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.
