The Emotional Calendar
Understanding Seasonal Influences and Milestones to Become Happier, More Fulfilled, and in Control of Your Life
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A leading Harvard psychiatrist reveals how our emotional lives are profoundly shaped by the seasons, and how to recognize our own seasonal patterns and milestones
In two decades of psychiatry practice, John R. Sharp has worked with many people who experienced the same emotional distresses at specific times of the year—a young woman who became depressed before Thanksgiving, a middle-aged man who felt anxious about making his summer travel plans, people who made uncharacteristically extreme decisions as spring approached.
In The Emotional Calendar, Sharp reveals how environmental, psychological, and cultural forces profoundly affect the way we feel, and how the enduring effects of personal anniversaries can influence our moods and behavior year after year. Sharp also illustrates a wide range of individual responses to cultural phenomena: some people feel anxious at the start of a new school year or are undone by the prospect of tax season while others are buoyed by the start of a sports season.
Sharp shows us how to recognize the milestones on our own emotional calendars, providing guidance for how to break stifling patterns and remedy destructive moods. This empathetic and deeply resonant book will help readers reach an emotional balance for the years ahead.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Psychiatrist Sharp, professor at Harvard and UCLA medical school, combines insights from clinical and social psychology, neuroscience, anthropology, and medicine to explore how seasonal factors affect our psychological lives. He successfully describes such phenomena as seasonable adjustment disorder and offers many intriguing facts for example, he notes that summer is the season when people feel most free, yet also the time of the most suicides. Unfortunately, Sharp attempts to cover too many topics, which often leads to meandering digressions as in a section on "seasonal creep" in sports. Other times he states the obvious: regarding Valentine's Day, he writes, "for those in relationships, it can be a time of heightened expectations... while people without significant others face feelings of loneliness." Sharp also skimps on describing coping strategies, often offering little more than a paragraph on each of his recommendations. Sharp's book concludes with sections on medications and natural remedies for anxiety and depression, and a cheery chapter on "seasonal embrace." Readers may glean something helpful from the scientific and anecdotal material, but too much of this book is psych lite.
