How to Be Sad: Everything I've Learned About Getting Happier by Being Sad

by Helen Russell

"In any human life there are going to be periods of unhappiness. That is part of the human experience. Learning how to be sad is a natural first step in how to be happier."—Meik Wiking, CEO of the Happiness Research Institute " How to Be Sad is a poignant, funny, and deeply practical guide to better navigating one of our most misunderstood human emotions. It's a must-read for anyone looking to improve their happiness by befriending the full range of their own feelings." - Laurie Santos, Chandrika and Ranjan Tandon Professor of Psychology at Yale University and host of The Happiness Lab podcast An expert on the pursuit of happiness combines her powerful personal story with surprising research and expert advice to reveal the secret of finding joy: allowing sadness to enrich your life and relationships. Helen Russell has researched sadness from the inside out for her entire life. Her earliest memory is of the day her sister died. Her parents divorced soon after, and her mother didn’t receive the help she needed to grieve. Coping with her own emotional turmoil—including struggles with body image and infertility—she’s endured professional and personal setbacks as well as relationships that have imploded in truly spectacular ways. Even the things that brought her the greatest joy—like eventually becoming a parent—are fraught with challenges. While devoting a career to writing books on happiness, Helen discovered just how many people are terrified of sadness. But the key to happiness is unhappiness—by allowing ourselves to experience pain, we learn to truly appreciate and embrace joy. How to Be Sad is a memoir about living with sadness, as well as an upbeat manifesto for change that encourages us to accept and express our emotions, both good and bad. Interweaving Helen’s personal testimony with the latest research on sadness—from psychologists, geneticists, neuroscientists and historians—as well as the experiences of writers, comics, athletes and change-makers from around the world, this vital and inspiring guide explores why we get sad, what makes us feel this way, and how it can be a force for good.  Timely and essential, How to Be Sad is about how we can better look after ourselves and each other, simply by getting smarter about sadness. 

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Psychology, Mental Health, Audiobook, Personal Development, Memoir

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 4, 2021

About the author

Helen Russell is a bestselling author, journalist, speaker and host. Formerly editor of marieclaire.co.uk turned Scandinavia correspondent for the Guardian, her first book, The Year of Living Danishly, became an international bestseller, optioned for television. She's the author of five critically acclaimed books, translated into 21 languages.

Helen writes for magazines and newspapers globally, including The Times and The Sunday Times, the Telegraph, the Independent, National Geographic, Wall Street Journal, the Observer, Metro, Grazia, Stylist and Stella. She’s spent the last ten years studying cultural approaches to emotions and now speaks about her work internationally.

Reviews

[Jerecho · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can never be truly happy if you never felt sadness in life. You can never appreciate the beauty of life when you never experienced sadness.

Sadness fueled us to strive for the better. Achievement can be well appreciated through hard work and perseverance. And as you go along in life there will be lots on your way...

Recommendable book. Not to perfect but leaves an impression.

And whatever you are going through right now, I hope you'll get pass through it and smile. 😊

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why do we cry? How come love hurts? And what's a happiness researcher doing writing about sadness, anyway? Well, it turns out the two aren’t mutually exclusive. After eight years of investigating into happiness, Helen discovered a startling fact: most of us are terrified of being sad. So phobic, in fact, that we jeopardise our chances of truly living at all. This needs to change, because we need our sadness: it’s a message. It can tell us what’s wrong and what to do about it. Researchers have found that allowing for temporary sadness, counter-intuitively, makes us happier. And trying to avoid sadness – even to the extent many of us do on a daily basis – is detrimental to our mental health. So the time has come to get better at having difficult conversations. How To Be Sad is part memoir, part manifesto for change in how we express our emotions, good and bad. Exploring why we get sad; what makes us sad; how sadness can be a force for good; the truth about crying; why some of us get sadder than others; what we can do when we’re sad; and what we definitely shouldn’t do. Including the history of sadness, how other cultures handle theirs, the differences between sadness and depression, addiction, grief, heartbreak, burnout and everything in between.

Russell interweaves personal testimony with the latest research on sadness from psychologists, psychiatrists, geneticists, neuroscientists and historians as well as the experiences of writers, comics, athletes and change-makers from both sides of the Atlantic. How To Be Sad includes interviews with former medic Adam Kay, Joshua Becker (Becoming Minimalist), Meik Wiking (The Happiness Research Institute), Ella Mills (Deliciously Ella), Jeremy Vine (BBC), journalists Matt Rudd (The Sunday Times) and John Crace (The Guardian), polar explorer Ben Saunders, Yomi Adegoke (The Black Girls Bible), comedian Robin Ince, Julia Samuel MBE (Grief Works) and Mungi Ngomane (Everyday Ubuntu). This is a fascinating, insightful and accessible read brimming with anecdotal evidence and cases to back up the author's claims. It explores how sadness is a vital part of life and discussion about this was much more thought-provoking than I had initially imagined it would be. It's an intriguing and well written book compiled by one of the most prominent scientists in her field and is published at a time when many are facing more sadness than they have ever felt before. How To Be Sad is a guide for anyone who has ever been sad. A book about how we can all get happier by learning to be sad, better. 

