Bookshelf: F > L
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Touch
By Tiffany Field
From the director of the Touch Research Institute, with a deeper focus on massage and therapeutic touch specifically.
Recommended on: Physical touch
Tiny Habits
By BJ Fogg
Built directly on the behavioural science of what actually makes a habit stick, from a Stanford researcher who’s spent decades studying it.
Recommended on: Daily structure
Celebration of Discipline
By Richard Foster
A respected classic that treats fasting as one spiritual practice among several, alongside prayer and simplicity, with nothing to do with weight.
Recommended on: Fasting
Altered Traits
By Daniel Goleman & Richard J. Davidson
A more detailed, contemporary look at what meditation actually changes, drawn from decades of research the authors helped conduct themselves – sorted carefully from what the evidence doesn’t yet support.
Recommended on: Meditation
This Naked Mind
By Annie Grace
Lays out the psychology and neuroscience behind the pattern this page describes, including the cultural normalisation angle.
Recommended on: Alcohol
The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober
By Catherine Gray
Warm, honest and explicitly not preachy, from a UK writer who talked to neuroscientists and psychologists about why we drink.
Recommended on: Alcohol
Beyond Biofeedback
By Elmer & Alyce Green
A foundational account from the researchers behind the field’s original clinical work at the Menninger Foundation.
Recommended on: Biofeedback
Mind Over Mood
By Dennis Greenberger & Christine Padesky
A widely used CBT workbook built around the same evidence-gathering principle as the practice above, applied more broadly across mood and belief.
Recommended on: Positive data logs
RHS Your Wellbeing Garden
By Alistair Griffiths & Matthew Keightley
Practical, science-backed, and aimed squarely at any size of outdoor space – from the Royal Horticultural Society’s own science director and a Chelsea-award garden designer.
Recommended on: Gardening & tending
The Anxious Generation
By Jonathan Haidt
Lays out the wider evidence for why constant connectivity has become such a widespread concern, from a social psychologist at NYU Stern.
Recommended on: Digital detox & silence
10% Happier
By Dan Harris
A sceptical news anchor’s own reluctant discovery of meditation, largely through guided apps. Secular, self-deprecating, and a good fit for readers who are curious but not yet convinced.
Recommended on: Guided meditation
The Happiness Trap
By Russ Harris
By far the most popular introduction to ACT, warm and practical – the natural place to start with the method.
Recommended on: ACT method
Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion
By Sam Harris
A secular case for contemplative practice, stripped of doctrine. Harris, a neuroscientist, argues that the value long claimed by religious traditions – attention, presence, a quieter relationship with your own thoughts – survives perfectly well without the metaphysics attached to it.
Recommended on: Prayer & religious practice
A Liberated Mind
By Steven Hayes
A fuller account of ACT from the psychologist who developed it – more comprehensive than a general reader’s introduction.
Recommended on: ACT method
Moving On: Breaking Up Without Breaking Down
By Suzie Hayman
Part of the Relate series – the UK’s leading relationship counselling charity – built entirely around practical strategies for managing the emotional and logistical sides of separation at once.
Recommended on: Divorce and separation
The Scent of Desire
By Rachel Herz
Goes deep on the real science behind why smell affects mood so directly, from a cognitive neuroscientist specialising in olfaction.
Recommended on: Alternative therapies
Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat
By Hal Herzog
A wider, more clear-eyed look at our often contradictory relationship with animals generally, from an anthrozoologist.
Recommended on: Animals & pets
The Wim Hof Method
By Wim Hof
The method described above, in full, from the Dutch extreme athlete who popularised it and gave the modern revival its name.
Recommended on: Cold exposure
The Obstacle Is the Way
By Ryan Holiday
The same ancient discipline applied directly to modern frustrations – deadlines, setbacks, difficult people – without the togas or the Greek. The book most responsible for Stoicism’s current revival.
Recommended on: Stoic practice
The Universal Sense
By Seth Horowitz
A neuroscientist’s exploration of hearing, including why it’s the one sense that stays switched on through sleep.
Recommended on: Ambient sounds
Protocols
By Andrew Huberman
The full set of daily practices NSDR is one piece of, from the neuroscientist who coined the term – a wider, evidence-based operating manual rather than a single technique.
Recommended on: A closer look at NSDR
The Varieties of Religious Experience
By William James
Originally delivered as lectures in 1902, this is the book that first treated religious and mystical experience as a subject for psychology rather than theology. Still the natural starting point for anyone curious about what these states actually are, whatever you believe about their source.
Recommended on: Prayer & religious practice
Wherever You Go, There You Are
By Jon Kabat-Zinn
The book that carried Kabat-Zinn’s own Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction work out of the clinic and into general readership. Plain, unhurried language, with none of the app-store gloss that now surrounds the subject.
Recommended on: Meditation
Loving What Is
By Byron Katie
A simple, practical method for questioning the thoughts that keep a struggle going, from the creator of “The Work”.
Recommended on: Letting go
Blue Spaces
By Catherine Kelly
From an academic geographer working directly in blue space research – more grounded in the evidence than a popular-science account.
Recommended on: Water: rivers & sea
The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
By Marie Kondo
The book behind the whole modern decluttering wave, and the origin of the KonMari method.
Recommended on: Decluttering & simplicity
The Rise of Superman
By Steven Kotler
Looks at flow through the lens of extreme athletes pushing performance to its limits – a more contemporary, adrenaline-heavy angle.
Recommended on: Flow states
Listening to Prozac
By Peter Kramer
The book that first opened up serious public conversation about what these medications do and don’t change, from a Brown psychiatrist.
Recommended on: SSRIs & anxiolytics
Waking the Tiger
By Peter Levine
The foundational text behind Somatic Experiencing, from the approach’s own originator – the thinking behind the practice above, in full.
Recommended on: Somatic techniques
This Is Your Brain on Music
By Daniel Levitin
A deeper look at the actual neuroscience of how music affects the brain, from a neuroscientist and former record producer.
Recommended on: Music
The Orphaned Adult
By Alexander Levy
Looks at what changes – practically and psychologically – when the last parent dies, including the generational shift this page describes.
Recommended on: Losing a parent
Forest Bathing
By Qing Li
From one of the leading shinrin-yoku researchers himself – the practice named in the text above, explained by the person who helped study it.
Recommended on: Walking in nature
Touch: The Science of Hand, Heart, and Mind
By David J. Linden
An accessible, well-regarded tour through the science of touch broadly – from a Johns Hopkins neuroscientist.
Recommended on: Physical touch
DBT Skills Training Manual
By Marsha Linehan
The clinical source text, from the psychologist who developed DBT and the STOP skill within it – detailed and comprehensive rather than a light read.
Recommended on: The STOP technique