Emotional Detox for Anxiety: 7 Steps to Release Anxiety and Energize Joy by Sherianna Boyle
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
I voluntarily read and reviewed an ARC of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I received a digital copy of this book back in September of 2019, when the world was very different from what we are experiencing right now, April 2020.
While I was reading I kept asking myself how much of the information contained in this book and how much of the techniques that describe coping and healing methods to tackle anxiety that was part of the “old world problems”, so to speak, will still be relevant right now and even after this pandemic has been beaten.
Personally speaking, I have been battling PTSD and social anxiety for a number of years and in the latter half of last year I finally found a way to work on them to the point that I was symptom free.
According to this book, though, my way was just a way of coping: I found a gym and a hobby that fulfilled me and replaced my anxious thoughts with feel-good hormones I got from working out.
The author makes a distinct difference between coping and healing. My way was only coping with it and therefore felt like it was being dismissed. I agree that people need to heal their past trauma and hurt in order to move on, but sometimes the anxiety stays, even after the wounds (mental and physical) have healed.
For me it was so much more than getting a good work out, though. I faced my fear of being in social situations and was able to overcome a good portion of that anxiety. I even made some friends along the way. Of course, it is different for every person suffering from anxiety, I just feel like the author had a little bit of tunnel vision when considering the unique differences each person faces in their own struggle with anxiety.
Another thing that bugged me a bit was the confusion I felt about the author’s stance on talking about emotions. Early on in the book it sounded like the author wasn’t on board with talking about emotions. One must heal them instead? Acknowledge them?
Later on, she states that talking about one’s emotions is a part of a healthy lifestyle. I may have misunderstood, but the point is that it was all a bit confusing to follow.
The major problem I had with this book was how it was marketed. The title says Emotional Detox for Anxiety: 7 Steps to Release Anxiety and Energize Joy, but most of the book was a sort of scratching the surface of explaining emotions, anxiety and what the author thinks about coping techniques; only the last few chapters were about the actual steps that were supposed to teach the reader how to detox and heal their anxiety.
With the drawn-out explanation about anxiety the reader gets to constantly be reminded that the steps to attain emotional detox are just around the corner or that those anxieties can be addressed with these mystery steps.
The chapters leading up to the detox part are full of lists. Lists of symptoms and thoughts and emotions and actions you may experience when one has anxiety. It was overwhelming and exhausting. Add to that the listing of other steps, I wasn’t sure what was going on.
Overall, as I said before, I’m not sure if and how current self-help books that were written prior to this new global situation can be applied to our new experience of anxiety and emotional healing, but generally speaking I wasn’t too impressed with this one.
It felt more like a very long sale’s pitch for a new method of dealing with anxiety than actually spending most of the book concentrating on providing good, feasible techniques to those who are dealing with anxiety. It’s a pass for me on this one.
