This is the book which will make you think about the most useless things that we invest most of our time in. And we say we need more time everyday to do things that matter. Such an excess of choice is present in almost every aspect of modern life. From books to face creams to cereal brands, there is simply too much to choose from. There’s also way too much information. Through the internet, we can access a huge amount of data on everything, from recipes to personal opinions to historical events. This combination of excess and access leaves us with cluttered lives and cluttered brains. We are totally overstimulated, but constantly feel like we’re missing out. No wonder we often feel overwhelmed, anxious and depressed. I read Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig during my 2017 relapse, and I devoured it. I absolutely love Haig’s writing style and the way he weaves anecdote into advice, and how closely our experiences relate. I especially like how in this book, he talks about how social media and technology can exacerbate anxiety, which is certainly true for me as well. Matt Haig) นักเขียนและนักข่าวชาวอังกฤษที่ฝากผลงานไว้บนแผงหนังสือขายดีที่หลายคนคงเคยเห็นผ่านตา ไม่ว่าจะเป็น มหัศจรรย์ห้องสมุดเที่ยงคืน (The Midnight Library) วรรณกรรมเยาวชนที่รับรางวัลชนะเลิศงาน Goodreads Choice Awards 2020 หรือ แด่ผู้แหลกสลาย (Reasons to Stay Alive)หนังสือที่บอกเล่าเรื่องราวเบื้องหลังของผู้ป่วยโรคซึมเศร้า เพราะภายใต้ความสำเร็จผลงานการเขียน เขาเคยผ่านคืนวันอันแตกสลายจากความเจ็บป่วยด้านจิตใจมาแล้ว My aim – ‘To feel every moment, to ignore tomorrow, to unlearn all the worries and regrets and fear caused by the concept of time. To be able to walk around and think of nothing but the walking. To lie in bed, not asleep, and not worry about sleep. But just be there, in sweet horizontal happiness, unflustered by the past and future concerns.’

Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal. The author then discusses some of the main causes of anxiety and stress in modern life. These include work-related stress, social media, and the 24-hour news cycle. He argues that the way we currently live is not sustainable and that we need to find ways to cope with the increasing levels of stress in our lives. Haig’s non-fiction books include Reasons to Stay Alive (2015), a memoir about his experience of depression, and Notes on a Nervous Planet (2018), a book about mental health and modern life. Haig is a patron of the mental health charity Mind. He lives in York with his family. PDF / EPUB File Name: Notes_on_a_Nervous_Planet_-_Matt_Haig.pdf, Notes_on_a_Nervous_Planet_-_Matt_Haig.epub This is a perfect companion piece to Reasons to Stay Alive which also ties in the impact of the external world and as always, provides a frank and accessible look at mental health coupled with some fantastic advice.Haig is not claiming that life is measurably harder than ever for middle-class people in developed countries today – though occasionally he appears to come close to it. “Employment is becoming a dehumanising process, as if humans existed to serve work, rather than work to serve humans,” he writes. “More dehumanising than going down the pit?” the reader might be tempted to respond. But what he does convincingly argue is that new technology has effects with which our animal brains cannot cope. He cites a former Google employee who is fearful of the tech giant’s effects on society; historical examples of mass hysteria; a marketing book that describes how to use “fear, uncertainty and doubt” to sell products; the Netflix boss who admits that the company’s main rival for its customers’ time is sleep. It begins to sound incredible that not everybody suffers from clinical anxiety. But by understanding these influences, Haig believes, we can begin to resist them. “It helps to know I am just a caveman in a world that has arrived faster than our minds and bodies expected.” Not to say that propagating a holistic approach to mental health, taking the environment and physical health into account, is not very important.

A somewhat repetitive but often wise and inspiring self-help title strengthened by the author’s very personal experiences and acquired insight. Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”

Matt Haig is a British novelist and journalist. His novels include The Radleys, The Humans and How To Stop Time. He has also written non-fiction books including Reasons to Stay Alive and Notes on a Nervous Planet. If you are struggling with anxiety, or if you want to learn more about it, then Yes – this book is for you. To enjoy life, we might have to stop thinking about what we will never be able to read and watch and say and do, and start to think of how to enjoy the world within our boundaries. To live on a human scale. To focus on the few things we can do, rather than the millions of things we can’t. To not crave parallel lives. To find a smaller mathematics. To be a proud and singular one. An indivisible prime.” Matt Haig takes on how modern day life, with abundant choices and psychologist involved in marketing of almost any product, effects our state of mind.