Notes on a Nervous Planet: Matt Haig

Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig is a heartfelt, thoughtful exploration of the challenges we face in today’s fast-paced, digital-driven world. In this book, Haig combines his personal experiences with anxiety and depression, offering practical advice, gentle encouragement, and reflections that make you feel less alone in navigating mental health struggles. What I Love: ✅ Relatable and Honest – Haig’s writing is honest, raw, and very relatable. He speaks from the heart, sharing his own struggles in a way that makes the reader feel understood and less isolated. ✅ Practical Advice – The book offers practical tips on how to cope with modern-day stressors, whether it's dealing with social media overload, anxiety, or the constant pressure of daily life. ✅ Empathy and Positivity – Despite the heavy subject matter, Haig maintains a hopeful and empathetic tone throughout the book. His insights on mindfulness, slowing down, and focusing on small, positive changes are uplifting and motivational. ✅ Short, Digestible Chapters – The chapters are short and easy to read, making it a great book to pick up when you need a mental break. It’s not overwhelming, and you can easily digest one chapter at a time. ✅ A Personal and Universal Journey – Haig explores both personal and societal impacts on mental health, making the book both an individual journey and a collective reflection on how we can improve our well-being in an increasingly hectic world. A Small Note: 🔹 Some of the ideas are familiar, especially if you’ve read other self-help or mental health books, but Haig’s unique voice and perspective bring a fresh and deeply compassionate lens to these topics. Final Thoughts: Notes on a Nervous Planet is a must-read for anyone feeling overwhelmed by modern life. Haig offers a gentle, reassuring reminder that it’s okay to slow down and take care of yourself. Whether you struggle with mental health or simply want a better understanding of how to navigate the pressures of today’s world, this book is both enlightening and comforting. Highly recommend for anyone looking for a compassionate guide to finding balance in a chaotic world.

An excellent book. Couldn't put it down. Thank you for writing it, mind changing. Thank you to Andrea and the kids for sparing him the time.

I'd read 3 of this author's novels and, of course, Reasons to Stay Alive so was curious about this book. First look and it seems to be some sort of self help book with an encouragement towards calm which is always a positive. I read the paperback which is slightly smaller than a standard paperback (I always love something that stands out from the crowd). At 306 pages this book is split into 18 chapters that are then broken down into small sections that average at about 2 pages each. The book is printed in a large font. It was first published in 2018 - the planet has only got madder since then so I was curious to see if it still felt relevant. His first book about mental health was very personal and limited to his own experiences - the purpose of this book is to widen that remit and give readers more engagement, both of which he achieves. The book is still about Matt Haig's journey through the world but he is now is a better place mentally so is able to be mor aware and reflect on his wider environment. There is a lot to think about as you are reading. Anyone picking up the book is already curious about the often overwhelming society in which we live and its effects and there is an irony that the book would probably be more useful for many of the people who will never read it as they are potentially ignoring problems. In the 6 years since publication we have been through a pandemic with huge impacts on mental health although, after long reflection, I'm not sure that general social pressures have changed as much over this period as I had previously thought. This book is still very relevant. Matt Haig has a chaotic way of writing which prevents the book being a self help manual so it becomes a flow of his thoughts and ideas. It's give any reader a sense of what helps Matt Haig to get through each day and it will entertain you at the same time.

As someone with anxiety I found Reasons to Stay Alive so helpful and couldn’t wait to read this one too. Whereas Reasons to Stay Alive followed the author’s personal journey with depression and gave advice on how to manage depression and suicidal thoughts, this one looks more generally at modern Western society, technology in particular, and how it can contribute to making people more depressed and anxious. A lot of the conclusions – like taking time for self-care and spending less time on your phone – were already ones I’d come to for managing my own mental health, but still I think this book will be illuminating for a lot of people , especially young people who have grown up thinking smartphones are normal. The book still contains some personal anecdotes and I found the chapter on appearance and unattainable beauty standards (‘A Feeling is not Your Face’) especially helpful. On the whole I found Reasons to Stay Alive more ground breaking and helpful for my own mental health – I still carry it around like a bible sometimes – but Notes on a Nervous Planet is a fascinating account of modern culture and its effects on mental health. A must-read not just for those of us with anxiety disorders but for anyone living in the modern world. However, what it doesn't do is address the anxiety that results from specific trauma, rather than from general modern living - although some of the tips/mindsets may still help.

