FEELING STRESSED? RELAX, DAMMIT! (REVIEW)
This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to buy something I may earn a commission. Thanks.
One of my favorite books I’ve read in the first half of 2021 is RELAX DAMMIT! A User’s Guide to the Age of Anxiety by Timothy Caulfield. With everything we’ve been facing over the last year (errmmm, quarantine, lockdown, CORONA VIRUS!), the release of this book in April 2020 had eerie timing – or perfect timing.
The basis behind RELAX, DAMMIT is to question our decisions, and the misinformation we’ve been absorbing like a sponge, then hold them up against science and statistics. Caulfield forces you to ask the question WHY. Why do we think x y and z without question? Is there a reason we do this and not that? Why do we stress out about x? More often than not, we discover our decisions are the cause of unneeded anxiety…and, you guessed it, we need to relax.
In comparison to believing everything you hear or see online, when we’re presented with evidence-based data we can make better decisions, cut through the noise, and relax a little.
From your 6:30am wake up (WHY did we decide early rising is best? And is it?), to your 2:20pm office meeting (Why do we continue to have meetings when they are so inefficient?), and 8:00pm binge watching tv (Is binge watching harming us?). He looks at common everyday decisions many of us make on a daily basis and questions why we do them, if they are benefiting us or causing unnecessary stress and anxiety.
Personally, one of the biggest takeaways I got from RELAX, DAMMIT was having a better understanding of the information presented to the public about new research. You’ve probably seen these before, they often have sensationalized or click-bait headlines, or even contradict previous headlines – for example, the news that red wine is good for your health … and then next day a new article comes out saying it’s bad for you. How are you suppose to be confident about your decisions with that kind of noise!
I can now tell whether the research these articles are regurgitating is worth listening to, which relieves a lot of anxiety as these headlines can make everything seem bad for you.
If you’re looking for a book to read this summer, and enjoy non-fiction, self-help, cultural, or science genres you might like this book too. After reading this book you will be left feeling like a rational human being who can focus on what’s really important rather than making decisions based on misinformation and anxiety. In an online world of questionable tweets and online “advice”, I say we all need to learn to adopt this mindset.
MORE ABOUT TIMOTHY CAULFIELD
Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy, a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health, and Research Director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta. His interdisciplinary research on topics like stem cells, genetics, research ethics, the public representation of science, and health policy issues has allowed him to publish over 350 academic articles. He has won numerous academic and writing awards and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health and Sciences. He contributes frequently to the popular press and is the author of two national bestsellers: The Cure For Everything: Untangling the Twisted Messages About Health, Fitness, and Happiness, and The Science of Celebrity…or Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong About Everything?
