Lit List Short Reviews The Ayurveda Cookbook for Women 2024: Regain Emotional Balance and Take Control of Your Life Through the Ayurvedic Culinary Remedies 100+ Recipes to Support Your Holistic Wellness by Sameera B. Joyce; Parenting ADHD With Empathy and Effectiveness: A Comprehensive Guide to Nurturing Success with Proven Strategies and Mindful Techniques to Improve Emotional Regulation, Focus, and Self-Control by Sierra Nice; Navigating Oppositional Defiant Disorder: A Compassionate Guide for Parenting ODD Children Empowering Strategies to Foster Cooperation, Communication, & Connection while Nurturing Your Child's Success by Sierra Nice

 Lit List Short Reviews The Ayurveda Cookbook for Women 2024: Regain Emotional Balance and Take Control of Your Life Through the Ayurvedic Culinary Remedies 100+ Recipes to Support Your Holistic Wellness by Sameera B. Joyce; Parenting ADHD With Empathy and Effectiveness: A Comprehensive Guide to Nurturing Success with Proven Strategies and Mindful Techniques to Improve Emotional Regulation, Focus, and Self-Control by Sierra Nice; Navigating Oppositional Defiant Disorder: A Compassionate Guide for Parenting ODD Children Empowering Strategies to Foster Cooperation, Communication, & Connection while Nurturing Your Child's Success by Sierra Nice 

Ayurveda Cookbook for Women 2024: Regain Emotional Balance and Take Control of Your Life Through the Ayurvedic Culinary Remedies 100+ Recipes to Support Your Holistic Wellness by Sameera B. Joyce

The Ayurveda Cookbook for Women 2024 is more than a cookbook. It's a lifestyle book about how Readers can use food to help provide balance to the physical, mental, and emotional difficulties in their lives.

The book is filled with interesting recipes but that is not all. The first three chapters discuss what the Ayurvedic lifestyle is, how it can be implemented in one's daily life, and specifically how the lifestyle is used for food preparation. Using these practices one can see that Ayurveda is more than a means of cooking, it involves a way of living.

The most interesting parts of the book focus on the doshas, energies in the body that could create imbalance for an extended period of time. The doshas Vata, Pitta, and Kapha help with different areas in the body like circulation, digestion, and immunity respectively. 

Sometimes people who have one doshas more prominent than others can develop complications like bone and joint problems, distance and spaciness for Vata, overheating, migraines, anger, and aggression for Pitta, and excessive weight gain and depression for Kapha. 

The book suggests that the best way to balance the doshas is by eating certain foods. Vata involves eating warm, moist, oily, and ground foods like warm soups and stews, avocados, eggs, butter, and sweet potatoes and avoiding raw salads and bitter foods. Pitta involves eating calming and cooling foods like coconut, cucumbers, zucchini, freshwater fish, rice dishes, lentils, grains, pasta, and breads and avoiding spicy foods, red wine, and vodka. Kapha involves eating grains like quinoa, millet, ghee, butter, olive oil and warm spices like turmeric, cumin, coriander, black mustard seed, ginger, and cinnamon, and avoiding heavy, cold, and wet foods like avocado.

The book also encourages other means to implement an Ayurvedic lifestyle beyond cooking and eating. The means include practicing Yoga and Meditation, using concepts while taking Traditional Chinese and Western medicine, massage, and bodywork. These suggestions show that there are more ways to improve someone's life beyond food. 

Of course, the recipes are important as well. Delectable recipes include “Tasty Lemon Ginger Tea Scones,”  “Tofu and Tomato Indian Masala,” “Parmesan Topped Spaghetti,” “Creamy Avocado Sauce with a Citrus Zest,” “Lemon-Turmeric Quinoa Cookies,” and “Rose-Fennel-Clove Infused Water.” They provide the proper nutrition to balance the doshas and treat the complications.

The Ayurveda Cookbook is a great look at how one could commit to diet and fitness to reinvigorate and bring some much needed balance to their lives.

