Witty, honest, and engaging. Haig shows great skill in describing the ‘invisible cyclone’ of depression. . . A worthy successor to Reasons to Stay Alive.”— The Sunday Times number four. you visit a homeless shelter where everybody helps out with cooking, cleaning, etc. and tries very hard to keep addictive stuff (drugs, alcohol) out. you say, and i quote: “It [the shelter] was like a distillation of the things that people need in life”.

Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues. still number four.) i’m sorry, you went to a homeless shelter where people who lost everything and fought addiction and managed to build something meaningful for themselves while still technically homeless, and used that as inspiration porn for your whole online detox argument?? privilege, meet class intersections.You look lost. You look like you used to look, when . . .’ She stopped herself saying ‘when you had depression’ but I knew what she meant. And besides, I could feel anxiety and depression around me. Not actually there but close. The memory of it something I could almost touch in the stifling air of the car. ‘I’m fine,’ I lied. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine . . .’ Within a week I was lying on my sofa, falling into my eleventh bout of anxiety. The remainder of the book offers various tips and strategies for managing anxiety and stress. These include both practical advice, such as exercise and relaxation techniques, and psychological approaches, such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). Details of Notes on a Nervous Planet Book Book i mean, we could talk endlessly about the Bad Effects of social media and we’d probably have a good conversation with a lot of mutual agreement. i’m not sure if that would make us part of an online echo chamber or not. We are constantly bombarded by information from our phones and by screens. A book is simpler in many ways. It offers us an escape into one world, into one story and with no distractions or internet holes to fall into. Reading is a way to relax, destress and to help shut off anxiety – especially if the planet itself is the cause of our troubling thoughts. Notes on a Nervous Planet is a fascinating look at the link between anxiety and the world we live in . . . [Haig is] one of our warmest, wittiest and wisest writers” ( Mail on Sunday)

If you had a book club in sixteenth-century England, chances are you would eventually run out of things to read. The British Library estimates that during that time, only 40 books were published per year. In contrast, in 2016 the number of books in existence was estimated at 134,021,533. It can be depressing to realize that no matter how much of a bookworm you are, you will only ever read a fraction of all the titles in circulation.Whenever I start one of his books, the rest of the world falls to a blur, in slow motion. I become so engrossed in what he has to say, it’s as if time stands still. He writes of truth and hurt and feelings, and the discord so many of us feel in our oh-so-busy modern lives. Is the modern world doing our heads in? Matt Haig shares our fears and gives answers to the question from many different angles. An enthralling book.”—Jo Brand, author of The More You Ignore Me

Thought-provoking . . . [Haig’s] hard-won wisdom asks us to think about how we can live in the present – and in so doing, he creates a wonderfully perceptive chronicle of life in the always-on social media age. A real-world guide to mindfulness” ( Observer) A beguiling read, filled with warmth and humour, and a vibrant celebration of the power of books to change lives." Overall I liked the book, and will go around recommending this to colleagues, if only for the following wholesome, thought provoking one liners:I love the section about time in this book because a huge part of my anxiety is never feeling like I have enough time to do all the things I want to do, and never feeling present in the moment because I’m always planning things for the future and thinking about the future. This quote really speaks to me: Not to say that propagating a holistic approach to mental health, taking the environment and physical health into account, is not very important. This book has so much power to bring you the arguments that you probably thought you would never need to make you see the inevitable 'nothing' in all the craze we are involved in everyday.