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Russell has an appealingly self-deprecating style and breezily highlights statistics alongside personal anecdotes. Here she faces sources of sadness in her life head-on: her younger sister’s death from SIDS and the silence that surrounded that loss; her parents’ divorce and her sense of being abandoned by her father; struggles with eating disorders and alcohol and exercise addiction; and relationship trials, from changing herself to please boyfriends to undergoing IVF with her husband, T (aka “Legoman”), and adjusting to life as a mother of three.

As in her other self-help work, she interviews lots of experts and people who have gone through similar things to understand why we’re sad and what to do about it. I particularly appreciated chapters on “arrival fallacy” and “summit syndrome,” both of which refer to a feeling of letdown after we achieve what we think will make us happy, whether that be parenthood or the South Pole. Better to have intrinsic goals than external ones, Russell learns.

She also considers cultural differences in how we approach sadness: for instance, Russians relish sadness and teach their children to do the same, whereas the English, especially men, are expected to bury their feelings. Russell notes a waning of the rituals that could help us cope with loss, and a rise in unhealthy coping mechanisms. Like Susan Cain does in Bittersweet, she also covers sad music (vs. one of her interviewees prescribing Jack Johnson as a mood equalizer). There are lots of laughs to be had, but the epilogue can’t fail to bring a tear to the eye.

A reread, though I only skimmed the first time around – my tiny points of criticism would be that the book is a tad long – the print in the paperback is really rather small – and retreads some of the same ground as Leap Year (e.g., how exercise and culture can contribute to a sense of wellbeing). I read that just last year, after enjoying The Year of Living Danishly with my book club. She’s a reliable nonfiction author; I’d liken her to a funnier Gretchen Rubin.

Originally published on my blog, Bookish Beck.


[Original review, based on a skim in July 2021: Russell has a fun, informal style. This would make a fine follow-up to The Happiness Project. The premise is that we shouldn’t have to apologize for being sad, but can learn some techniques for alleviating depression. The book is about half memoir and the other half interviews/research/general information. Russell has had many causes of sadness in her life: her younger sister died of SIDS and her parents split; she’s suffered from eating disorders and infertility; she’s had bad break-ups.

Eventually she had three children (two of them twins via IVF), but, to her surprise, this didn’t mean that she had “arrived” and would never be unhappy again. For her postnatal depression she was offered drugs or therapy, still the go-to solutions. But, she found, other things could help, too: a good diet, exercise outdoors (especially cold-water swimming), being part of a buddy system, and helping others.

Other topics she covers include perfectionism, bullying, Victorian mourning culture, and happiness by country – a topic she’s written a whole book about.

Two bits that stood out for me: When she interviewed Henry Hitchings, he told her he thinks Brits are intolerant of sadness and expect people not to show their pain; people from other countries were more sympathetic when his mother died. I also noted that one-third of U.S. presidents lost a father when young.]

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this perfect Instagrammable life that we are supposed to be leading, there is no space for boredom or sadness. These things do not fit in the busy lives of influencers and celebrities and they expect us to follow their lead. Not only are we not allowed to be sad now, but people are scared of this emotion and seem to want to do every to protect themselves and their loved ones from experiencing it. Only the visible outpouring of grief for celebrities that we have never met seems to be acceptable forms of emotion.

But being sad is just a normal emotion it shouldn’t be something that we push to one side in the hope that it will go away and we can carry on as before. In this book, Russell thinks that we should fully embrace it, learn what is happening to us when we are sad and the best ways of getting through it and out the other side. She has had plenty of time to be sad in her life, details of which she expands on in the book. Sometimes her sadness leads onto moments of depression and other illnesses.

There are lots of things out there to help us when we are suffering from moments of sadness the music to choose, the places to go, apps that can help when you are at your lowest ebb and the buddy system so you can have a person to lean on as and when you need it. There is even a recommendation for reading fiction when sad, and if you can’t bring yourself to pick up a book then an audiobook can have the same effect. Getting out of the home can be a big help too, either for a walk or if feeling particularly brave cold water swimming.

I thought that was a really well-considered and researched book that Russell has written about the subject of sadness. I feel that she is spot on with her conclusion that the pursuit of happiness and the perfect ‘Instagram’ life is causing so many problems, especially when people have those times in their lives that don’t conform to their expectations. Even though she has written this book to help you, it doesn’t feel like a self-help book. She is not preachy but guides with humour her experiences about how to be sad and how to get through it in a positive way. The advice is sensible and more importantly achievable and she details how that will help us to appreciate the happier times much more. Well worth reading. 4.5 stars.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book and its exploration of sadness. I felt like Russell was holding my hand and saying “absolutely nothing is wrong with you and your sadness is fine.”

