Live a Little!

Live a Little! Breaking the Rules Won’t Break Your Health
By Susan Love and Alice D. Domar
Crown, 2009. 234 pgs. Nonfiction

I picked up this book because the front cover told me to eat a brownie, blow off my run, stay up late, and stop worrying about my health. That is a message every woman in this country needs and wants to hear. Love and Domar are doctors in different fields of women's health who collaborated to create a much needed voice telling us that all the pressure we place on ourselves to be our healthiest, is really stressing us all out and not achieving its desired results. Instead, they assert, we should ‘live a little’. We should do what we can, try our best, but always enjoy life.

I highly recommend this book as a remedy for all those diet and health books that require readers to restructure their entire lives in order to find health and happiness. Instead, these authors present health research in an honest and clear way. They encourage their audience to aim for a “pretty healthy” lifestyle. We should eat healthy and moderate meals, exercise when we can, sleep when we are tired, and nurture healthy relationships. Their demonstrations on how to interpret and incorporate the health messages we encounter is refreshing and surprisingly comforting.

CZ