedagogy emerge in which, he argues, children can become happy, wise and skilled adults only when education takes the development of these three aspects into account from the very beginning.

Drawing on the educational ideas of Rudolf Steiner, and on a philosophical tradition going back to Goethe and Schiller, Lievegoed turns away from the materialist nineteenth-century notion of 'knowledge is power' which still pervades mainstream education today. He describes the three main stages of child development -- pre-school, schoolchild and teenager -- in a clear and concise way. Lievegoed shows that each stage of roughly seven years has its own character, and its own genetic and biographical potential.

The author goes on to explore the practical application of these insights as an education method in harmony with the child's developing relationship with the world around them.

From the great myths and legends to enchanting fairy tales, parables, fables and folk tales, stories can have a great healing and educative power. They come from our subconscious and imagination, deep inside us. They have much to teach us about ourselves, therefore, and the world we create around us.

Horst Kornberger, a writer, artist and Steiner-Waldorf teacher, first explores the power of particular stories such as Odysseus, Parsifal, Oedipus, Bible stories and fairy tales. He then explains how to apply that power to help a child develop, or to heal and transform a child with difficulties.

Finally he discusses the art and practicalities of creating new stories to help children with particular needs, and shows storytelling to be a universal gift that we can use to benefit those around us.

This is a fascinating and inspiring book for teachers, parents and caregivers of children, as well as creative writers and students of literature.

A comprehensive guide to holistic home care for those nursing children and adults through an illness.

Caring for a sick child or relative at home can be a daunting task, especially if longer-term care is involved. Advice on the best remedies and how to structure your care can be invaluable.

This book covers all aspects of general home nursing, including the arrangement of the patient's room, meals, taking a temperature, and washing the patient. It also details numerous holistic treatments including herbal and plant remedies, baths, foot-baths, compresses and poultices. There are specific sections on pregnancy, birth, sleep, nursing the terminally ill and death.

This is a comprehensive guide to holistic home care for those nursing children and adults through an illness.

This book describes a highly effective approach to stress management and personal development, and has been updated since the first printing. Using heart-based exercises that help manage and transform extreme emotions, it is possible to deal with many forms of stress, anxiety and depression, without resorting to drugs or psychotherapy. The benefits of these unique, easily practised exercises can be felt within days.

This updated printing contains new relaxation and self-motivation exercises, and a wider variety of case studies demonstrating real results. There is also a useful Question and Answer section which addresses common queries which have arisen since the publication of the first edition.

This book is an essential read for anyone who wants to take their physical and emotional health into their own hands.

Mistletoe is a parasitic evergreen plant that lives on trees such apple and elm. Modern complementary therapies for cancer increasingly make use of mistletoe preparations. However, because mistletoe grows on many different trees, the properties of the plant vary according to the host tree. For the first time, this book presents an important reference for practitioners on the characteristics of each type of mistletoe, and what kind of cancers they are best suited to treat.

Thirteen host trees are described, covering all aspects from mythology and botany to homeopathy and flower essences. The author then pulls the various characteristics together to provide a unique guide to which patients might benefit most from the different types of mistletoe. The results will be useful not only in treating cancer but also in prevention.

The book includes specific case-studies as well as notes on supplementary therapies using metals.

A practical and hugely inspiring book on applying esoteric knowledge to the whole process of having a baby.

In our society childbirth is often viewed as something to be feared and even to be avoided, through elective caesarian or extreme pain suppression. In this uplifting book Kristina Turner applies esoteric knowledge to show practical ways of transforming a difficult experience into a positive and deeply spiritual one.

Kristina looks closely at the physical processes that take place in the body during pregnancy and childbirth, as well at explaining the facts behind hospital procedures and options for home birth -- providing readers with the necessary knowledge to make their own choices. She feels that birthing should be viewed as a unified process, from the nine months of pregnancy through labor to the many months of breastfeeding; all three stages contribute to developing the bond between mother and child and the child's emotional function.

Kristina writes beautifully about the sacred mystery inherent in conception and pregnancy, and guides the new mother towards being a conscious participant in the spiritual process of bringing life into this world. This book is both very practical and hugely inspiring.

Explains and provides exercises for the techniques of rhythmic body oiling as developed by Ita Wegman and Margarethe Hauschka.

Rhythmic Einreibung is a therapy of rhythmic body oiling. Its techniques were developed by Dr Margarethe Hauschka, based on suggestions by Dr Ita Wegman, the founder of the clinic in Switzerland which now bears her name.

