Real Self-Care

Dr Pooja Lakshmin, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist, New York Times contributor and a leading voice at the intersection of mental health and gender, focused on helping women and people from marginalized communities escape the tyranny of self-care. In 2020, Lakshmin founded Gemma - a physician led women's mental health education platform centering impact and equity. She maintains an active private practice, where she treats women struggling with burnout, perfectionism, and disillusionment, as well as clinical conditions like depression and anxiety. Having gone down the rabbit hole of extreme wellness herself, Real Self-Care is her answer to the juice cleanses, the gratitude lists, and the bubble baths - not only to care for ourselves for real but, in turn, to transform our broken culture.

'Expect to fold down every other page' PANDORA SYKES 'This isn't just another self-help book. Real Self-Care is a much-needed sanctuary for the minds and hearts of its readers' MARTHA BECK 'A revolutionary self-care framework that is honest, compassionate and completely actionable' DR BECKY KENNEDY, No.1 New York Times bestselling author of Good Inside What does self-care really mean? From juice cleanses to face rollers, we are sold breezy fixes to long-term social problems that manifest in us as burnout, disillusionment and stress. Yet, more than ever, many of us are feeling the consequences of these empty promises and are looking for a meaningful solution. Now, psychiatrist and women's mental health specialist Dr. Pooja Lakshmin offers a sustainable practice for real self-care: an ongoing internal process that puts us in the driver's seat of our own lives. Because real self-care isn't something to buy - it's a way to be. This is Pooja's answer to the scores of women who feel let down by our culture and come to her seeking help. Real self-care requires setting boundaries, treating yourself with compassion, making choices aligned with your values and asserting your power. When we practice it, we see changes in our relationships, our families, our workplaces - and our broken systems. The result - reconnecting with ourself and having ownership over our life - is nothing less than a personal and social revolution.