When the Body Says NO

When the Body Says No - Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection
by Gabor Maté, M.D.
first published by Alfred A. Knopf in Canada in 2003
non-fiction, medical, self-help

This is the second book of Gabor Maté’s that I have so far read all the way through. Once again, his writing style does not disappoint. The topic of this book is heavy, yet Maté masterfully crafts a delicate and compassionate combination of research and story to help the reader sit with the heaviness, digest the applicable parts, while offering practical ways to self-reflect and find hope in spite of the enormity of stress.

I think, for me, I want to put front and center in my life the 7-A’s of healing found in the last chapter—Acceptance, Awareness, Anger, Autonomy, Attachment, Assertion, and Affirmation. This chapter is quite a summary of themes across all of the other chapters. That said, each of the chapters individually offers their own particular perspective of seeing different types of disease in the giant elephant of stress and its impact on our physical bodies.