I don’t feel the blurb fully encompasses what to expect from this novel, as it is a part memoir as well as part exploration of the emotion sadness. She speaks to a range of researchers, people with lived experience and shares her own life story with us. These three components make for a digestible, comforting and informative read. Russell talks about what to do when you’re feeling sad, how to talk about being sad and sitting with yourself when being sad. Overall, she really advocates for simply accepting sadness will be a part of life and you do not need to battle it constantly, or constantly strive for happiness. And with the use of researchers, science, and her story I think she achieves her goal. This is a good self-help book for dealing with general ups and downs in life and I think the messages here are useful for everyone. There is a jam-packed reference section as well as a resource section that allows readers to go beyond her book.

I enjoyed the way Russell approached this, as well as her writing style and also appreciate that she speaks about seeking professional help for the other challenges in her life (that go beyond just being sad). She embraces the distinction between mental health conditions and plain sadness, urging readers to discover what’s right for them but working through their sadness. A book I’ll re-read and I can certainly say I’m a fan of this author!

[Nicki · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was such a good book and so helpful! I actually listened to it months ago, but I’ve struggled to formulate my thoughts because it was so good, and so very personal. In fact I loved it so much I also bought the hardback!
Before I’d come across this book I’d been feeling sad on and off for years, putting it down to my age and finally saw my GP a couple of years ago. She was very helpful, listening to me for about an hour, which was very unusual as appointments are only a maximum of 15 minutes. She told me I had mild depression which sort of helped, but actually also made me feel worse. And then of course Covid happened and everything changed!
This book is part memoir, part self-help and it worked so well for me. I love Helen Russell’s style of writing and loved her narration too, it made the book even better that she was reading it, as it made her life experiences all the more poignant.
I learnt so much about sadness and emotions from this book, particularly how society has suppressed emotions for a long time, particularly sadness and it’s not doing us any good. Along with the author’s personal story, there’s lots of very interesting and helpful facts and resources about sadness, depression, and mental health in general. It really is a cornucopia of a book and one I highly recommend and will be returning to regularly.

[Peter Baran · Rating 3 out of 5]

How To be Sad is the third "brain" book I have read this year, and shares a lot topically with Ouch! - A History of Pain around some of its discoveries about our more negative mental states. It is fair to say however that unlike Ouch and the Rag And Bone Shop, How To Be Sad is, as its title suggests, somewhat of a self help book. Tied up in a minor misery memoir - Russell is clear she is not writing Angela's Ashes here but it is fair that in discussing why it is important to allow ourselves to be sad, and find ways of being sad productively, she has had her own sadness.

As such this is not really my kind of book, sorry. She writes with pep and vigour about some quite unpleasant things which nevertheless are not that unusual in British society (and this is a very British book). A child of divorce, which came after family bereavement, perfectionist, eating disorder, depression. They are all tackled in Sunday supplement style, there is a columnists wit threaded through all of the sadness, and a gallows humour recognised as a defence mechanism within the book. And we occasionally get out to talk to others, experts, psychologists or people with some equally sad experiences. For me the balance was a little off, I wanted less personal memoir and more of the stuff I got in Ouch!, the stories which crystallise a particular mindset. that said Russelll is thorough, there is excellent stuff on perfectionism, achievement fallacy, the pain of being childless, the pain of having children. It is also clear that post partner, epiphany about sadness and children that the 40+ aspect of the book wobbles because she has kind of worked it out. The self help bit however becomes a little nebulous because she is also aware that the techniques that have worked for her are by definition very personal. Cue making sure you have people to talk to, eat well, exercise, allow yourself time to be sad.

This is very much a book for now, it has been completed during the early stages of the Covid crisis and you can see the weight of the relevance of the book bundled with the impossibility of some of the solutions. It is also a little more wishy-washy on some of its pronouncements, where Ouch! was very clear that you have to allow a little danger, a little pain into your life so you can grow, How To be Sad sort of assumes it will be there and that the resulting sadness is something you need to live with. Infact the word pain rarely appears in How To Be Sad, there is a sense that emotion doesn't physically manifest as much. As such it wasn't something that really worked for me - though this is partially having worked out much of this myself and having more or less worked out what I have needed for a happy ongoing life. I can see it being useful, and even powerful read for a millennial audience, really hitting the wall, give yourself time.

[Kamila · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful and thought provoking exploration of why sadness matters. I really enjoyed the combination of compassion and humour in every chapter as well as how genuine and open the author was with her own experiences. Will definitely read this again.

[Mike Jorgensen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A book that suffers from a lack of balance. One chapter is brilliant and full of great little insights and other chapters are monotonous memoirs with nothing much to add to the conversation. I think this would make a great TED talk, but as a book it is repetitive and vamping.