A scattered, but honest look at how the rapidly changing, modern world we live in plays a detrimental impact on mental and physical health. Whether you suffer with mental illness or not, it can be an overwhelming place to be. Notes On A Nervous Planet creates a relatable platform to feel heard, using a conversation and relaxed tone. If you're looking for a self help book, this isn't necessarily it, although it identifies the problem there's minimal guidance what to do to improve your mental health. TW: Suicide, alcohol abuse, panic disorder, mental illness "I sometimes feel like my head is a computer with too many windows open. Too much clutter on the desktop. And if only I could drag some of the clutter into the trash, then I would be fine. But which frame would I choose, when they all seem so essential?" "Feeling you lack things doesn't make you less complete" "When it comes to our minds, awareness is very often the solution itself. Only by accepting the situation can you change it" "Never let other people make you feel it is a weakness or flaw inside you if you have a mental health problem" "Reading is important because it gives you room to exist beyond the reality you're given" "Everyone is misunderstood. Don't worry about other people understanding you. Aim to understand yourself".

There were some parts I found really interesting but for the most part, I was quite bored! Personal preference but I just didn't like his writing style (and looking at the excerpt from The Comfort Book, it's written the same way). Maybe it's wrong of me to expect a mainstream book to present philosophical ideas in a digestible way, but the language just felt pretentious and I sometimes struggled to work out what exactly he was trying to say. I'm also guessing it was a conscious decision for the book to be "messy" like his brain, but ironically it just made me feel more anxious. All the stopping and starting and long lists broken up with a ton of full stops - I thought the book was meant to help ease anxiety, not induce it?

I purchased this book after seeing it advertised in a spa magazine & read the amazing reviews it already had. I knew it would be right up my street just from reading the description but i had NO idea how really incredible it was going to be. I'm only a third of the way through and already want to tell the world about it and buy it everyone for their birthdays for the rest of time. Such an honestly and insightfully written piece of work that really makes you think about the modern world and how it inevitably impacts everyone. I have had to put this book down several times and really allow myself to absorb the words because they ring so true & are so relatable. I honestly cannot recommend this book enough. I think if everyone read this, the world would have a chance of becoming a better place. It brings a sense of mindfulness that I never could have imagined feeling. One million stars out of ten.

This was a really insightful and reassuring read, it carried some good messages that I really need to hear. I even had to get some post it tabs to sit next to me whilst I read so that I could tab sections and paragraphs that I know will be good to read again in the future when I'm not feeling so great. The overall message of the book is that as humans we are already inherently special and should appreciate ourselves much more than we do now. We should appreciate the things we have rather than always wanting to have and to do more. However, this is hard in a world wherein there is always something new to do, watch, read, see or even think about. There is so much technology changing the way in which we go about our lives. Okay great, this seems a pretty standard message for a book to have, but it's only when you read the book do you start seeing the true relevance of the message for your own life. You see where you can make more time for yourself away from your phone, or where you can make more time to walk outside, or do yoga, or read a book. Like Matt suggests in the book, it's only when a book is read does it the magic of the book come alive. Not everything in the book might be relevant or interesting to everyone, but there is certainly one thing, if not ten things in this book that most people could apply to their lives - or at least contemplate and get themselves thinking about. One slight - I would not call it a negative, but something that sometimes troubled me - was that occasionally the referencing to things that make Matt worry or things that could be worried about, started to then make me worry or think oh maybe I should start worrying about these things. There were a few long lists in the book that instilled a sense of panic within me, although in saying this, the long list style at other times helped me relax. This is definitely down to the variable of me being the reader in that I can be easily worried, and also down to the variable of my mood of reading at the time - but just a warning for those who may feel or experience the same. Would definitely recommend this book though, and it's a great book to read in small chunks when you have a few spare minutes. Definitely doesn't need to be devoured in its entirety straight away. Therefore also good for those who aren't keen on reading. It's super easy to dip in and out of the book.