Thou Art Anxious

In this age of information overload, with every word and byte amplified to an unprecedented extreme by social media and cable news, we have come to rely heavily upon advice of all kinds, hoping it can help us navigate the treacherous shoals and eddies of daily life. We’re now at a point where we need advice on the advice we’re receiving, which is what Timothy Caulfield offers with this very readable book.

Caulfield, the research director of the Health Law Institute at the University of Alberta and the author of Is Gwyneth Paltrow Wrong about Everything?, from 2015, structures Relax, Dammit! around the typical reader’s typical day: “We make a ridiculous number of decisions,” he writes in his introduction. “Some estimates are that the number hovers in the thousands; we make hundreds of decisions daily about food alone.” He then walks us through the numerous choices we face from morning to night. How do we actually make all of them? And based upon...