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Wellmania

Misadventures in the Search for Wellness

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
The inspiration for the Netflix series starring Celeste Barber, Wellmania is an in-depth, entertaining, laugh-out-loud-funny exploration of wellness culture.
Now with a new preface by the author.
Cold-pressed juices, quitting sugar, Paleo, hot yoga, mindfulness ... if you embrace these things you will be happy, you will be well – just ask Instagram. Wellness has become a global mega-industry. But does any of this stuff actually work?
Feeling exhausted, anxious and a bit flabby, journalist Brigid Delaney decides to find out – using herself as the guinea pig. Starting with a brutal 101-day fast, Brigid tests things that are meant to make us clean, lean and serene. Travelling the world, she tries colonics, meditation, silent retreats, group psychotherapy and oodles of yoga, working out what is helpful and what is just expensive hype.
In monasteries and health farms, on hiking trails and massage tables, she asks, why do so many of us swing from indulgence to detox and back again? Is it possible to integrate good habits into your daily life? What does our obsession with wellness say about us? And why do you smell so bad when you haven't eaten in seven days?
Wellmania is the highly entertaining and occasionally dangerous exploration of one of the most fascinating trends in our culture.
'Brigid Delaney is the queen of calamity and a fearless, sane guide into the bizarre heart of our modern obsessions. This will make you groan in horror as much as it'll make you laugh out loud.' —Benjamin Law
'A bloody entertaining read that leaves you wondering whether you want to do yoga and meditation or get mindlessly drunk and despair at the state of the world. Basically I wish that I'd written it.' —Judith Lucy
'At last! A funny, well-written book about all the health and serenity treatments you've been too feeble personally to undertake.' —Annabel Crabb
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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 1, 2018
      Delaney, a lifestyle journalist, takes the reader through her 12-year search for wellness in this amusing memoir. She belatedly realizes that navel-gazing may not be healthy as she relentlessly pursues all that the wellness industry offers in sections titled after the holy trinity of wellness goals: “Clean” (eating healthily), “Lean” (getting into shape), and “Serene” (finding happiness). In “Clean,” the reader joins her in a grueling 101-day fast in Australia, her homeland. She combines vivid descriptions, such as of a required daily herb drink described as resembling, in taste, flat beer with 10 cigarettes mixed in; hysterical accounts, such as of her stealing breakfast from a business associate; and medical explanations of what’s really happening to her body. “Lean” looks at the benefits of daily yoga as well as its drawbacks, such as rampant consumerism and commodification. The meatiest section, “Serene,” explores meditation retreats, from a spooky monastery to an off-the-wall new age retreat where psychotherapy is practiced. Delaney is generous in sharing her experiences and skillful in weaving them into reported facts, but stingy in doling out conclusions. She offers only two paragraphs of concrete advice, which basically boils down to “build a routine.” Still, the book gives copious examples of how one could start doing that.

    • Books+Publishing

      May 23, 2017
      Wellmania takes on the industrial wellness complex, a billion-dollar industry that mainstreams and monetises ancient traditions for affluent consumers. Feeling depleted from decades in the fast lane, journalist Brigid Delaney explores the modern (and very Western) pursuit of what she calls ‘clean, lean and serene’ living. Going gonzo on wellness, Delaney undertakes and entertainingly documents her own search for these goals via trends such as extreme fasting in Bondi, yoga in Sri Lanka, an enema in the Philippines and group therapy in the bush. Her search is earnest, and she’s game for just about anything, but Delaney is also unflinching in her examination of the darker side of the wellness industry: the tendency to swing between hedonism and contrition, which she sees reflected in society at large; the environmental, cultural and moral quagmire that the West’s wellness industry leaves in its wake; and its attendant narcissism and body-image obsession. Delaney is a relatable and fearless tour guide on this journey, game enough to go to the very edge while you watch from a safe distance; there is something both methodical and simultaneously chaotic about her process. Readers who recognise themselves in Delaney’s search will be amused and uncomfortable in equal parts. Jenni Kauppi is an editor, critic and bookseller 

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