A compelling argument for a multipronged approach to personal wellness.
Chapin, a wellness clinic director, discusses habits essential for optimal health in this self-help guide.
“Having worked closely with professionals who have successfully converted their casual awareness of healthy habits into hard-wired, strategic Wellness Rituals, I know what the human body is capable of when healthy choices are stacked together,” writes the author, a chiropractor who is the co-owner of the Toronto-area High Point Wellness Centre, the team chiropractor for the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts, and the on-site clinician for The Globe and Mail. Chapin categorizes these stackable habits under the headings “Prioritize Sleep, Rest & Recovery”; “Consume Healthy Fuel”; “Fight for Your Waistline”; “Move To Stay Young”; “Protect Your Strength”; “Nurture Mental Fitness”; and “Play With Purpose.” The author provides case-study narratives detailing how 21 professionals, whom he calls “mentors,” practice these rituals in their lives while also highlighting the scientific research that supports these protocols. The book concludes with Chapin describing how he recently conducted “formula tweaks” to his diet and physical and mental fitness routines following a less-than-ideal medical checkup; “I needed to recognize the emotional toll working as a primary care practitioner during the pandemic had on my health,” he writes. The author is a caring and convincing advocate throughout the text, describing his book as a “moonshot, evidence-based call-to-action” and a “wellness performance playbook.” Chapin’s seven rituals function as useful “dials” (as one case study subject describes them) for considering and calibrating one’s overall wellness. He provides helpful distillations of scientific research (including material explaining why the waistline is such an important metric in managing one’s weight and health) and a wealth of “ritual activation” steps to follow. While the book arguably contains too many case studies, they do provide powerful testimony attesting to the value and importance of incorporating these rituals into daily life.
Pub Date: May 1, 2023
ISBN: 9781990700231
Page Count: 402
Publisher: Life to Paper Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.
All right, all right, all right: The affable, laconic actor delivers a combination of memoir and self-help book.
“This is an approach book,” writes McConaughey, adding that it contains “philosophies that can be objectively understood, and if you choose, subjectively adopted, by either changing your reality, or changing how you see it. This is a playbook, based on adventures in my life.” Some of those philosophies come in the form of apothegms: “When you can design your own weather, blow in the breeze”; “Simplify, focus, conserve to liberate.” Others come in the form of sometimes rambling stories that never take the shortest route from point A to point B, as when he recounts a dream-spurred, challenging visit to the Malian musician Ali Farka Touré, who offered a significant lesson in how disagreement can be expressed politely and without rancor. Fans of McConaughey will enjoy his memories—which line up squarely with other accounts in Melissa Maerz’s recent oral history, Alright, Alright, Alright—of his debut in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused, to which he contributed not just that signature phrase, but also a kind of too-cool-for-school hipness that dissolves a bit upon realizing that he’s an older guy on the prowl for teenage girls. McConaughey’s prep to settle into the role of Wooderson involved inhabiting the mind of a dude who digs cars, rock ’n’ roll, and “chicks,” and he ran with it, reminding readers that the film originally had only three scripted scenes for his character. The lesson: “Do one thing well, then another. Once, then once more.” It’s clear that the author is a thoughtful man, even an intellectual of sorts, though without the earnestness of Ethan Hawke or James Franco. Though some of the sentiments are greeting card–ish, this book is entertaining and full of good lessons.
A conversational, pleasurable look into McConaughey’s life and thought.Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-13913-4
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 27, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.
The chef, rapper, and TV host serves up a blustery memoir with lashings of self-help.
“I’ve always had a sick confidence,” writes Bronson, ne Ariyan Arslani. The confidence, he adds, comes from numerous sources: being a New Yorker, and more specifically a New Yorker from Queens; being “short and fucking husky” and still game for a standoff on the basketball court; having strength, stamina, and seemingly no fear. All these things serve him well in the rough-and-tumble youth he describes, all stickball and steroids. Yet another confidence-builder: In the big city, you’ve got to sink or swim. “No one is just accepted—you have to fucking show that you’re able to roll,” he writes. In a narrative steeped in language that would make Lenny Bruce blush, Bronson recounts his sentimental education, schooled by immigrant Italian and Albanian family members and the mean streets, building habits good and bad. The virtue of those habits will depend on your take on modern mores. Bronson writes, for example, of “getting my dick pierced” down in the West Village, then grabbing a pizza and smoking weed. “I always smoke weed freely, always have and always will,” he writes. “I’ll just light a blunt anywhere.” Though he’s gone through the classic experiences of the latter-day stoner, flunking out and getting arrested numerous times, Bronson is a hard charger who’s not afraid to face nearly any challenge—especially, given his physique and genes, the necessity of losing weight: “If you’re husky, you’re always dieting in your mind,” he writes. Though vulgar and boastful, Bronson serves up a model that has plenty of good points, including his growing interest in nature, creativity, and the desire to “leave a legacy for everybody.”
The lessons to draw are obvious: Smoke more dope, eat less meat. Like-minded readers will dig it.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4478-5
Page Count: 184
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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