52 small changes One year to a happier, healthier you

Despite their best intentions, many self-help books, with their copious lists of techniques or guiding principles designed to transform a person's life wholesale, can seem intimidating. 52 Small Changes, by contrast, breaks the challenge of overhauling one's habits into more palatable weekly bites. Blumenthal, a fitness instructor whose Get Real and Stop Dieting (2010) offered a similarly simplified approach to weight loss, emphasizes that adopting extreme measures usually doesn't work and that making big changes more often requires many smaller, incremental changes first. Most tips included here will already be familiar to pop-psychology veterans, from diet-based advice on keeping a food journal and eating your vegetables to psychological guidance on improving relationships and communication skills. Readers can let each chapter's recipe for change build on the last or dip in at random without penalty. Finally, the book itself has a large-type, catchy design, so the penitent self-improver won't feel compelled to hide it from friends but can leave it in plain view, both as a nudging reminder and a striking conversation piece.--Hays, Carl Copyright 2010 Booklist

Positing that it's more effective to make small changes than to try to overhaul a lifetime of bad habits at once, Blumenthal (Get Real & Stop Dieting) offers readers small yet productive changes they can implement over 52 weeks to live healthier, happier lives. Chapter on topics such as "Taking Time To Stretch" and "Spending Time in Nature" include an introduction, a road map for change, and a weekly checklist. Blumenthal's book jumps ahead in the wellness genre as it breaks up necessary tasks into doable packages. Highly motivating. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.