Anna Lembke shows how living in an age of endless pleasure—phones, food, porn, pills—tilts our brain’s pain-pleasure seesaw toward compulsive overuse. She explains dopamine’s role in craving and why chasing constant highs leads to a “dopamine deficit” that feels like anxiety, numbness, and withdrawal.

The book’s power is practical: tools like “dopamine fasting,” self-binding (limits, friction), radical honesty, and pro-social connection to restore balance. It’s a clear, compassionate guide for anyone who feels stuck in overconsumption and wants neuroscience-backed ways to get their life back.

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Gary Taubes argues we’ve mishandled diabetes by centering treatment on insulin and medications while sidelining carbohydrate restriction and the book’s older, diet-first roots. He traces the history from pre-insulin meat/fasting regimens to modern high-carb guidelines, reframing Type 2 diabetes as largely a problem of carbohydrate intolerance driven by insulin resistance in modern times.

Marshalling research, case histories and clinician experience, he makes a rigorous—sometimes controversial—case that low-carb/ketogenic approaches can normalise blood glucose, reduce medications and improve metabolic markers, while critiquing weak nutrition science. Whether you agree or not, it’s a clear, provocative rethink that equips patients and clinicians with sharper questions and a practical framework to test in the real world.

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Norton argues that many trendy “superfoods” (such as spinach, almonds, sweet potatoes, beet greens, cacao) are very high in oxalates, natural plant compounds that can accumulate and trigger issues like kidney stones, joint pain, fatigue, gut and skin problems, and brain fog. She explains how oxalates are absorbed, how crystals can lodge in tissues, why symptoms are often missed, and why going low-oxalate too fast can backfire (“oxalate dumping”). The practical core of the book is a step-by-step plan: gradually reduce high-oxalate foods, use cooking and soaking to lower oxalate load, pair calcium-rich foods with oxalate-containing meals, hydrate, and avoid large vitamin C doses that can raise oxalate. You also get charts of foods to
limit or swap, plus guidance to track symptoms and progress. Overall, it’s a cautionary, protocol-driven guide for people who suspect oxalates are a hidden driver of their health complaints.

This is, in my opinion, a very worth read as it perhaps explains a lot of symptoms we are getting, as a result of high plant-chemical foods in our modern diet.

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This book is a clear, easy-to-read, punchy, and practical account of why we are sick — it clarifies why modern habits drive insulin resistance and metabolic chaos. Bikman makes the science simple, then shows exactly how food, movement, sleep, and stress control your hormones.

The truth is, when insulin stays high, everything else breaks—energy, mood, weight, cravings. Read it if you want a no-nonsense map to lower insulin, eat protein first, and get your vitality back.

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Metabolical was very much a wake-up call for me — it’s not just about sugar; it’s about a food system engineered to keep us sick and snacking.

Dr Lustig weaves biochemistry with storytelling so you actually feel the stakes: insulin resistance, fatty liver, mood swings—the whole cascade. I appreciated how he separates real food from “edible products” and gives a doctor’s-eye view of what actually heals us. The truth is, it sharpened my mission: to prioritise whole, nutrient-dense foods of protein and fat origin, radically reduce carbohydrates as sugar and help clients avoid metabolic disease. A well-loved author and book….

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Atomic Habits explores that tiny changes, done consistently, create remarkable results through the power of compounding.

Clear shifts focus from goals to systems, using the habit loop—cue, craving, response, reward—to redesign behaviour. He offers the Four Laws: make it obvious, attractive, easy, and satisfying (and invert them to break bad habits).

The kicker: build habits that express your identity (“I’m the kind of person who…”) so change sticks without constant willpower. New helpful patterns of behaviour emerge.

Hands down, one of my favourite books, so much so that my husband and I took it away and studied into over a weekend!

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Mental health has a metabolic component that many don’t talk about. Dr Georgia Ede steps into this space and asks us to look deeper at why mental health deteriorates. Her research shows that if you stabilise glucose and insulin → you stabilise brain energy → you get a calmer mood and clearer thinking. She recommends using nutrition as the first lever.

So, before we prescribe clinical meds, consider changing the diet and observe what the body and mind reveal: fast feedback with the big advantage of low risk. By giving people agency over their own health, they learn their triggers (sugar spikes, seed oils, certain plant compounds) and their supports (proteins, natural fats, minerals) for better mental—and physical—health. She advocates protein first for amino acids and neurotransmitter precursors, adequate natural fats for satiety and stable fuel, and lower carbs to reduce volatility, with ketones as a clean backup.Ultra-processed foods = noisy brain.Nutrient-dense, simple meals = quiet signal. When the brain isn’t firefighting blood-sugar swings, mood evens out.

I found the book to be a fascinating insight into diet and its role in mental health.

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Dr Richard K. Bernstein died at the age of 90 this year in 2025. Living with Type 1 Diabetes since he was a child, he studied medicine and went on to become a pioneer in diabetes, especially T1. His work transformed the landscape of diabetes management and inspired a global community to pursue better health through informed self-care. A man after my heart!

Through self-experimentation as a diabetic, he discovered that a low-carbohydrate diet, combined with precise insulin dosing, could stabilise his blood glucose and reverse many of his complications. Low-sugar and low-insulin dosing made up his “Law of Small Numbers”:

• ● Small carbs ⇒ small glucose rises. Less carbohydrate means smaller post-meal spikes.
• ● Small spikes need small insulin doses. When doses are small, any dosing error produces a small glucose error, not a big swing.
• ● Small doses are more predictable. Absorption variability matters less; you get flatter curves and lower glycaemic variability.

This book is a bible if you or a loved one have grappled with this debilitating disease, either Type 1 or 2 Diabetes. It’s a keeper! I’ve read it avidly, having family in both groups.

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Psycho-Cybernetics is a timeless exploration of how self-image becomes the blueprint of our destiny. It shows you how to build confidence by reprogramming your mind.

As a clinical hypnotherapist, I see daily how the subconscious mind obeys the pictures we hold of ourselves — and Maltz captures this truth with rare precision. His teachings on imagination, identity, and inner dialogue mirror the same healing pathways we access through hypnosis. He reminds us that change begins not through willpower, but through the gentle re-sculpting of self-perception.

Each page is an invitation to re-author the story we tell within. This book remains a cornerstone for anyone devoted to self-mastery, personal freedom, and the art of inner transformation.

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