A brief, easy-to-follow grab bag of diet tips and New Age–style psychotherapeutics.
According to this self-help book, people struggling with depression should try a low-carb diet, proactive smiling, and marathon meditation sessions.
Altshuler describes treatments for depression that he’s gleaned from his psychiatric practice and from meditation gurus, with whom he studied in Nepal and Tibet. The most important one, he contends, is a low- to no-carb diet that he asserts will lower one’s insulin levels and one’s raise neurotransmitter levels, thus relieving depression, anxiety, and insomnia. He recommends an initial 24-hour zero-carb diet of meat, eggs, and fish to “JUMP START YOUR BRAIN!,” followed by a maintenance diet with small amounts of carbs, adjusted to daily stress levels. Altshuler’s other methods appear to be even easier; for example, he says that deliberately smiling for 10 minutes each day will lift one’s mood due to feedback loops between one’s facial muscles and neural circuitry. He offers simple deep-breathing exercises to loosen one’s muscles, and autohypnotic chants for relaxation, such as “I AM DOING EVERYTHING SLOWLY, SLOWLY, SLOWLY.” He also suggests a rudimentary meditation technique of sitting quietly in a chair for at least 30 minutes a day; those who do hourslong sessions, he says, can reach a “breaking point” that reorients them toward happiness and spiritual satisfaction. Altshuler backs up his ideas with anonymous testimonials; one patient, for example, says that he found that the regimen relieved her depression and anxiety, cleared up her irritable bowel syndrome, chronic fatigue, and fibromyalgia, and gave her psychic premonitions. Over the course of the book, the author writes in a lucid prose style, despite the occasional, distracting typo (“cabs” instead of “carbs”), and he lays out his techniques in a straightforward, practical fashion. That said, much of the book consists of blank workbook pages that allow readers to implement the author’s protocol by logging their daily food intake, meditative sitting periods, and moments of smiling, chanting, and deep-breathing, along with their mental states. The author’s blending of neurobiology with Eastern spiritualism won’t appeal to everyone, and many won’t be convinced of his methods’ efficacy. However, the latter are so easy and convenient that many will want to try them out.
A brief, easy-to-follow grab bag of diet tips and New Age–style psychotherapeutics. (Self-Help)Pub Date: Dec. 23, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-67998-191-3
Page Count: 239
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Feb. 19, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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