Help me, help you.


How many times do we hear this?


This nonfiction work by Dr. Trzeciak and Dr. Mazzarelli focuses on how helping others can provide intrinsic benefits to our own health and wellness.


This book is broken into sections using personal stories and scientific data to illustrate their “Live to Give” philosophy that transcends all ages, social classes and personality types.


While the content is fairly scientific in nature, it is also highly readable because it’s such a simple philosophy to adopt into your own life and embrace as part of your daily habits. Add to that, the scientific evidence that helping others also keeps you healthier, a little kindness really does go a long way.

I just cannot say enough good things about this book. Such a good read. It was amazing to see scientific evidence and data confirming how being a good person and being of service to others, really helps us instead of hurting us. I suffer from burnout with my work, but I have been appreciating the tips from this book. Definitely will reread over and over.

I feel like this book was both what I was expecting and not at all what I was expecting at the same time. It uses a slightly unusual premise, the idea that helping others is the best medicine, while also using the familiar gimmick of an easy cure. Written by doctors, Wonder Drug is comprehensive and well researched, but is still easy enough to follow. Exploring important topics like burnout and loneliness, the authors teach readers how to help themselves but helping others. It is a pretty interesting book and worked well as an audiobook. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for giving me the chance to listen to and review this book.

4.5/5 stars

Thank you to net galley for sending me this Advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review

The premise of this book may sound obvious: doing good things for others is also good for you. When I initially saw the description of this book I thought “well, yeah…. Obviously.” Despite my initial skepticism I ended up being pleasantly surprised by this book. The work these authors have done and the amount of studies compiled was far more comprehensive than I initially realized.

The book opens with a simple idea: what would happen if doctors showed more compassion to their patients? How would this help both the doctors and the patients?

Treciak and Mazzarelli explain how for healthcare specialists, compassion is an amazing way to combat burnout. This is important for multiple reasons. Medical error is a leading cause of patient death and the number one cause of medical error is burnout. Doctors and nurses showing compassion was linked with better patients outcomes in almost every aspect of healthcare. High compassion is linked with low burnout. Doctors also have one of the highest suicide rates of any profession & burnout can contribute to feeling suicidal. Helping others has also been linked to lowering chronic stress, which is a major cause of chronic inflammation.

But Treciak and Mazzarelli wanted to go further - how could this be applied to all people, not just healthcare workers? Could everyone benefit from increased altruism? What are the psychological and physiological effects of empathy?

This books comprises the research of over 1000 studies and shows how Treciak and Mazzarelli came to the conclusion that “compassion moves the needle.”** Treciak and Mazzarelli call this life approach “live to give.”

Currently our culture has a major focus on self help, however, this trend does not seem to be helping us as much as many self help experts would like us to believe. 35% of Americans over 45 are chronically lonely. This is especially detrimental when one considers at the health risk of chronic loneliness is the same as that of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The suicide rate has risen 30% since 1999 and among teens the suicide rate has gone up by 70% over just the last few years. In the US life expectancy is actually going down, rather than up.

Some of you may have read this and thought that the idea of “me” culture is an exaggeration, however, shockingly, in 2016, over 1/3 of Americans did not even consider compassion to be one of their core values anymore. This book should act as a wake up call for the “me” culture that has been running rampant for the last few decades.

When looking at nature we can see how many animals species help each other and their entire species is better for it - take bees for example. Solidarity actually makes us more resistant. I appreciated how they explained the misconception that people who are high on “other interest” are no low on self interest- in fact it’s the opposite. In order to not burn out one must keep consistent boundaries and self interest in order to give their best to others. Essentially, it’s more evidence for the saying “you can’t pour from an empty vessel.”

My main critique of this book is that at points Treciak and Mazzarelli’s writing became a bit dry and repetitive, however, that did not detract from my general enjoyment of this book & I would still recommend it to absolutely everyone.

**all quotes came from the ARC audiobook of Wodner Drug, not the final publication.

I have always been really intrigued by serving others, which was actually part of how I chose my college (Marquette University) - they are a Jesuit college with a huge focus on service. Now, I love taking people meals, giving gifts, and volunteering with organizations that have causes near and dear to my heart. All because yes, it helps others and I want to focus on them instead of myself, but it also makes me feel good! This book was a scientific look at things that I knew to be true: that you will be happier and healthier if you focus on relationships and helping others. If you want more details on that, then this is definitely the book for you! Fred Sanders was a fantastic narrator if you choose the audiobook!

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Essentials for the copy of this book and to Macmillan Audio for the ALC.

I really enjoyed this audiobook! It was very positive and uplifting, and also very informative at the same time.