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 sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.
The late actor offers a gentle guide for living with more purpose, love, and joy.
Mixing poetry, prescriptive challenges, and elements of memoir, Heche (1969-2022) delivers a narrative that is more encouraging workbook than life story. The author wants to share what she has discovered over the course of a life filled with abuse, advocacy, and uncanny turning points. Her greatest discovery? Love. “Open yourself up to love and transform kindness from a feeling you extend to those around you to actions that you perform for them,” she writes. “Only by caring can we open ourselves up to the universe, and only by opening up to the universe can we fully experience all the wonders that it holds, the greatest of which is love.” Throughout the occasionally overwrought text, Heche is heavy on the concept of care. She wants us to experience joy as she does, and she provides a road map for how to get there. Instead of slinking away from Hollywood and the ridicule that she endured there, Heche found the good and hung on, with Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford starring as particularly shining knights in her story. Some readers may dismiss this material as vapid Hollywood stuff, but Heche’s perspective is an empathetic blend of Buddhism (minimize suffering), dialectical behavioral therapy (tolerating distress), Christianity (do unto others), and pre-Socratic philosophy (sufficient reason). “You’re not out to change the whole world, but to increase the levels of love and kindness in the world, drop by drop,” she writes. “Over time, these actions wear away the coldness, hate, and indifference around us as surely as water slowly wearing away stone.” Readers grieving her loss will take solace knowing that she lived her love-filled life on her own terms. Heche’s business and podcast partner, Heather Duffy, writes the epilogue, closing the book on a life well lived.
A sweet final word from an actor who leaves a legacy of compassion and kindness.Pub Date: Jan. 24, 2023
ISBN: 9781627783316
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Viva Editions
Review Posted Online: Feb. 6, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.
A lightweight collection of self-help snippets from the bestselling author.
What makes a quote a quote? Does it have to be quoted by someone other than the original author? Apparently not, if we take Strayed’s collection of truisms as an example. The well-known memoirist (Wild), novelist (Torch), and radio-show host (“Dear Sugar”) pulls lines from her previous pages and delivers them one at a time in this small, gift-sized book. No excerpt exceeds one page in length, and some are only one line long. Strayed doesn’t reference the books she’s drawing from, so the quotes stand without context and are strung together without apparent attention to structure or narrative flow. Thus, we move back and forth from first-person tales from the Pacific Crest Trail to conversational tidbits to meditations on grief. Some are astoundingly simple, such as Strayed’s declaration that “Love is the feeling we have for those we care deeply about and hold in high regard.” Others call on the author’s unique observations—people who regret what they haven’t done, she writes, end up “mingy, addled, shrink-wrapped versions” of themselves—and offer a reward for wading through obvious advice like “Trust your gut.” Other quotes sound familiar—not necessarily because you’ve read Strayed’s other work, but likely due to the influence of other authors on her writing. When she writes about blooming into your own authenticity, for instance, one is immediately reminded of Anaïs Nin: "And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Strayed’s true blossoming happens in her longer works; while this collection might brighten someone’s day—and is sure to sell plenty of copies during the holidays—it’s no substitute for the real thing.
These platitudes need perspective; better to buy the books they came from.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-101-946909
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2015
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