A review by 18ck
Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig

4.0

Matt Haig is the non-fiction version of comfort food. He writes good self-help books, which is almost an oxymoron, but not quite. He gives real, practical advice on how to avoid making life worse through the pressure of modernity. Now, I'm not a sufferer from depression or anxiety - or at least not in a debilitating way. Well, not usually. But, as he says, illness has a lot to teach wellness. We can all learn from the strategies depressed or anxious people employ, to make our own lives more liveable. A lot of it is quite obvious, but a lot isn't, and even when it is, it's nice to get an external view. On stuff we all do in our day to day, to remind us that living out lives on social media, staying constantly attached to our gadgets, judging ourselves by illusory standards and trying to numb the anxiety using the same things that made us anxious in the first place, are all bad strategies.
I have some thoughts on the way the terms mental illness and anxiety are used that overlap & intersect with his to an extent, but the point of this book isn't to agree or disagree with it, it's to find ideas that help, so I'm not going to pick those apart. Just read it, take from it whatever ideas help and don't get too hung up on minor points that might not strike you as accurate.