Audiobooks by Amy Alkon

Going Menopostal: What You (and Your Doctor) Need to Know About the Real Science of Menopause and Perimenopause

"Half of the population—the female half—is getting healthcare based on medical myth rather than evidence. Going Menopostal is Amy Alkon’s mission to change that. This book started with a flash—Alkon’s first hot flash. Drenching night sweats, insomnia, and brain fog soon followed—along with shame at feeling bewilderingly enraged at everyone and everything. Alkon, an award-winning science columnist and author, wanted to turn to her doctor. But there was a problem: More than half of the medical care we get in the US may not be “based on, or supported by, adequate evidence,” according to the US National Academy of Medicine. Knowing this, Alkon began a deep dive into the research on menopause and perimenopause––the 3 to 10 years leading up to menopause when women’s symptoms are widely ignored, dismissed, and misdiagnosed (despite doctors having every intention of helping their patients). She was shocked by what she found: - Most gynecology departments lack even one doctor with training and expertise in menopausal and perimenopausal medicine, and they expect their maternity and general reproductive health specialists to treat these conditions outside their scope of practice without informing patients––a violation of medical ethics. - Perimenopause is wrongly viewed and treated as “menopause lite”––a time of lowered estrogen levels––when estrogen levels actually soar, making many women miserably symptomatic. - Few doctors know that symptomatic perimenopausal women actually tend to lack progesterone, and that replacing it with safe, FDA-approved progesterone would alleviate their insomnia, hot flashes, and other suffering and counteract cell overgrowth that can lead to breast and endometrial cancer. - Many doctors deny estrogen to their menopausal patients, unaware of current research showing that estrogen not only alleviates symptoms but protects against cardiovascular disease (soon to kill 1 in 3 women), bone fractures, metabolic syndrome, and more. - Findings from studies done largely on middle-class white women are wrongly applied to black women and other women of color, ignoring crucial differences, such as generally lower triglyceride levels in black women that can make heart disease harder to detect. This meticulously researched book is written in clear, everyday language that you don’t need the slightest science background to understand (along with Alkon’s signature dark humor). Alkon equips you with the exact words to confidently ask critical questions and motivate your doctor to partner with you and treat you appropriately––instead of giving you the “treatment” her favorite bus driver got: told by her doctor to “just wait out” her raging insomnia, night sweats, and hot flashes. Alkon’s ultimate goal: Empowering all women with the science and strategies they need to get the evidence-based care they expect and deserve."

Amy Alkon (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

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Unf*ckology: A Field Guide to Living with Guts and Confidence

"Amy Alkon presents Unf*ckology, a “science-help” book that knocks the self-help genre on its unscientific ass. You can finally stop fear from being your boss and put an end to your lifelong social suckage. Have you spent your life shrinking from opportunities you were dying to seize but feel “that’s just who I am”? Well, screw that! You actually can change, and it doesn’t take exceptional intelligence or a therapist who’s looking forward to finally buying Aruba after decades of listening to you yammer on. Transforming yourself takes revolutionary science-help from Amy Alkon, who has spent the past 20 years translating cutting-edge behavioral science into highly practical advice in her award-winning syndicated column. In Unf*ckology, Alkon pulls together findings from neuroscience, behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and clinical psychology. She explains everything in language you won’t need a psych prof on speed-dial to understand—and with the biting dark humor that made Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck such a great read. She debunks widely-accepted but scientifically unsupported notions about self-esteem, shame, willpower, and more and demonstrates that: - Thinking your way into changing (as so many therapists and self-help books advise) is the most inefficient way to go about it. - The mind is bigger than the brain, meaning that your body and your behavior are your gym for turning yourself into the new, confident you. - Fear is not just the problem; it’s also the solution. - By targeting your fears with behavior, you make changes in your brain that reshape your habitual ways of behaving and the emotions that go with them. Follow Amy Alkon's groundbreaking advice in Unf*ckology, and eventually, you’ll no longer need to act like the new you; you’ll become the new you. And how totally f*cking cool is that?"

Amy Alkon (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

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Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck

"We live in a world that’s very different from the one in which Emily Post came of age. Many of us who are nice (but, who also sometimes say 'f*ck') are frequently at a loss for guidelines about how to be a good person who deals effectively with the onslaught of rudeness we all encounter. To lead us through this this miasma of modern manners, syndicated columnist Amy Alkon—The Advice Goddess—gives us a new set of manners for our 21st century lives. In chapters titled 'The Telephone,' 'The Internet,' 'The Apology,' and 'Communicating,' among others, Alkon maps out new rules that go beyond what fork to use to answer real questions we all have: • When is it okay to phone somebody instead of emailing or texting? When is it rude? • Why shouldn't you tweet about a guest at a private dinner party? Everybody knows privacy is dead, right? • How do you shut the guy up in the pharmacy line with his cellphone on speaker? • When is it right to approach somebody who’s crying in public and when is it right to leave him alone? • When should you unfriend somebody on Facebook and what do you say when she calls you on it? • If you have an STD, when do you tell people, what do you say and do you have to contact everyone you’ve ever had sex with? Real advice for today with more than a touch of humor, Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say 'F*ck' is destined to give good old Emily a shove off the etiquette shelf (if that's not too rude to say)."

Amy Alkon (Author), Carrington MacDuffie (Narrator)

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