We're very excited to be joined by author Matt Haig for the latest episode to chat about his new book!

Notes on a Nervous Planet is the follow up to Matt's best-selling book Reasons to Stay Alive, which covered his experiences of anxiety and depression. One of his recent books, How to Stop Time, is set to be made into a movie starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

Listen to the podcast on Apple Podcasts/iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or online below.

In this episode, we talk to Matt about why modern life seems designed to stress us out and how we need to find ways to disconnect.

"My own theory which I touch on in the book is that modern life isn't uniformly bad," says Matt. "But we are experiencing a lot of change and if you think of why people get mentally ill or experience bouts of depression often the trigger is a personal change.

"So the question I ask in the book is: what happens when whole societies change? What happens when the world is changing fast? Just looking at technology alone, in little more than a decade the way we communicate with each other has massively changed."

In the podcast, we also cover sleep, how to disconnect from technology and being more aware of our own stress levels in everyday life.

Read more from Matt in In The Moment issue 16, which goes on sale in the UK on 24 August.

Notes on a Nervous Planet is published by Canongate priced £12.99 and goes on sale on 5 July.

Catch up on recent episodes of the podcast:

Notes on a Nervous Planet cover

Photography by Kan Lailey.

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