Author: jojolikescake

Published in May 1996, the self help book The Little Book of Calm was a bestseller because of its memorable tips and small, easy to digest format.

As a teenager I received it in my Christmas stocking, because I had started getting anxious and my Mum has zero tact.

I can’t remember what guff it contained, but the good thing was that there wasn’t very much of it to get through.

Here’s what ticking-time-bomb Amazon reviewer Magic Lemur says about it:

My favourite quote has to be ‘Imagine yourself on a South Pacific Island, with no worries and only the sound of the ocean to interrupt your thinking’. There are also many, many other little vignettes and suggestions, which are exactly the right thing for pent-up, blood-curdling rage and the book itself is just the right size to fit into a jacket pocket.

Magic Lemur, Amazon.com 2025

Jesus, Lemur. I’d hate to be the person who tries to pickpocket you and gets between you and this book, which sounds like the only thing holding you back from committing multiple violent atrocities.

I am not adverse to a book with calming phrases in it, I am a sucker for the Tao Te Ching, but there is a limit to how many life changing strategies you can fit in a five pound stocking filler.

This book, however popular and effective (good if you’re in the vicinity of Magic Lemur), did not solve my anxiety problems.

I ended up on a hefty Clonazepam prescription by the age of 25 – which also didn’t solve my anxiety, but made me popular at parties.

The Big Book of Anxiety

Fast forward to 2025 and the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Edmund J Bourne PHD, or what i like to call The Big Book of Anxiety, is on its Seventh edition. Clearly the little Book of Calm didn’t take care of all the anxious potential school shooters that are wandering the streets of Amazon reviews.

At this point I’m in my mid thirties and I still have anxiety, so my Mum, still tactful in her old age, finds me a copy of this in a charity shop:

This picture does not do the size of the book justice.

For context, this absolute beast of a book weighs 944g:

making it neither portable, nor easy to digest. It has 494 anxiety-busting pages, or anxiety-inducing pages, depending on how you feel about reading large books.

The Amazon label promises:

this fully revised and updated seventh edition offers powerful, step-by-step treatment strategies… You will also find new information on relapse prevention after successful treatment, and updates on medication, cannabis derivatives, ketamine, exposure, nutrition, spirituality, the latest research in neurobiology, and more.

Cannabis and ketamine you say? This doctor seems ok! Now that I’ve got your attention, over the course of the next few articles I will give you the rundown of what stood out to me in this book, which is also available as an audiobook through Audible.

Introduction: The world is fucked, that’s why you’re fucked.

To Bourne’s absolute credit, on the first page he addresses the social context of anxiety in the Western world in the run up to 2020, when this edition was released.

In no uncertain terms, he attributes the epidemic level of anxiety to be a product of living in the current western world. And he has a point.

We are living through

• extreme weather events
• the threat of war and terrorism
• economic collapse

combined with being fed hours of personalised mass media that thrives on misery on a previously unseen scale, daily. The fact that anyone is ok is more shocking than the fact that 1 in 4 of us will experience an anxiety disorder.

This didn’t surprise me. What did surprise me, was that Bourne says that the final reason this stress effects us more than previous generations is because we lack a consistent set of values traditionally provided by society, in the wake of the information age.

So maybe, reading 300 comment-long argument threads on social media ISN’T good for me. After reading this section I felt confronted with how desensitised I am to seeing 5 arguments before 8am every day.

This isn’t life changing advice

He mentions that he doesnt think this book says anything new about anxiety that isn’t already known. Bourne says that he intends for the book to be completely comprehensive, so this should be a good investment if you want to buy just one book. Does thinking of it as several books makes it easier to read? No. But am I determined to finish it and consider myself done with anxiety self help books forever? Yes.

The book is designed to be holistic, incorporating elements of mind, body, and spirit. I always disliked the concept of “the spirit” as I spent too much time with hippies as a teenager, but the way I understand it now, essentially it’s about finding peace, fulfilment and connection outside of yourself (dude).

