Many of you will be familiar with Dr Libby Weaver, but she’s not only the friendly face of Sleepyhead Beds!! She is a best-selling author (9 of her books have topped the charts), internationally acclaimed speaker and Oh….a nutritional biochemist!! Her mission is “to educate and inspire, enhancing people’s health and happiness, igniting a ripple effect that transforms the world.” Transforming the world…..a noble mission indeed.
I received her most recent book, Dr Libby’s Women’s Wellness Wisdom for Christmas (a present to myself….who else does this…..?? 😉 ). It is my first Dr Libby book and I was excited to dive in and see what pearls of wisdom she was offering this time. She’s well known for being an advocate of sugar-free and whole food but also for having a more holistic approach to health and wellness which is what I was most interested to learn about.
WHAT’S IN THE BOOK..??
The book is divided into 4 chapters: Eat, Body, Mind and World with Body being by far the longest and most complex chapter. The book is beautifully styled with pretty wallpapers, info graphics and stand out quotes scattered throughout.
The print is on the large side which makes for easy reading, but really it feels more like you’re listening to a caring friend than reading another dull diet book. It’s educational and informative without being old school and there is no preaching, no rule setting and certainly no diet plans.
It’s all written in her friendly style that we are familiar with and you just know from her repeated references that she really does want the best for her readers, and the world!!
EAT
The Eat chapter is of course, all about what we put into our bodies and why what we eat matters. The question, ‘why what we do matters?’ is a recurring theme. Dr Libby recommends eating organic and in this chapter she explains why.
She also talks about soil, and she makes a simple yet powerful point: “if a nutrient isn’t in the soil, it can’t be in the food”. So even if we grow our own vegetables (which is brilliant and a huge step in the right direction btw), if the soil is lacking in nutrients, so will our veggies. A really easy way to improve the quality of your soil is to use a soil enhancer or an organic fertiliser like these. Note to self: use more organic compost in the veggie garden and be better at crop rotation.
There are recommendations for portion size and advice on how to eat well on a budget. The message is quite clear: we should be kind to ourselves, including through the foods we eat because “there is nothing in the world that can replace a highly nutritious way of eating. Nothing.”
BODY
The Body chapter is more of a challenge to read. That’s not to say it isn’t truly fascinating and well written. It’s just a complex area and there is lots of information to absorb!! The consistent thread through this chapter is that our bodies are extremely clever messengers, “insightful barometers” constantly offering us feedback about our choices.
Symptoms such as tiredness, a headache or spots on our skin are simply our body’s way of asking us to drink, eat, move, sleep or maybe think in a different way. Underlying all this are a huge number of complex nervous and hormonal pathways…the biochemistry bit. Dr Libby does a great job of explaining all this science in simple terms, although I’ll admit, from page to page I struggled to retain all the information!!
There is a big focus on stress and stress hormones; how and why they are produced and what the results are – it’s mind blowing!! There are also sections on skin, hair, body fat, sleep and suggestions about what might be underlying if we see or feel abnormalities in these areas. Our skin is amazing and this chapter highlights why what we put on our skin matters.
Dr Libby recommends using skincare with no synthetic ingredients and we can help you with that. Check out our Health and Beauty category pages where you’ll find a great range of natural skin and hair care products containing no synthetic chemicals!!
MIND
The final chapters, Mind and World were of the most interest to me. Mind is all about why we make the choices we make and if we recognise we could be making better choices but still don’t seem to do so, Dr Libby gives us some useful tools to try. There are sections on organisation, how to say ‘no’, how to be grateful for what we already have and an absolute classic ……the meaning maker. This is about interpretation. What do we hear, versus what someone actually said….??!!
At the risk of sounding sexist, I think many women are prone to interpreting what is said in a negative light….including me!! How many times have you complained to your male husband/friend/partner about what somebody said to you only for them to turn around and scoff ‘they didn’t even say that….they said this’……!! If this sounds familiar, then the Mind chapter is a must read for you.
WORLD
And finally World. This chapter is about the bigger picture – the external factors. Dr Libby explains why what we clean the house with matters (explore our range of safe and natural home cleaning and laundry solutions, as suggested by Dr Libby, here), how time management can give us more ‘space’ and what we could learn from the people living in ‘Blue Zones’, geographical areas where it’s been shown that people live longer and more healthy lives which include California, Italy and Greece.
The overarching sentiments of this chapter are completely aligned with our own, here at Green Elephant. “Everything we do or say has an impact. Every choice we make is a casting vote for the characteristics of the type of world that we want. Live and be the change that you want to see in the world.” Thank you Dr Libby, I could not have put it better myself.
SHOULD I READ DR LIBBY’S WOMEN’S WELLNESS WISDOM…???
Dr Libby’s Women’s Wellness Wisdom is a great ‘handbook’ for woman everywhere. If you’ve ever wondered why things happen to your body, if you’ve decided you want to live a more healthy life, if you want to learn some tools and tricks that might help with ongoing wellness issues, or if you simply need a pick me up, this book is definitely worth a read.
Thank you Dr Libby for an insightful and interesting book. I’ve learned some things….like how beneficial it is to breathe. Properly. And how feeling stressed can affect my body and what I could do to change things. If you’ve read to the end of this post, thank you and I hope you enjoyed it.
If you don’t get the chance to read Dr Libby’s Women’s Wellness Wisdom then there is one thing I’d like you to take away and keep. It’s this, an extract from A LETTER included in Dr Libby’s book to all her readers. Read it, absorb it, read it again. And then believe in it.
Dear Beautiful Girl,
Don’t settle for a life that you live in the cloud of false belief that you aren’t beautiful. Don’t let it take until your life is about to end before you feel deep in your heart what you have always known – that you are, and have always been, beautiful. Live your life now, awake, lit-up and with that knowing, impacting the lives of others with your light.
