How To Be Well: Q+A With Dr. Frank Lipman

Recently, we sat down with Dr. Lipman to talk about the new book. Here’s what he had to say:

What inspired you to write How To Be Well?

I was inspired by the rising tide of today’s wellness seekers. The modern patient, when it comes to wellness, prevention and treatments, is more open and forward-thinking than ever. They’re quickly breaking away from old-school medical thinking and declaring independence from a broken healthcare system that’s almost completely out of synch with their needs. They’re demanding fresh approaches that don’t do more harm than good.

And at the same time, the wellness world is like the wild west. There is so much information out there and not all of it good. It’s hard to know where to turn, how to sift through all the noise and find where the reliable resources are. I thought with my vast experiences in this field and as one of the pioneers, I could be a trusted guide.

How did you conceive of this book?

In my best-selling book, The New Health Rules, I laid out a modern manifesto for living a healthy and fulfilling life. It’s 100 straightforward and punchy insights, drawn from my long career in integrative medicine, spoke to the needs of the whole self – body, mind, and spirit – and addressed what it takes for all three to thrive.

In How To Be Well, I offer the essential follow up: a pragmatic and energized handbook to succeeding in this quest – think of it as a field guide to mastering the survival skills of 21st century health. Where The New Health Rules primed the pump and put the grand picture of a healthy lifestyle within reach, How To Be Well cracks the code of how to make each change – realistically, in the context of pressure-filled and responsibility-laden daily living.

You refer to it as ‘a book for our times.’ How so?

As exciting as this tidal wave of wellness interest is, the average person is challenged by the tsunami of information about health and disease, as well as the very real time and energy constraints of their busy lives.

Fueled as much by anxiety about what we do know about threats to our wellbeing as by what we don’t, these health-seekers beseech, “Just tell me what to do and how to do it.”

How To Be Well is the response to this demand and the solution to this dilemma. It cuts through the wellness clutter, simply, clearly, layman’s terms (and with beautiful illustrations, which makes it visually pleasing too). I believe the time is right for a new model of building unshakeable wellness for a new era.

How would you describe the book in a few sentences?

It’s a real How To book in the tradition of my favorite survival guides like How to Stay Alive in the Woods by Bradford Angier. It is a compendium of the essential skills, smart tactics, daily rituals, and sometimes mundane, but powerfully effective, habits that I think you should practice and master in order to be empowered and confident on your quest for good health. Its focus is sharp and clear: what to do in the main spheres of action that influence health and how to do it in the context of a busy life.

It truly is a manual on How To Be Well. It will help you improve the health you have, regain the health you’ve lost, and establish the pillars of life-long vitality you need to look as good as you feel, dodge sickness and dysfunction, and most important of all, love your body and enjoy your life.

Photo: Stocksy, howtobewell.com