24 HOUR RULE OF HAPPINESS

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.