Real Self-Care: A Transformative Program for Redefining Wellness (Crystals, Cleanses, and BubbleBaths Not Included) [Hardcover]

National Bestseller featured by Good Morning America, NPR's Code Switch, The New York Times, and The Guardian

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Forbes' Greatest Self-Help Books of All Time

Realistic and trustworthy -- InStyle

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. —Martha Beck, New York Times bestselling author of The Way of Integrity

This book is for anyone who’s ever removed a 'relaxing' sheet mask only to realize it hasn’t transformed you so much as your trash can.” —Jessica DeFino, The Unpublishable

From women’s mental health specialist and New York Times contributor Pooja Lakshmin, MD, comes a long-overdue reckoning with the contradictions of the wellness industry and a paradigm-shifting program for practicing real self-care that will empower, uplift, and maybe even start a revolution.

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. 

Board-certified psychiatrist Dr. Pooja Lakshmin finds this cultural embrace of self-care incomplete at best and manipulative at worst. Fixing your troubles isn’t simple as lÓJ