The New Normal

December 15, 2020
Hate that mask you have to wear to the store? Get used to it if you want to stay alive. Ashton, chief medical correspondent for ABC News, dismisses the often heard refrain that one day things will get back to normal. Covid-19, she writes, has introduced an invisible, perhaps indomitable threat into our lives, and even if a vaccine is developed, it's likely that it will have to be modified every year or two to take into account the mutations of the virus. Additionally, there are different levels of risk: If you're of retirement age, a male, and a person of color, the odds are not in your favor; neither are they if you are overweight or have diabetes, high blood pressure, or some other chronic health condition. As the author shows, it's up to each person to determine their health-risk quotient and make decisions such as whether to eat in restaurants. This quotient can be altered, of course. Making changes in diet to favor a low-sugar, low-carb regimen will help along with exercise, adequate sleep, and limiting alcohol intake. As for the rest: Flying is fairly safe, she writes, as long as you fly with an airline that blocks middle seats and "book a window seat to keep your distance from people moving up and down the aisle." But stay away from gyms, which "have always been prime places for infectious illness." Ashton sees "silver linings" in all the grim news, one of them being the dawning awareness that it's up to us to improve our health and thus our chances for survival; another is a reordered sense of priorities. For the medical profession as a whole, she urges that "we need more health research on race," and "we need to rethink the drug supply chain." A sobering, educative assessment of the changes that the pandemic has wrought on our world.

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February 5, 2021

Ashton, chief medical correspondent for ABC News and a gynecologist in private practice, is nothing if not well-meaning and eager to cover many bases. She has guided the bereaved in a previous work, Life After Suicide, and offered women consumer health advice in The Self-Care Solution. In this latest work, she gamely offers a road map for the COVID-19 era, with thoughtful chapters on how the pandemic is affecting our bodies, minds, diets, exercise routines, and sleep habits. Ashton advises readers on how to stay abreast of late-breaking developments on vaccines, mutations, and more. Similar ground is covered elsewhere, such as information on how medical emergencies don't stop because of a pandemic and why our sleep patterns may be out of rhythm, but the author succeeds in grouping relevant content in a handy book. While the book offers solid advice on maintaining overall health, the last chapter, aptly titled "The Silver Lining," may be the most compelling, reminding us of how we all "stepped up" during the pandemic and developed a solid sense of resilience. VERDICT A brief medical how-to guide on navigating life and finding answers to common questions. Recommended for public libraries.--Ellen Gilbert, Princeton, NJ

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2021
Another pandemic is a matter of when, not if, says Ashton, a physician and medical correspondent, and to increase the odds of surviving this one and the next, we must act on lessons learned from the respiratory virus COVID-19. In this strong follow-up to The Self-Care Solution (2020), Ashton gives easy-to-follow, DIY suggestions: drink water, laugh, connect with family and friends, exercise, lose weight, don't vape, and avoid "self-soothing" with too much alcohol and junk food. Humility is the spoonful of sugar that makes her medicine go down. Like so many Americans, Ashton gained weight two months into her quarantine. With this confession, she comes across as empathetic, not preachy, when she advises readers to try to lose weight and decrease their risk of dying from COVID-19. In a crisis, she says, think like a doctor, stay calm, and rely on facts. To become more resilient, think about what you've attained, not what you've lost. As her mother, a retired nurse, says, you can't control what happens, but you can control what you do with it. Useful and tested advice.

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