Book review

What is good about this book?

‘Jog On: How running saved my life’ recounts the author’s own experience of living with severe anxiety, learning to recognise and manage her symptoms and how running was integral to this. The book tracks Mackie’s journey starting with 3-minute runs in an alleyway near her house in the wake of her marriage breakdown, to becoming a regular runner, running through areas of London, previously considered inaccessible owing to panic attacks. The book begins with an open and honest narrative detailing personal struggles with generalised anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder. The colourful and vivid descriptions of panic symptoms and derealisation helped me to visualise and appreciate the distress and frightening emotions Mackie experienced. I gained a greater understanding of how anxiety disorders impact patients from Mackie’s account detailing how anxiety restricted and impacted every inch of her life for years.

‘Jog On’ is written primarily as a motivational tool for people living with anxiety disorders, to encourage and inspire. The tone of the book is one of understanding, non-judgement and realism. It is not written to persuade all readers to take up running as a tool for tackling anxiety or to pressure the reader into signing up for marathons. It simply gives accounts from Mackie and many others, of exercise as a valuable and life-saving tool – alongside others, such as medication and therapy – when facing the world with an anxiety disorder. I think this book could be useful for patients living through similar issues, not as a directive or manual, but to inspire a sense of hope that things can improve. Finding what works for each individual is the take-home message of the book.

Developing a new skill, while battling anxiety and depression, is always going to be challenging and tough. As a clinician, I often find mental health consultations difficult. It often feels like I am preaching or recommending something impossible. I would recommend this book as a helpful motivational tool. Perhaps patients will recognise a part of themselves in Mackie’s journey and feel uplifted, and not lectured to or misunderstood.

Mackie opens up about how anxiety presents physically, with tachycardia, chest pains, daily headaches and other symptoms prompting multiple consultations with her GP. As GP trainees, we consult with these patients on a daily basis and managing physical manifestations of anxiety can be challenging. On starting GP training, this book helped me to improve my empathy and understanding of how and why patients present with anxiety.

Reading this book will help trainees gain deeper understanding of living with generalised anxiety disorder and how we can help patients by recognising and validating the challenges they face. It has encouraged me, on a personal level, to start running again. As doctors we are all aware of the benefits of exercise on mental health, but I found my exercise starting to slip during the rigmarole of Applied Knowledge Test (AKT) and Clinical Skills Assessment (CSA) revision. Reading Mackie’s motivational book inspired me to lace up my trainers once again and to prioritise my own wellbeing alongside that of patients.

What is bad about this book?

The book is a memoir of Mackie’s own personal journey, it certainly won’t be suitable for all patients with anxiety and for many, suggesting exercise will be impractical or unrealistic. There are many personal experiences intermingled with brief summaries of studies that demonstrate the benefits of exercise on mental health. Some of the literature cited includes small studies of limited validity. I found my mind wandering in the middle of the book and needed to persevere (not unlike the middle of a run) as the content became a little repetitive. I was brought back in however, by the excellent summary of learning points and useful resources for others with mental health issues.