Dr Libby Weaver is a respected speaker and author around the world, published in 14 countries. She’s an expert on nutritional biochemistry, and I think it’s her ability to explain complex concepts into layman’s terms that is a big part of her success. The Invisible Load is her 13th bestselling book.
The Invisible Load examines the day to day stress that a lot of us experience. Dr Libby isn’t talking about trauma, but about the day-to-day, moment-to-moment stress to can cause people to feel overwhelmed. She has a simple example in the book that explains it well: you walk past a stack of dishes in your kitchen. If you aren’t stressed, you will think it’s just a few dishes, but if you are already feeling overwhelmed, you might have a response like, ‘I can’t keep doing this, everything is falling apart!’ In the book, Dr Libby really helps you dig down and understand what is at the heart of your stress.
In the book, Dr Libby describes our invisible load like a backpack with rocks in it that is weighing you down physically and emotionally. And the rocks are often about how you believe your life is supposed to look like and how you want others to see you, so they aren’t beliefs that are inherently bad or wrong, but they add a filter to your thoughts and they impact on your biochemistry and your health and stress. So it’s all things no one else sees, and this ‘Invisible Load’ can make you feel overwhelmed.
Fortunately, Dr Libby has created a book of solutions to feeling overwhelmed. She explains how to get to what is truly behind your stress and how to stress-proof your thinking. I noticed from the book it is often about rethinking situations with some self-kindness and curiosity. And she also goes into practical things like nutrition, how stress and sex hormones actually work, gut health and checking that your thyroid is working correctly. She brings a huge amount of research to the book from her PhD in Biochemistry and her two decades’ in clinical practice, but you won’t feel bogged down by the science – you’ll feel empowered by solutions.
This is an invaluable book that I think every adult with a busy life should read. I think understanding this idea of an invisible load and how it impacts on our health and stress levels is going to be ground- breaking for so many people in our society.
This is one of my favourite quotes from the book: ‘You have a choice to believe your stressful thoughts, or you have a choice to question them. If you’d prefer to live with more inner peace, I wholeheartedly encourage you to bring more curiosity to them.’
Reviewer: Karen McMillan
Published by Little Green Frog Publishing