[Emily Barry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a beautiful book exploring how leaning into sadness can actually make you happier. I also resonated lot of personal aspects of the story - infertility and IVF and it gave me hope at a difficult time in life. 100% recommend. And I generally just love anything Helen writes!

[Maddy Ebbrell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the narration style intermixed with facts.

[Hannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

i did not finish this it was shit

[Emily Dickson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC that I have finally finished after so long.

I LOVED this. This book is part memoir, part self-help and part research paper and I think that it balanced those things perfectly. Russell has a simple yet effective writing style.

I went in with the expectation that this would be a non-fiction story that discussed mental illness/clinical depression. Instead it discusses the importance of balanced, rational emotion alongside Russell's personal struggles. It talks about how sadness is the most normal thing and yet the most vilified and compares the experiences of friends and celebrities with critiques from a variety of psychologists.

I don't think this book is for everyone. If you want something that will mollycoddle your feelings of sadness or justify bad behaviour caused by mental illness, this isn't for you. It's self-aware, informative, heart-breaking and incredibly helpful. I am putting a list of the major trigger warnings though because this book discussed a LOT of things.

TW: eating disorders, insomnia, depression, anxiety, infertility, loss of a child, medical trauma, death, grief, suicide, self harm, divorce, neglect.

[(a)lyss(a) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I'm not totally sure what I expected from this book.

Russell opens up about her life experiences and relationship with sadness. She is honest and raw about a tumultuous childhood, eating disorder, and other difficult experiences and those are the most compelling parts of the book. These anecdotes are interspersed with information and conversations about sadness. There's information on how people cope with sadness and suggestions of what to do when sad, but these chapters are very short and high level. They're also based on Russell's experiences and as she notes it's not one-size-fits-all.

I think I would have been more intrigued if it was just a book about sadness and things people do when they're sad, or Russell's personal story but the blending of the two fell short on both for me. There are also references to Russell's other work which I'm not familiar with so I feel like I'm missing context by not having read the other books. Some things just rubbed me the wrong way - like it's hurtful to talk about adoption as an alternative to biological children "because reasons" without unpacking that maybe feeling the need to have a biological child than to raise a child is something that should be reckoned with or explored. Similarly, there's a lot of focus on children and child rearing in this book which is important, but for those of us who can't relate it's a pretty big part of the book.

Overall not for me.

[B.S. Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd like to preface this by saying - I don't read anything that remotely resembles a self-help book usually. But this book just called out to me - not yet another book telling me I shouldn't be sad, but one encouraging me to embrace my sadness and learn how to live alongside my emotions rather than hide them.

Written in an easy-to-follow, jargon free style that felt more like a friend giving good advice than a faceless author telling us how to feel.

This book was refreshing, insightful and genuinely helpful - dealing with the real issue of sadness still being a taboo subject no matter how popular sad movies are.

[Kate Henderson · Rating 1 out of 5]

**listened to audio book**

really really disliked this!!I expected life lessons in more of a self-help style, but what I got was more of a memoir. I just didn't connect with Helen, and found her stories really dull.
NOT what it says on the tin!

[Millie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book so much from start to finish. It was a soft and gentle reminder to me that all the sadness I have felt and will ever feel is integral to my growth, and now I’m happy that I’m able to feel sadness.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is just brilliant and Helen Russell has the kind of warm funny voice that makes me wish we could be friends.

[Zibby Owens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Globetrotting writer and journalist Helen Russell’s book is about how sadness is a natural part of life, not a problem to get rid of. She spent eight years researching happiness while traveling the world. Part self-help, part memoir, and part research, this book covers the topic with a mix of compassion and humor. Russell blends science with her personal experience and encourages us to embrace an emotion that's not popular in modern culture. She uncovers a world that pursues happiness as a singular goal when it should be about searching for balance.

I was especially touched by the double loss Helen faced as a child. First, she lost a sister as an infant, and then her parents’ marriage crumbled. Not only did she have to face the pain of a divorce, but her father also left the family and started his new life without her. That pain grounded her in a real-life experience at such a formative age. Grief was not talked about in the 1980s, but we have made progress today. After this read, I realized that embracing sadness is just as important as embracing happiness.

To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at: https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/hel...

[Na Islandii · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, the author talks about very important topics; at times I felt personally attacked (and that's good). Personally, I think that this book should be called 'how to be sad, a story of a mother' since Russell focuses on parenting and children. I couldn't relate to much of what was written about IVF, motherhood, fatherhood etc. and at times it was really too much for me. Don't get me wrong, it was good to have an insight into the world of parenthood. At the same time, I don't care much about children and raising them. Still, a good read.

[Flo Gourmel · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a good book!

The studies and stats are so nicely mixed together with the author life stories, following a red thread throughout the book. I enjoyed it more than I thought and I’m at the point where I would like everybody to read it.

