"Just One Thing" by Michael Mosely

I have to confess that until I read about Michael Mosely's very sad, accidental death on the Greek Island of Symi this summer, I had never heard of him, although I have been very much aware of his 5:2 diet regime for some years as it has been the cause of a terrific amount of weight loss on the part of my father.

This was a book that was chosen by a member of the non-fiction reading group that I am a member of and is a classic example of a book I am glad I read and would never otherwise have done so. I listened to much of it as an audio book narrated by the author, and the warm, avuncular enthusiasm with which he reads it may account for a lot of the positive impression I was left with.

It is essentially a guide to self-improvement which contains a mix of some rather obvious and some less obvious ways in which you can make small changes to your daily life in order to achieve improved mental and physical health. Some of it is pretty basic, and might be seen as being a tad patronising. Having a cup of coffee, for example, taking naps when you are tired, going for walks or eating an apple each day. I am fine with all that and do it anyway. But I am much less sure about taking cold showers, standing on one leg with my eyes closed while cleaning my teeth or eating a lot of beetroot. When I was child my aunt used to cook beetroot soup, and it was not only a touch unappetising if I remember rightly, but it also had a pretty alarming side effect in the form of pink wee. So I do not plan to do those 'just one things'. I have also tried mindfulness on several occasions and find it impossible to empty my head in the required manner.

My main problem with this book though is its tendency very much to focus on improving mental health by (a) doing things for yourself and (b) taking seemingly continuous breaks from work in order to do them. This is not my way. I am sure I am not the only person who gets infinitely more personal satisfaction from doing things for and with others than I do from pampering myself. I also really enjoy my work and find continually that achieving things at work, even quite small things, is just great for my mental health. I fear that retirement to a Moselyesque life of doing these 'just one things' - something that is now creeping on to my horizon - would depress me terribly and send me into a spiral of mental decline. So I think that there is a big yawning gap in this otherwise rather charming and quirky little self-help book.