The book's layout is one of it's strengths and the idea behind the 54 playful strategies was clever. My favorite was the idea of "Draw Life and Get The Picture". Although it states to do this with a friend, I found it more freeing

A wonderful workbook for life. The author has taken many self-help lessons and turned them into lesson plans for the reader to review and follow. There are activities like jotting down ideas and mapping out feelings. This is a great book for someone who wants to work on themselves.

A well put together book that provides its readers with suggestions for waking up and getting back to living life and out of the autopilot.

Do you ever find yourself on autopilot, going through life thoughtlessly and automatically? Christ Baréz-Brown has some suggestions for you. In Wake Up! A Handbook for Living in the Here and Now, he offers "54 playful strategies to help you snap out of autopilot." In a sense, this is a book about mindfulness, but not meditation and yoga. He is in favor of those things, but his ideas are more active and forward moving. He encourages us to "deliberately . . . bring in new and different experiences to our lives that will provoke a heightened sense of consciousness as we engage with them."

Baréz-Brown's suggestions range from the silly to the commonplace, from the obvious to the surprising. Physical needs play a part. He's in favor of experimenting with cutting sugar, caffeine and alcohol, with cutting bread and dairy (at least for a time), and with making your own food rather than relying on packaged food. He recommends turning off the TV, taking walks, standing while working, and dancing. He encourages creativity, drawing and writing about one's day, writing an original song, or taking on someone else's identity just for fun (not identity theft, just being a fictional character, for instance).

He's into simplicity. Try spending less than $5 a day. Wear the same clothes several days in a row. Enjoy nature. Turn off your devices. My favorite suggestions relate to other people. Make amends with someone. Write someone a letter. Say yes without hesitation when someone asks you to do something. Most of all, "make a pact with yourself to try to make everybody you meet smile." I love that plan!

Wake Up! includes lots of space to journal, jot down ideas for action, draw pictures, make lists, and keep track of your decisions. Baréz-Brown doesn't want you to sit and read this book straight through, but to read a challenge or two, do it, and keep a record of your results. He offers a wide variety of activities. I think any one of them will be challenging and will transform your day. Do them all, it may just transform your life.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!

Before I even discuss the content of this book, I have to acknowledge how well this book is put together. It's interior pages are not the common boring looking ebooks I have seen in the past. The author inspires you with each and every turn of the page to Wake Up and notice your life that is passing you by every moment of everyday. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to Wake Up and start living life as it was meant to be.

Wake Up! is a series of playful human experiments which are designed to help us escape our auto pilot (subconscious state) and live in a state that is more open, conscious and where you are fully awake and in the now moment. (current). It helps you to lead a connected and extraordinary life. The book also doubles up as an exercise book where you can jot down your notes as you progress through the book and also do some or many of the activities listed in the book. A quick and breezy self improvement read that helps you to build more positive and fun thoughts and live in the wakey, wakey moment instead of being in the auto pilot state (subconscious and negative from the perspective of being in the now). The author focuses on how people could become more conscious as a leader and how to make organizations more innovative. I have observed that it is difficult to stay in the now moment and you have a tendency to slip into auto pilot mode and doing the experiments indicated in the book helps you to stay out of auto pilot and you can hope to do better in the now moment...

All about embracing living in the now, this book presents fifty four ways to help you achieve just that.

The book talks of doing the normal day to day life stuff without you realizing, stuck doing bthe same everyday without a break or difference you soon become tuned to autopilot mode.

We lose awareness of who we are and the importance of what we love becomes hindered and buried under life admin, we need to learn and asses our growth with creativity and once we find our positive mindset and relax, we can allow change and growth to happen to us.

There's also creative pages to draw and scribble on as well as we are encouraged to take it around with us to reconnect with life at times when we either feel pressured or alone etc.

More points made in the book are about the topics of;
Spontaneity, rest and exercise, draw and plan, make time for family and friends as well as enjoy every moment!

This book is a great little creative book and is reminiscent of a more adult focused Wreck This Journal.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review it!

The thing that gives this book the edge is the format and colourful layout. The strategies are not new but the author attempts to put them in a more playful context. It is a good coffee table or waiting room book - good for randomly dipping into. I was hoping for it to be a little more wacky and off the wall with a few really crazy and silly things. However it has prompted me to think of some funny and playful strategies of my own. Overall a great fun read. Thank You

Self help book plus diary to keep decision for at last 4 days and improve your mental and body health. Not exactly the first one I read recently.

Libro di auto aiuto per migliorare la nostra salute fisica e mentale che consiste nel prendere e mantenere buoni propositi per almeno quattro giorni e verificare il miglioramento. Non é esattamente il primo libro del genere che leggo ultimamente.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!