Also, I’m impressed by the diversity of topics mentioned, not only sadness, not only depression but much more: childhood, dating, marriage, divorce, religion, exercise, eating disorders, fertility, parenting, grief, therapy, expat life, work ethic etc etc

Bottom line: do not try to avoid being sad.

[Hariz · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Ylenia · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[K · Rating 1 out of 5]

1.5 stars but couldnt finish this book.

carrie bradshaw takes the 2020s.
a very, very british biography about All The Things That Could Make You Unhappy and Why Thats Normal. a house tour in which we describe the light that falls upon an object but refuse to look straight at it. unsure what i expected but havent felt this catfished by a title in a minute. the fact that im an immigrant in britain absolutely has a lot to do with this and i dont think i would have chosen to read this if i knew who helen was to begin with.

i was a bit insulted when i first plowed through the first 50 or so pages finding it immensely enlightening as it both detailed the authors experiences (with respect for her own suffering, which the rest of the book lacked) as well as studies, cultural and anthropological impacts, just to find it bleeding into some weird recital of Things That Are Hard (especially for helen and people like her).
the formula is this: helen feels bad about something and gives you the statistics that show you why Its Normal, ad nauseam. sometimes it isnt helen that feels bad but someone shes interviewed, but it remains a very repetitive book. it is We Need To Talk Abut The Hard Things and Feel It but still ensures to inject as much filler as possible so as to dilute its potency.
i found the parts in which she could recount her suffering without mocking it or diminishing someones responsibility endearing and priceless. that said, this book still ended up feeling like a cheese grater.

the details of her suffering with childlessness and how adoption wasnt even on the table but that this also shouldnt be examined or questioned was pretty nauseating. how unhappy straight women are in marriage also comes as no surprise to a lesbian who has to observe her friends date and marry diaper clad foghorns disguised as Manly Men.. and sometimes (much of the time) i have to be the therapist they refuse to see, but hey, this book isnt written for me or women that dont identify like the author. thats pretty clear early on and most authors i read arent LGBTQ: ive just never felt so much as the grey mass you occasionally realize many straights remember you as when reading a book.

had it remained true to one element it wouldnt have felt as offensive. i have respect for anyone that dares identify how brits are conditioned to treat pain as virtuous but processing it taboo, however this was such a confused mixture of Helens World and Factoids that i felt dizzy putting it down.
undoubtably not the intention to read like straightwashing, but it did. i dont usually have any issue with books that dont represent me (because no one but me can) but for the first time i actually found myself angrily ranting about how transparently ignorant much of this read to my wife. the constant tangents leading you down a steep field to show you a mediocre view that you then have to climb back up alone from never ended and the promise the beginning held faded fast.
this could have been half as long and have reverberated through cultures worldwide. i genuinely found her research immensely gripping and important but i couldnt even convince my own eyes to keep reading. youd think theyd at least skip the smalltalk in a book!

[Claire (Silver Linings and Pages) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. It’s very real in how it validates sadness in its many forms. There are a lot of relatable scenarios, such as when a grieving person apologises for becoming emotional, and they are basically apologising for feeling and being human. Yes!! been there, done that! Why do we even do that?! 🤷‍♀️

The book is part memoir and part manifesto for change in how we express our full range of emotions. It candidly explores why we become sad, and what we should do (spoiler: there’s a chapter on bibliotherapy) and shouldn’t do. I found the depth of research extremely valuable and illuminating, and Helen Russell (also author of How to Live Danishly)has presented research from psychologists, psychiatrists, geneticists, neuroscientists and historians as well as blending experiences of writers, comics, athletes and change-makers.

I tabbed so many pages that my family remarked how much I must have appreciated this book! There’s too little caption space and so much covered, so I’ll touch on some of the issues raised as I’ve found them in the book:
depression, perfectionism, institutional racism (BLM and George Floyd’s killing), survivor guilt, addiction, broken heart syndrome, unemployment, loneliness, shame, infertility, parenthood, the pandemic.

This book has a lot of thoughtful and empowering takeaways for learning to accommodate the deepest sadness whilst embracing life.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It’s extremely informative, but the way it’s written is so incredibly witty and some of it very funny in parts, which I was not expecting from a book about sadness.

This book is essentially an exploration of why we get sad, and how we can be happier by understanding that emotion. It’s part memoir, but informed by research from the experts, both parts fused together seamlessly. The book is made all the more meaningful by the fact that it’s part memoir. Personal accounts make everything so much more accessible for me, so I really appreciated that they were included.

With a ‘how to’ title, I was worried that this would come across too much like self-help, but for me it didn’t seem like that, although there is of course information on what might be helpful in response to sadness. I feel like we are never given the chance to actually learn about our emotions, just told what to do to fix them if they’re not ideal, so actually learning about sadness was incredibly refreshing. I finished this book feeling like sadness might actually be...okay?!

