My Book Review of 'The Upward Spiral'

Hi. Today I’m doing a quick review of The Upward Spiral: Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression, One Small Change at a Time. Alex Korb, PhD. With a foreword by Daniel J. Siegel, MD. I think this is a really good book. I mean, a lot of people these days struggle with anxiety, depression, and other mental illnesses. I know that I have been through periods of depression due to my dystonia, and this has some very sound advice for people who really feel like they’re at their wit’s end, which I have been there.

So yeah, I highly recommend it. The Upward Spiral, it takes you through the small steps that you can take to try to feel better about everything, about yourself, about your situation, what you can do in small, incremental steps really. I pretty much know everything they’re going to say, unfortunately. I can almost anticipate what I’m going to read next, but some of it, I don’t know much about, like biofeedback. I believe I’ve done that before, but it didn’t do much for dystonia. I’ll say that.

But I think there are things in here that can really, really help people. For my own self, for me, it was not trying so hard to keep up with everybody else’s expectations, and that’s helped for me a lot. I’m tired, I tire easily, so I have to put my energies where they will help me the most, which is why I’m telling you this now.

If you start to feel like you’re just going through the motions when you do things, if the joy is starting to get wrung out of what you’re doing, you need to slow down and think for a moment about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, because otherwise you are simply going to run yourself into the ground. It is very easy to do that now. There is so much going on. There is so much on the internet. There is so much information.

It’s too much, way too much, so you have to just take a moment, take a breath, and say, okay, let’s just stop for a moment and think, what do I want to do next? What’s going to move the needle on my life or my career, or whatever it is, whatever goal you’re aiming for, that’s really what it’s all about. Moving that needle every bit, a little bit at a time, like the way I’m cleaning up this office, the tiniest bit at a time. Really.

That’s all I have to say for the moment. Good book, The Upward Spiral. I recommend it. I’ll be seeing you. Talk to you later.