Real Self-Care By Pooja Lakshmin

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.