Thanks to 4th Estate for the proof copy!

[Jeremy Murray · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently wrote that one needs to 'know their editor' when reading anthologies, and I concluded a similar lesson here, having just finished Helen Russell's "How to Be Sad".

If you are picking up a self-help book, it is essential to know your author.

A real danger exists within discussions of mental health and mental illness of leaving people out of the narrative, the umbrella covered by the topic at hand. I myself struggle with multiple mental illnesses, and anecdotally have felt much worse experiencing, say, a PD about depression which ignored male depression. Of being excluded FROM conversations about mental illness, despite my mental illnesses.

Hence my comments on knowing your author. This frustration, in this case, is largely my fault. Russell is a charming, funny guide to the topic of sadness, who complements personal stories of her own trauma and mental illnesses with quality interviews from a variety of interesting subjects.

But Russell is a writing as a woman with a family, friends, career. She deals with terrible experiences - the death from SIDS of her baby sister, her earliest memory. Her parents subsequent divorce, alienation from her father, anorexia and depression at different points in her adult life.

This, to me, is a 'normal' experience of tragedy and trauma, insofar as I can use that word having praised the heck out of "The Myth of Normal" by Gabor Mate.

But as someone with more traumas / mental illnesses and fewer resources (currently, almost no family left, no job), I open myself to disappointment when I engage with a book such as this one - a guide for a more normal experience.

I remain frustrated though - it would be so easy for Russell to acknowledge this inevitable fact outright - it will always be worse for somebody else, somewhere - and then pause to empathize with them. Or to empathize with men, who after all, are far more likely to die from deaths of despair, which are correlated with depression.

So many books published today swim in the same biased waters, and once again I find a good book like this diminished by shoe-horning references to woke issues into issues they do little to illuminate. Reading the advice given over a couple of pages by a BLM activist in this book feels like a contractual obligation Russell expects her readers to share. And when said activist encourages depressed people to help out others (good advice) by donating to BLM (???), it's hard not to see self-interest and divisiveness.

Intentionally or not, Russell has done what so many modern commentators on mental health do, which is rank and prioritize which GROUPS are most at risk of mental illness as a matter of 'common sense'. Inevitability, the sense given is that straight white men (such as moi) are not really worth worrying about. One should really avoid doing this sort of thing in books about being sad, no? In case it makes the problem worse?

The other interviewees (a real strength in Russell's hands here) are people with deep connections to mental illness, experts etc. If activists at all, they are activists on behalf of the mentally ill. Russell is clearly a skilled writer, well-connected and able to get interesting people to share personal stories about their mental health / illness.

She divides her book into three parts, the first of which, "How to Look after Ourselves when We Are Sad" correctly articulate the difference between mental health (shared by all humans, whether it is good or not) and mental illness (many people will never experience mental illness). She outlines that sadness is normal, and useful for humans - as all emotions are.

But she stresses that she is differentiating between 'good sad' - which developed to signal to others that we need help, and to help us to concentrate, reflect and change our lives to reduce the sadness - and the repressive avoidance so common in North America and parts of Europe. She insists we should try not to fight sadness, which can make things worse, and encourages basic, effective strategies, mindsets and goals throughout the rest of Part 1.

Next comes "How to Talk about Being Sad". More practical advice ensues, and Russell explores some of her advice in the context of her own fears of having rending herself barren while anorexic, and then with the challenges of motherhood when she and her husband surprisingly get pregnant. This section is necessarily feminized as a result, and again, I'd consider that as a male reader or a woman who can't / doesn't wan't / doesn't have kids.

The advice remains good, and memorably expressed. "The Fallacy of Arrival" and "Summit Syndrome" each get a chapter, and each concept has entered my own lexicon. She encourages support networks and turning to friends, but once again, this is a missed opportunity. SOME PEOPLE HAVE NOTHING! No friends! No possible support network, at least, not as suggested by Russell.

More good advice follows in Part 3, "Stuff to Do when You're Sad" - immerse yourself in 'culture', read, spend time in nature, exercise, perform altruistic acts, etc. None of this is groundbreaking (a common accusation towards the social sciences) but it is all eminently actionable, cogently presented, well-researched and supported, and highly enjoyable to read for a book about sadness (but hey, where is the index)?

Overall, I recommend this book for anyone who feels Russell's experiences relatable and who is looking for advice on how to 'do' sadness better, whether clinically diagnosed or just dealing with normal, human sadness.

For anyone with more specific / debilitating mental illnesses, bereavements or trauma, or anyone male whose issues are gendered, I'd suggest something less general.

NOTE - there are appendixes referenced in the text, missing in this (paperback) edition. Come on, editors!

