Finding Sisu

Find your sisu: the Finnish concept of resilience, grit, and determination

Finnish-born writer Katja Pantzar was raised and educated in Canada, where the consumerist and materially obsessed culture left her feeling empty and unhappy. When she received treatment for depression in her mid-20s, the doctor treating her simply prescribed medication and sleeping pills, with no thought given to her lifestyle.

After moving to Finland, Katja discovered sisu: the Finnish approach to well-being defined by a special kind of resilience, grit and courage. She embraced this way of living and experienced a dramatic turnaround in her health and happiness.

Simple, functional exercise (as simple as riding her bike to work), the Nordic diet, spending time in nature and taking up cold-water swimming together with a more courageous outlook all served to transform Pantzar's life: her anxieties, fatigue and pain left behind in the sea.

In Finding Sisu, Pantzar offers an honest (no place is perfect - Finland is not an exception) and uplifting account of her physical and psychological health transformation from a slightly lethargic depressive into an energetic optimist. She examines the link between sisu and the Nordic reputation for excellent wellbeing and overall life satisfaction, and looks at the ways in which we, too, can apply sisu to our lives - wherever we may be.

Finding Sisu is a personal but also practical approach to the power of this 500-year-old philosophy and how it can help us all to lead healthier, happier - and braver lives.