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REAL SELF-CARE

Pooja Lakshmin

A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystal, Cleanses, and Bubble Baths Not Included)

From board-certified psychiatrist and women's mental health specialist Pooja Lakshmin, MD, comes a long-overdue reckoning with the contradictions of the wellness industry and hands-on strategies for practicing real and lasting self-care.
You may have noticed that it's nearly impossible to go even a couple days without coming across the term self-care. A word that encompasses any number of lifestyle choices and products - from juice cleanses to yoga workshops to luxury bamboo sheets - self-care has exploded in our collective consciousness as a panacea for practically all of women's problems.

Dr. Pooja Lakshmin finds this cultural embrace of self-care incomplete at best and manipulative at worst. Self-care dogma says that to fix your troubles is as simple as buying a new day planner or signing up for a meditation class. But the game is rigged. The self-care fixes that our culture prescribes keep us looking outward - comparing ourselves with others or striving for a certain type of perfection. Real self-care, in contrast, is not as simple as a fancy spa retreat or a journaling app; it's an internal process that involves hard work and making difficult decisions.

REAL SELF-CARE shows readers the difference between the two, lifting the veil on faux self-care and reconceptualizing our understanding of what a real practice of caring for yourself could - and should - look like. Using case studies, clinical research, and compassion, Lakshmin provides actionable strategies for real and sustainable change and solace, helping readers set boundaries and move past guilt, treat themselves with compassion, get closer to themselves, and assert their power.


Dr. Pooja Lakshmin, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist and author specializing in women's mental health with a focus on how broken social systems impact women's emotional lives. In 2020 Lakshmin founded Gemma, a digital women's mental health platform. She maintains an active private practice, where she treats women struggling with burnout, perfectionism, and disillusionment, as well as clinical conditions like depression and anxiety. She is looking forward to changing the cultural conversation surrounding self-care.
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Book

Published 2023-03-14 by Penguin Life

Book

Published 2023-03-14 by Penguin Life

Comments

I always say that the first step of any negotiation is to convince yourself. Real Self Care *is* that first step in indelible book form. Through her lucid, wise, hilariously honest advice, Pooja Lakshmin will transform your thinking about what it means to feel worthy, precious, and powerful. To protect your time, to burn bright, not burn out. I know she'll do that for you because she's done it for me.

I see parents - moms in particular -struggling with the weight of expectations, feelings of failure, and the sense of never measuring up. In Real Self-Care Pooja explores what it really means to take care of ourselves and provides a revolutionary self-care framework that is honest, compassionate, and completely actionable.

Real Self Care is a revelation! Pooja takes us through a journey of unlearning and rediscovery to tackle burnout, make ourselves whole again, and step into our power in a world that is often stacked against us.

Pooja's Real Self-Care is a gentle yet direct invitation for us to consider the things that will really help us to be well. She does a masterful job of exposing the life hacks and shortcuts that may seem helpful in the short term while encouraging us to interrogate and change the systems and beliefs that actually contribute to us feeling burned out and overwhelmed. This is a practical and helpful guide for anyone who has done all the things the listicles have outlined and is still feeling overrun and worn out. Pooja provides a real path forward paved with compassion and encouragement.

This isn't just another self-help book. It gives us a clear-eyed look at the way social systems drain our energy, and a concrete set of principles to rely on as we declare independence from these systems. Pooja is just the kind of wise, compassionate, experienced advisor who can help us claim health and happiness for the long term, despite the near-impossible demands that face us all. Real Self-Care is a much-needed sanctuary for the minds and hearts of its readers.

UK&C: Random House Books/Cornerstone ; Netherlands: Spectrum ; Portuguese (Brazil): Companhia/Fontanar ; Russian: Alpina