The Comfort Crisis

Embrace Discomfort to Reclaim Your Wild, Healthy, Happy Self

283 pages

English language

Published May 11, 2021

ISBN:
978-0-593-13876-2
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3 stars (8 reviews)

In many ways, we’re more comfortable than ever before. But could our sheltered, temperature-controlled, overfed, under-challenged lives actually be the leading cause of many of our most urgent physical and mental health issues? In this gripping investigation, award-winning journalist Michael Easter seeks out off-the-grid visionaries, disruptive genius researchers, and mind-body conditioning trailblazers who are unlocking the life-enhancing secrets of a counterintuitive solution: discomfort.

Easter’s journey to understand our evolutionary need to be challenged takes him to meet the NBA’s top exercise scientist, who uses an ancient Japanese practice to build championship athletes; to the mystical country of Bhutan, where an Oxford economist and Buddhist leader are showing the world what death can teach us about happiness; to the outdoor lab of a young neuroscientist who’s found that nature tests our physical and mental endurance in ways that expand creativity while taming burnout and anxiety; to the remote Alaskan backcountry on …

1 edition

reviewed The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

Decent Summary of Modern Comfort-Creep

3 stars

I have to admit, I was sceptical about the book. Especially since it directly starts with the whole "to experience the world as our ancestors did, you should go hunting" narrative, something that doesn't sit well with me. I'm still not fond of this narrative, especially since I don't eat meat myself. But at least he tried to inject an ethical view into it throughout the book, even though he himself has to admit at least in a half-sentence that maybe not everyone should go hunting. Which shows you the privileged position from which he is talking. On the other hand, of course he is writing from a privileged position, because why write about modern comfort-creep otherwise?

The rest is wisdom about different aspects of our modern lives and why we feel so unsatisfied with it in a pretty condensed form. I've encountered it all before, especially if you're into …

Spannende Gedanken und Ideen vor einem privilegierten Hintergrun

3 stars

In seinem Buch "The Comfort Crisis" beschreibt Michael Easter, wie das "komfortable und anstrengungsfreie" Leben unsere psychische wie physische Gesundheit schwächt. Er fasst interessante Forschungsergebnisse zusammen und gibt hilfreiche Denkanstöße für das eigene Leben – es durch ein wenig Beschwernis besser zu gestalten.

ABER!!! Er tut dies unreflektiert vor seinem privilegierten weißen, nicht-behinderten, cis-männlichen Hintergrund (ohne Kinder?). Der narrative Faden einer mehrwöchigen Karibu-Jagd im Hinterland Alaskas bietet dazu eine gehörige Portion des "klassischen" Männlichkeitsbilds (allerdings ohne unmittelbar toxisch zu werden) und einen Fokus auf absolute Höchstleistung.

Review of 'The Comfort Crisis' on 'Goodreads'

1 star

The book 'institute', as such, is in deep trouble.
No more research, no more thinking.
You pour it all out, make it emotional, and you throw it out as a simple, easy-to-digest brochure.
Calling it a book irritates me a lot.

Juvenile thoughts on 'connecting with nature' along with incoherent pieces of seemingly unrelated studies on being alone, education, conformism, beta-males and the flow by M.C. (I can't spell it, by the author didn't seem to read the whole work of his; otherwise he would understand what level of nonsense he managed to attribute to the concept of Flow as in the book).
There is a story of hunting down deer and whatnot in the cold, getting out there and experiencing the world. As a story, that would be pretty cool to digest; I would pay for it.
But then he mumbles about all these unrelated studies he happens to …

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