[Carla Parreira]

Trechos sublinhados: "...Comecei a perceber que muita gente à minha volta, de tão obcecada com a busca pela felicidade, sentia fobia de tristeza... A tristeza é a emoção temporária que todos sentimos quando estamos machucados ou quando há algo errado em nossas vidas. É uma mensagem... Existe toda uma gama de emoções e formas de existir que são viáveis. Como disse Aristóteles, a felicidade é uma atividade ininterrupta; isso não quer dizer que nunca somos infelizes, nem que coisas difíceis não acontecem. A vida é difícil, e os desafios existem – mas isso não quer dizer que não possamos ter uma vida boa... A tristeza vai acontecer, então temos que descobrir como lidar bem com ela. E todos podemos ser mais felizes – se aprendermos, de fato, a melhor forma de ficar tristes... A primeira lição sobre como ser triste é simplesmente parar de resistir à tristeza. Simples assim. É só o que precisamos saber, para começar. Mesmo quando a coisa é séria e ainda precisamos nos mexer para resolver problemas ou cuidar dos outros: resistir à tristeza ou negar sua existência não é a resposta. Nós precisamos senti-la. Parece muito simples, mas pode ser um ato radical, visto que a 'tristeza' é uma das partes menos evidentes da vida cotidiana. Precisamos retomar o contato com nossas emoções, para então aprendermos a lidar com elas... A autoculpabilização é uma forma de sentir que temos algum controle sobre uma situação negativa que, na verdade, pode ser totalmente aleatória... Meu medo de infância, agora bem mais sistematizado, mas ainda inabalável, se confirma: se eu não for 'perfeita', não serei amada. Eu não basto. Cedo ou tarde, todo mundo vai me abandonar. Eu já suspeitava – e a profecia se confirmou... Psicólogos descobriram que quando tentamos negar ou bloquear um determinado espectro de nossas emoções, podemos acabar nos dissociando de nós mesmos. A dissociação é um dos primeiros mecanismos de defesa que desenvolvemos (entre o nascimento e os três anos de idade, mais ou menos) e é definida como a 'falta de integração normal de pensamentos, sentimentos e experiências no fluxo da consciência e da memória'. Se aprendemos que ficar triste é 'ruim', é normal que nos dissociemos dessa sensação. E existe uma forte relação entre dissociação e dependência. Quando buscamos a felicidade acima de tudo e desenvolvemos fobia de emoções negativas, ficamos mais propensos a procurar a 'anestesia' de substâncias ou comportamentos viciantes. Ficamos mais propensos a nos distrair, 'viajar', 'sair da mente' ou 'entorpecer' nossos sentimentos... O que a ciência pode confirmar é que tristeza e dependência estão indissociavelmente ligadas. Os comportamentos de dependência estão sempre associados à infelicidade, aos transtornos de humor e ansiedade, à redução do bem-estar, ao isolamento social e à estigmatização... A função da vergonha é nos defender da 'desvalorização social' que pode ocorrer quando informações negativas a nosso respeito chegam aos outros. Dessa forma, nos desviamos de atitudes que nos desvalorizem... Na cultura maori, a repressão das emoções, sejam boas ou más, é a antítese da famosa haka – dança cerimonial cantada, executada em grupo e repleta de batidas de pé, berros e gestos poderosos –, apresentada ao mundo pelos All Blacks, a seleção neozelandesa de rúgbi. Mas a haka não simboliza agressão. Para os maori, força e demonstração das emoções são uma coisa só, a mesma coisa. O objetivo da haka é reconectar corpo, mente e espírito... A tristeza é inevitável, e o melhor que podemos fazer diante dela é nos unir e fortalecer as relações humanas, em vez de nos separar ainda mais ou fingir que não há nada de errado. É esse o pensamento por trás do conceito sul-africano de ubuntu, a crença no laço universal entre os seres humanos e a ideia de que 'eu sou porque nós somos'... 'O sono também põe ordem na bagunça do nosso cérebro' afirma o neurocientista Dean Burnett. Os radicais livres oriundos dos processos neurológicos; os resquícios das decomposições químicas; tudo de que o cérebro necessita para o metabolismo e todos os subprodutos químicos do funcionamento cerebral são organizados durante o sono... E, se nem os especialistas conhecem ao certo os motivos que levam à depressão e o que se pode fazer a respeito, nenhum paciente deve se envergonhar de procurar ajuda de todas as formas disponíveis. Ninguém é “melhor” que os outros por não tomar antidepressivos – ou por tomar. Quem consegue abandonar a ansiedade sem remédios não é 'superior' a quem faz uso de medicação... É isso o que um bom terapeuta pode fazer: nos conhecer, relativamente depressa e – às vezes – melhor do que conhecemos a nós mesmos. Eles desenterram traumas. Erguem um espelho à nossa frente e nos entregam as ferramentas para lidarmos com o que estamos vendo..."

