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reading

Personal Development

Books on understanding people, stress physiology, and mental health through metabolic function

March 9, 2026
Cover of How to Know a Person

How to Know a Person

David Brooks · 2023

This book touches on human connection through an easy to follow narrative that drives home the messages it wants the reader to internalize. It is straightforward and impactful in the stories it tells. It is my belief that many wish to reach out and connect to others but lack the tools rather than the intent to do so. This eloquently helps bridge that gap.

Cover of The Pulse Cure

The Pulse Cure

Dr. Torkil Færø · 2024

The Pulse Cure helps to motivate for the reader why quantified living is important. Why should we care what our HRV is? How do we gain an insight into our autonomic nervous system and what benefits come from such efforts? It is structured in a personal style which avoids draining the energy of the reader.

Cover of Brain Energy

Brain Energy

Christopher M. Palmer, MD · 2022

Mental health is a very tricky topic because it touches on Cartesian dualism. We choose not to see ourselves as systems partly because it in a sense threatens the elevation of our minds from the physical, with its dangers and limitations. But on the flipside a focus on the physically grounded reality we are faced with gives us greater agency to address the underlying mechanisms that immiserate so many of us. This book is part of a growing body of work that stresses the link between many behavioral disorders and mitochondrial activity in the brain. It provides a framework that while not directly able to address the issues faced by many of us can at least illuminate the underlying causal links.