Pretty Sure You're Fine: The Health and Wellness Guide for Hypochondriacs, Overthinkers, and Worrywarts

Do you have a friend who without symptom or diagnosis is worried about their health? If so, run and get them a copy of Pretty Sure You’re Fine: The Health and Wellness Guide for Hypochondriacs, Overthinkers, and Worrywarts. It will be the holiday gift that affirms for them that they are probably all right.

David Vienna, author of Calm the F*ck Down, brings sane thinking to wellness fads and unrealistic health and lifestyle expectations. This well-documented book talks sense to both head and heart about all those health-related issues you’ve been worried about. From physical to mental health, work-life balance, and the role of the internet in freaking us out about our health, this book has it all.

Organized into seven sections, Pretty Sure You’re Fine addresses our most important health-related subjects: exercise, mental health, nutrition, doctors and self-diagnosis, motivation, work, and a catch-all section called “No Laughing Matter.” With tongue-in-cheek sarcasm, Vienna discusses the health issues that plague us and cause us to worry unnecessarily about our well-being.

If your worries aggravate your insomnia, grab this book to put your mind at ease. Everyone has minor health issues or concerns from time to time. This book will confirm that you’re probably doing better than you think you are.

Certainly, many of our health concerns are genuine. People every day struggle with mental and physical health issues. Yet we also tend to fan the flames of minor difficulties. For example, is your diet really as bad as you fear, or did you simply overindulge at Thanksgiving? Are you willing to stay home and eat a really great homemade burger—which is likely lower in calories and chemicals than fast food— instead of getting a burger shoved at you in a bag through a window? Reframing behaviors or making minor modifications can, according to Vienna, make a genuine difference in how you feel.

Vienna’s message is clear. Yes, we all want good health, but we can also let ourselves off the hook for some of the concerns and minor indulgences that we have. There’s so much pressure to get our health right, but there’s also benefit in skipping a workout now and again or eating a delicious snack. Odds are, you’re going to be just fine.

Some changes are definitely worth making. Your physician has more training than you do, and if they are sincerely listening and taking your concerns seriously, they are probably going to give you better care than what you find for yourself on the internet. Sometimes our work legitimately causes us stress and we need to find new jobs. But at the same time, most of us are not facing a horrible illness at present—and that’s what we need to remember.

Though a reader might assume that the book is simply comedy, it’s actually packed with levelheaded general health information. Irreverent in style, Pretty Sure You’re Fine gives overviews of sound health practices while reminding us that the probability of having an obscure disease is low. We don’t have to assume the worst.

Pretty Sure You’re Fine is packed with beneficial information about a wide variety of subjects. Hang out with people who motivate you. Be optimistic. While there is no magic pill that cures all ills, there are really good advances being made against most of the major health threats we face. Start slowly. Stretch. Read this book when you’re worried. David Vienna is pretty sure you’re fine.