Dr Wegman trained in Swedish massage. Rhythmic Einreibung is a development of this which emphasizes rhythmic elements and qualities which create lightness rather than pressure. The strokes work with the surface of the skin, rather than kneading the body as in traditional massage.

Featuring many practical exercises which help build up ability, this book is suitable for both beginners, and for those seeking to deepen their understanding of the techniques.

Food quality is an important issue for our modern world. There is an increasing awareness that empty calories and mass-produced food don't offer the quality nutrition that people need, and that smaller amounts of better-quality food could help combat the epidemic of obesity sweeping the western world.

Karl König recognized the significance of human nutrition nearly one hundred years ago. In the 1920s he started lecturing on the subject as part of a program of social help in deprived city areas, and in 1936 gave a course for physicians and educators.

This book contains two essays and sixteen lectures ranging from the significance of nutrition in early childhood and during illness, and descriptions of the digestive process and the inner organs from a spiritual point of view, to his ideas about the future development of nourishment. König's work is introduced by three contemporary researchers into nutritional practice, and finishes with König's appreciation of the only mealtime grace given by Rudolf Steiner.

Addiction is one of the most critical problems of our modern world, affecting children as much as adults. We face not only a widespread dependency on illicit substances, but also addictions to food, beverages, cigarettes and alcohol, as well as electronic gadgetry, online social networks, and entertainment media within a culture of violence, along with excessive and unhealthy sexual practices.

This book explores the overall health consequences of addictive behavior in children and young people, as well as its underlying causes. Drawing on anthroposophical insights, the author sees the child holistically as body, soul and spirit on a developmental journey from newborn to adult. He examines specific addictions through case histories taken from his clinical practice, and offers a tried and tested method to understand and manage each individual child or young person who succumbs to such dependencies.

This book will be of value to parents, teachers and health professionals who work with children and adolescents; to young people and adults caught up in unhealthy addictive behavior; and to all those who wish to understand better their own human nature.

Rosemary, mint and onions are commonly found in kitchens, but physician Markus Sommer argues that cooking only makes use of one aspect of plants like these. In this illustrated, readable book he vividly describes their full characteristics, helping the reader to understand their true nature.

He discusses the properties of over thirty plants. For example, did you know that St John's Wort is not only good for depression, but also heals wounds? Plantain is good for coughs, but is also effective in treating strokes and multiple sclerosis. Dr Sommer demonstrates the deep connection between the character of the plant and the nature of the conditions they can cure or alleviate.

More than just a simple guide to herbal remedies, this book lifts the lid on the powerful secrets of the plant world.

Discover the art of eurythmy with this richly illustrated step-by-step guide.

Eurythmy is a compelling method of bringing balance and harmony to our body, soul and spirit through a series of rhythmic body movements. For the first time, this unique book captures these gestures visually through dynamic photographs, which clearly demonstrate the core movements of eurythmy therapy.

It has long been recognized that we can direct powerful physical and mental changes within ourselves through specific movements of our bodies, as stated by advocates of yoga and tai chi.

The authors of this original book are experienced eurythmists, who describe and illustrate the core speech-sound exercises: vowel exercises, consonant exercises and soul exercises, which include love, hope and sympathy.

This book is not a replacement for a qualified eurythmy therapist, but is intended as guidance and orientation for patients practising on their own, perhaps after a few initial sessions with a therapist, or for more experienced eurythmists.

Rudolf Steiner initiated a new art of movement, which can be characterized as speech and music made visible. This concise but informative guide to eurythmy includes a brief survey of dance, from its origin in the ancient mysteries to its contemporary forms, placing Steiner's ideas in their historical context.

It then goes on to explore the three main strands of eurythmy: as stage performance, in education, and in therapy, giving insightful examples of each.

The book has been revised and updated, and includes new color photographs of performance and educational eurythmy.

A sympathetic and enlightening exploration of physical, emotional and spiritual pain and what we can learn from it, written by experienced psychologist and author of Bridges Between Life and Death, Iris Paxino.

People today strive to live as pain-free a life as possible, treating both physical pain and emotional suffering with a range of medical and alternative therapies. But in our efforts to avoid pain, are we excluding an important part of our human experience?

In this sensitive and thoughtful book, psychologist Iris Paxino explores different kinds of pain and the ways in which each affects us: from the physical pain of illness and injury, through the emotional suffering caused by loss and deprivation, to the spiritual pain experienced in moments of doubt when we struggle with meaning in our lives. Paxino also discusses the history of pain, the impact of chronic pain and treatment methods including behavioral techniques and anthroposophic therapies.

While pain should always be treated, Paxino argues that when we learn to accept it as an inescapable part of being human we develop resilience and inner peace as well as compassion for others.