[Julie Bestry · Rating 4 out of 5]

My feelings about this book are complex. I was looking forward to reading the book, as I enjoyed Russell's The Year of Living Danishly. I enjoyed how she combined social science and cultural research with her own anecdotes of her life as a British ex-pat living in Denmark. I liked her so much in that book that I was sure I'd love her take on the opposite of her prior theme on happiness. Well, not so much. At first.

I almost gave up on it several times in the first section because it was not just sad, not just depressing, but oppressively so. I would recommend that anyone who is already suffering from deep sadness, clinical depression, or even anhedonia initially skip the first 88 pages until you get into the swing of things.

Ostensibly, the first section was about how to take care of oneself when one is sad. Her themes (not fighting it, lowering expectations, taking time to be kind to oneself, avoiding deprivation, avoiding excess, and getting mad) are all apt. But the mix of research to personal memoir is really skewed in this first section.

Russell's family suffered a catastrophic, very sad event when she was a toddler, and unable to cope, her father left the family and began a new life. It's understandable that her formative years would have an impact -- feeling the need to parent her remaining parent, her perfectionism, her striving. But she goes into extensive discussion of her eating disorder (without any trigger warnings) and what sounds like borderline pre-alcoholism.

I'm not an unsympathetic person; I'm usually too sympathetic. Perhaps that's why the early parts of the book were so difficult for me. It much more confessional for her purposes than useful for making her point. One can't, or at least shouldn't, judge someone's experiences and reactions, and I'm loathe to sound insensitive. I just couldn't read that much misery (80% misery, 20% research) in that first part of the book. I hate that she experienced pain, but I'm a stranger and can't take on her pain in that much detail. And I definitely don't think she should be writing about an eating disorder without trigger warnings.

Happily, sections 2 (how to talk about being sad) and 3 (what one can do while sad to improve things) are much, much better. It would be simplistic to say that it was easier to deal with the memoirish aspect in the latter two sections because she focuses less on herself and more on the research. I'd say it's a combination of a shift in the balance (now 5-10% misery, 70% research, 15-20% narrative/non-memoir stories) with the profundity of the research and the change in the kind of personal things the author discusses.

At the point the book shifts from the first to the second section, and mostly from her life pre-Denmark, the reader is treated to a different life challenge for the author, infertility, but her handling of it feels completely different.

In the first third of the book, I felt like I was reading a book about a woman making excuses about her self-destructive behaviors with a peppering of research thrown in; for the rest of the book, I felt like I was reading a journalist's extensive research into an important topic with some aspects of memoir added to make the story resonant and relevant. Section 3 should probably even be assigned reading from therapists, and for incoming college freshmen. It's great!

I wasn't kidding: if you're experiencing distress, if you are clinically depressed, if you are really and truly sad, the first section of the book may make you feel a lot worse. The research in the early section is fine, if in lesser quantity, but if you start on page 89 (of the hardcover; second 2, at least), you will find fascinating and solid research for improving your life. Once you read those latter 200 pages, you can go back and read (or scan for research).

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has left an indelible imprint on how I see sadness and has undoubtedly given me tools to cope with and experience sadness. She did a great job fusing her personal story alongside empirical data to edify us on sadness.

One lesson I learned is to change my perspective on sadness in the first place. Being part of the western culture, we are taught to avoid sadness and have become phobic to the idea of being sad. This is especially the case being a man. I grasped the fact that we come out stronger displaying and embracing our negative emotions, contrary to popular belief. With this information handy, I am galvanized to continue cultivating relationships that allow me to be vulnerable in this way without being reprimanded. As babies don't wait until they're alone to express their emotions, we as adults shouldn't isolate ourselves the same, but come together both as a recipient and giver.

Another lesson I learned was in part three, which expounded on the idea of continuing to expand the many novelties of our lives. When we see children, we can realize the concept that everything is new to them, making life more meaningful. As adults, we often sink into our daily lives and lose that sense of curiosity and succumb to the aphorisms of "it is what it is" or "just another day". It is no wonder we often fall into depressive episodes as adults with this structure. She further talked about exploring new music genres, apart from what we are used to, books and novels, places, and experiences. Because of these new concepts, I have re-awakened my curiosity and I am excited to explore!

One last lesson, in addition to the multitude I have enthralled by, that I have come to reason with is the fallacy of arrival. This lesson taught me that it is imperative to live in the moment, rather than always chasing something that is ahead. This ultimately leads to disappointment, which subsequently can depress us because of the false narrative of "not being enough". Personally, my goal waking up in the morning is to thank God for a brand new day and make the most out of it. Of course, I will continue to have aspirations and be prudent. My overall goal is to not LIVE in the future and let it be my anesthesia for today's sorrows.

Overall, this book has given me permission, especially as a man, to express my emotions and be vulnerable with others unapologetically and without guilt. Sadness is a human being thing, not subject to the gender or color of our skin. I would highly recommend this book to anyone wanting to cope better with sadness and gain a new perspective to live a more robust and wholesome life!