Yes, it’s breathing techniques and mindfulness, again

Bourne stresses, for want of a better word, stress reduction and the promotion of wellness as much as possible to combat the effects of cumulative stressful life experiences.

If you’re going to buy this book, take a deep breath (sorry) and accept that relaxation is an essential part of symptom management. Later on in the book he goes through the different presentations of anxiety and, I hate to break it to you, they all respond well to relaxation training. If you think of it as training, it’s less painful and easier to accept as a valid treatment. Yes, it’s mindfulness, Jim, but not as we know it.

If you’re curious about mindfulness, try spinning the mindfulness wheel on Stupidmentalhealth.com

More gross exercise stuff

The mind-body connection is well studied so you’re gonna have to do some movement at some point reading this book and Bourne is not uncertain about the fact you need to get over it. However he has written an entire chapter about it so I think it’ll be more sensible advice than “do exercise”.

I sound like such a bitch but the way I interpret it is that you should think of yourself like a dog. Dogs get unhappy if they don’t get exercise. It tires them out and they don’t get so anxious. Look, If it’s good enough for a dachhund it’s good enough for me.

Bodily health is talked about as the foundation of mental health. It supports all of the techniques you’ll learn in this book (or my articles when I write them!)

Help help im being attacked

The thing is about this book is that it takes no prisoners. It’s basically saying “of course you’re anxious you lazy, stressed, unfulfilled fuck” so if you buy it, prepare for that.

The next section of the INTRODUCTION, yes folks we have not started the book yet, talks about how having no sense of purpose can make you feel trapped and can cause panic attacks. In retrospect I think I preferred it in the 90s when I just needed to take my pills and breathe a bit because my brain was broken.

Work work work work work

The last section mentions how much work this requires, and honestly I’m exhausted already. It mentions how this book can be supported by a therapist so it could be considered as a programme to stick to.

The book comes with downloadable resources available, as far as I know, without proof of purchase.

Remember hope?

The end of the introduction gives us hope. Remember hope? Without simplifying anxiety to be the “brain broken, add medicine” model the 90s was so fond of, long term recovery is now possible – if you read the damm book.

Interested in the next chapter? Read my next totally non-copyright-violating review by subscribing to my mailing list.

Facebook posts directed towards the CIA, pictures of suspicious cereal packets in your camera roll. Welcome to psychosis, or rather, see you next time, psychosis.

What I would give for my episodes to be brushed under the carpet. I pine for the fictional stigma I’ve read about in books. Being stuck in the attic sounds much better than video calling your boss while naked and going out in your dressing gown and sunglasses.

After enough psychotic episodes, — for me it’s 6, and counting — you learn to live with these things, or brush them under your own carpet. So here’s what I’ve learnt in my time becoming a mental health hag.

Shrug it off

As Shaggy would say in his mental health classic “it wasn’t me”:

We should tell her that I’m sorry
For the pain that I’ve caused
You may think that you’re a player
But you’re completely lost

Yes Shaggy, I know I need to apologise to the people I’ve hurt. But at the same time, people who aren’t ignorant of the psychotic experience will know it wasn’t me. I hate the people who think “so that what she’s REALLY like.” Fuck off. I don’t end up in hospital because I’m being my true authentic self.

The worst part is that at the time of spicy thoughts, it all feels right. You’re a paranoia player but you’re completely lost — “the people need to KNOW about this!” but as we tend to realise once we come to, it was dopamine bollocks. Thanks, brain. I try not beat myself up about this. That’s the ignorant people’s job.

Don’t overcook it

The thing is with psychosis, very often there isn’t a Why. Yes, you may have been exposed to your triggers, not got enough help in time, but the fact is that psychosis sometimes just happens and there’s nothing you can do about it.

What’s worse, is that the psychiatric establishment doesn’t know how the illnesses work, or the treatment for that matter.

Unfortunately you can’t cut open mentally ill people’s brains as often as scientists would like to see what’s really going on up there. Any more.