Parenting ADHD With Empathy and Effectiveness: A Comprehensive Guide to Nurturing Success with Proven Strategies and Mindful Techniques to Improve Emotional Regulation, Focus, and Self-Control by Sierra Nice

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a well publicized and known condition. Still many parents can feel confused and overwhelmed when their child is diagnosed. This book helps parents implement strategies and techniques that work with such children and keep the parent-child relationship strong through such difficult and stressful times.

What is refreshing about this book is how it does not demonize ADHD nor the children who have it. While it does lead to impulsive behavior and disorganized thinking, it also provides advantages like focus, activity, resilience, creativity, innovation, empathy, and communication. The book is not about treating or curing ADHD. It's about using the positive aspects that the condition brings while minimizing the negative so that they do not overpower the child's ability to function.

Many practices include medication, diet, exercise, therapy, creativity, and play offer holistic approaches to assist the child's physical, emotional, and mental well being. Parents are encouraged to practice such techniques like mindfulness, patience, active listening, and stress reduction to help clear their minds and understand their children and themselves.

Many mindful breathing techniques, emotional regulation games and exercises, recognizing emotional triggers, and coping skills help improve a child's emotional intelligence. One of the more interesting suggestions is that of an “emotional first aid kit” such as comfort food, a supportive network of friends and family members, favorite forms of entertainment like music, podcasts, movies, or a soothing memory or toy. This kit will help give children, and even adults who want to have something similar for their emotions as well, sources of security and warmth when they are under stress.

Understanding ADHD and finding ways to nurture the positive aspects and providing balance to counter the negative aspects will help children channel their condition into becoming young people with a different but enthusiastic and understanding mindset towards life.

Navigating Oppositional Defiant Disorder: A Compassionate Guide for Parenting ODD Children Empowering Strategies to Foster Cooperation, Communication, & Connection while Nurturing Your Child's Success by Sierra Nice 

Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is a behavioral disorder in which those who have it exhibit characteristics like being uncooperative, defiant, or hostile. They often have recurring patterns of behavior like quickness to anger, irritability, and excessive arguments directed at parents and other authority figures. This book helps parents and children who have ODD find ways to understand the conditions and positively control those behaviors. 

Among the important parenting techniques that the book discusses is empathy. It helps parents and children relate to each other with a deep emotional and rational mindset. Along with empathy is recognizing and validating a child's emotions. When parents practice these traits, they can then help their ODD child practice them. They can set boundaries, note acceptable behavior and help children change unacceptable behavior. 

Communication strategies such as mirroring and paraphrasing a child's problem shows that parents are listening and understand their emotions and perspectives. Nonviolent communication is a key factor by observing without evaluation, recognizing feelings and needs, and requesting not demanding. Another strategy is to set boundaries for children such as creating simple and consistent rules, establishing routines, teaching responsibility, and encouraging them to understand different choices and the potential results. 

There are many techniques that specifically pertain to children with emotional and behavioral disorders. Creating positive reinforcements, desecrating strategies for meltdowns, anger management, and problem solving benefit children with ODD.

This book helps Readers understand what ODD is, how to recognize the symptoms, live with and accept it.

Lit List Short Reviews Traeger Grill & Smoker/Blackstone Outdoor Gas Griddle Cookbook by Dr. Anisah; Calibrated Child Effective Anger Management for Kids: Unleashing Emotional Intelligence to Increase Positive Behaviors Through Playful Strategies, Mindful Moments and Creative Coping Techniques by Sierra Nice; Calibrated Parenting Effective Anger Management for Parents: How to Master Emotions, Connect with Your Kids, and Raise Confident, Happy Children Through Gentle Parenting Mastery & Positive Reinforcement by Sierra Nice

 Lit List Short Reviews Traeger Grill & Smoker/Blackstone Outdoor Gas Griddle Cookbook by Dr Anisah; Calibrated Child Effective Anger Management for Kids: Unleashing Emotional Intelligence to Increase Positive Behaviors Through Playful Strategies, Mindful Moments and Creative Coping Techniques by Sierra Nice; Calibrated Parenting Effective Anger Management for Parents: How to Master Emotions, Connect with Your Kids, and Raise Confident, Happy Children Through Gentle Parenting Mastery & Positive Reinforcement by Sierra Nice 

Traeger Grill & Smoker/Blackstone Outdoor Gas Griddle Cookbook by Dr  Anisah

This is a two part cookbook with double the amount of delicious recipes and plenty of advice on maintaining and caring for the proper equipment. Unfortunately, it has some formatting issues that could leave the Reader impaired when they try to follow the cooking instructions.

