Book Review: "The Easy Way to Mindfulness" by Allen Carr

This book's subtitle is "Free Your Mind From Worry and Anxiety." The author explains how mindfulness can help you accomplish that. It's not that you won't ever have worry and anxiety; rather, that you can be free of them: in other words, you can have them but not be taken over, knocked down, and beat up by them. Mr. Carr explains how to live in the moment, and provides exercises to help you experience what it's like.

Mr. Carr's background is in smoking cessation, and I first heard of him from a friend of mine who used his book The Easy Way to Stop Smoking to quit cigarettes. My friend said, "It was easy. I'd always thought smoking relaxed me. Allen Carr made me realize smoking actually caused me stress." I could trust this testimonial since it came from a friend, and I decided to look into the author. For years, I've considered Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now the gold standard of mindfulness books, and still do. However, The Easy Way to Mindfulness is a great contribution to the field and may be more accessible to some readers.