Bloody ethics. To reiterate, I miss my romanticised version of the past. Man, the attic would be warm and dark. Padded rooms look comfier than those psych ward rubber mattresses. Would a strait jacket feel like a hug? Guess us youngsters will never know.

It is very difficult to explain to other people if you can’t even explain it to yourself: “well Debbie, my brain did a bad bad and I thought you were a lizard for pretty much no reason — can we be friends again until next time?”

Perhaps it’s not you who’s lazy

People have perfect access to Google and not using it is hugely lazy. If you think about how long you’ve probably spent researching your illness, getting to appointments, waiting on hold for doctors, it becomes ludicrous that people can’t search how to get support for themselves, or even how to support you.

I should probably end this article with some helpful pointers on what to do or how to help. But to be honest, what is there to learn? The mentally ill people reading this have done monumental amounts of hard work and don’t need any further reading.

And for the allies reading this. You already know what people need. What does anyone need? Food, clothing, shelter. The odd meme, playlist, drawing, anything to just show them you care.

Or a soundproof room with a locked door. Either/or.

Jojo Chinaski is a comedian with Bipolar Affective disorder. She shouldn’t drink coffee, but if you’d like to buy her one she might write more articles.

She is under the handle @jojochinaski everywhere.

Yes, you can attend groups and exercise, but why not make the most of being legally unaccountable?

Here’s some monumentally bad ideas for when you’re incarcerated on the psych ward:

Create prison nicknames for everyone

If you’re in there a while, there’s not much to do and imagining you’re actually in a prison helps.

Coming up with poor taste nicknames for the other patients and staff such as ‘legs’ and ‘new build’ will keep you amused.

One of my favourites was feminising the male staff’s names — for instance Ola becomes Olita or calling people after their accent, such as ‘West Country’ and ‘London’.

Some patients would go the complete other way and just rename the staff something normal like Jamie, which gets very confusing for the new patients when each staff member has 1/2/3 different names.

Do some graffiti

Usually there is an unofficial designated graffiti area in the hospital, which tends to be in the smoking area. Buy some tippex and have at it!

For bonus points you can draw on the walls of your own room if you have one. I drew the number 2 repeatedly over my windows in nail polish, which really added to the serial killer aesthetic I had going on in there.

Apparently the hospital only gets painted every two years so I apologise to the subsequent patients on that one.

Get laid

I pulled a girl in one hospital, we had a few kisses at my door and it was all lovely. Then I saw her screaming at a member of staff and thought hmm, maybe she’s not the one for me.

Yes, we are all sexually frustrated. Get a sex toy, or phone a fuckbuddy. It’s not worth fucking people in the psych ward, although I did meet someone from the male ward and had sex in the bushes outside. We both had leave which I assume is the same as having mental capacity.

I asked him to wear a condom and he announced that he had a morning after pill in his wallet, which is admirable as I couldn’t even bring in antihistamines.

Make a group chat

Very important for things like checking the coast is clear for smoking/doing drugs in your room, and sending nudes to the other patients.

Also for getting in trouble when the other patients read out your messages encouraging them to do graffiti.

The psychiatrist picked me up on this one, at which point I’d made everyone in the group an admin and there was nothing they could do about it.

Smoke in your room

There’s a logic behind the thought process that if you’re gonna be locked up anyway, might as well do whatever. Smoking inside is pretty easy to get away with but you’re fooling nobody.

I have also been known to smoke in the psych ward library, and in front of the nurses base.

The non-smoking patients will be pissed off with you, and you’ll get your lighter or leave taken away, depending on how lax the particular ward is.

Do drugs

I get it. You’re bored, and it’s Friday. If you’re gonna do it, dont offer it to the other patients or you’ll get a proper bollocking.

Our ward was convinced that people were bringing drugs in through takeaway deliveries and would search through the kebabs with the hospital gloves, which added an odd latexy flavour to the chips.

Moral of the story: don’t get sectioned.

Jojo Chinaski is a comedian with Bipolar Affective disorder. She shouldn’t drink coffee, but if you’d like to buy her one she might write more articles.

She is under the handle @jojochinaski everywhere.