The recipes vary not only as breakfast, lunch, and dinner meals but elaborate on what one could cook on a grill, smoker, or griddle. Such recipes as “Cedar-Smoked Breakfast Pizza” and “Savory Grilled Breakfast Tacos” are rather interesting ideas to spice up any meal.

Since cooking with outdoor equipment can be unpredictable, the book offers tips on maintaining such equipment and keeping safe while cooking. It's always important to keep cooking equipment clean and in a secure environment so that they can still be used. That is especially important when said cooking equipment is only able to be used during certain times of the year and might not work the next time they are taken out.

Unfortunately, this set has some formatting issues that could be trouble for those wanting to follow the recipes. Some items within lists are not bold while others are.

Sometimes, Anisah or whoever did the editing forgot to add bullets or numbers with some of the individual items on lists. When working on a book that relies on a step-by-step process, it is important to make the lists uniform so the Reader can easily find what is needed. It can be rather difficult to follow a recipe and leave out a step because it wasn't bulleted or numbered correctly.

Despite the formatting issues, this is a good book for the eager outdoor chef. Just make sure to read closely.

Calibrated Child Effective Anger Management for Kids: Unleashing Emotional Intelligence to Increase Positive Behaviors Through Playful Strategies, Mindful Moments and Creative Coping Techniques by Sierra Nice

Calibrated Child is part of a four part series that helps to improve the relationship between parents and children. This book offers advice on how parents can deal with angry and emotional children.

The tips provided emphasize communication and understanding over punishment and retribution. Such tips like active listening and asking questions gets to the point of what is bothering the child. It asks why a kid is upset, not how their behavior is upsetting.

The book gets into correcting unruly behavior but focuses on discussion not anger. It particularly involves helping children understand empathy and kindness towards others and telling them why their behavior hurts others. 

One of the more interesting chapters consist of using play and creative techniques for kids to display and reveal their anger. Parents could encourage children to draw or write about what bothers them. Not only is it a good way of releasing anger, but it encourages children to develop and cultivate artistic talents.

It also deals with one of the more difficult concerns that parents often have. When parents make mistakes with rearing their children, they should admit it. It shows that adults are people who make mistakes and aren't infallible. When parents are wrong, they can admit they are wrong and apologize. It helps children understand that mistakes will always be a part of life.

Calibrated Child helps parents teach children to let go of their anger and become more understanding, empathetic, and better human beings.

Calibrated Parenting Effective Anger Management for Parents: How to Master Emotions, Connect with Your Kids, and Raise Confident, Happy Children Through Gentle Parenting Mastery & Positive Reinforcement by Sierra Nice 

This volume in the series focuses on parents and how they put their emotional baggage into raising children. This book offers advice on how Readers can manage and control their own anger becoming stronger and more understanding parents.

The book emphasizes gentle parenting, an evidence based approach based on being compassionate and setting boundaries. It emphasizes self-awareness and understanding behavior particularly in communicating with children why such behavior is wrong and what can be done to properly deal with the behavior and the situation that led to it.

Since parents are often busy taking care of others and seeing to their needs, they often ignore their own. Many times this leads to the parent feeling angry and resentful. They may take those emotions out on those closest to them. 

This book suggests various means of managing anger. Implementing techniques such as mindfulness, self-care, and journaling allow the parent to address those emotions in a healthy capacity and to give them a few moments of much needed solitude, rest, and relaxation.

The book offers advice on time management. It suggests that time allocating for family should be used with the family and not to divide attention between work and family. It helps the child feel accepted and encouraged to communicate with their parents. It also helps the parent focus on that specific allotment of time and what is more important to them instead of feeling mentally scattered and stressed.

Anger Management is a difficult process, one which parents and their children can learn. Books like this help them work together to understand that anger, not to let it control them, and to become closer as a family.