High Maintenance

Stop settling for generic wellness advice. It is time to reclaim your health.

In her debut book, High Maintenance, former physician and public health researcher Dr. Varuna Srinivasan delivers an intersectional framework for personalized health and inclusive self-care for all people.

If you feel overlooked by the traditional healthcare system, this book speaks directly to you. Designed for women and queer people navigating burnout, chronic illnesses, hormonal imbalances, and stress-induced conditions, High Maintenance cuts through superficial wellness trends. It offers a deeply meaningful, evidence-based path to well-being that honors your unique biological, psychological, and social realities.

You need this book because true health requires more than just individual effort; it requires a whole person approach. Dr. Srinivasan introduces the HIGH-Maintenance framework, built on four essential pillars:

• Hormones: Map your internal blueprint and understand how sex and gender influences your mood, energy, and sleep.
• Identity: Center your gender, sexuality, and cultural experiences to manage stress and find your core motivations.
• Gut: Connect your mind, body, and soul through nourishment practices that are integrative and multi-dimensional.
• Habits: Develop intuitive, affirming routines that create sustainable behavior change without causing burnout.

Weaved throughout are stories from people all over the world sharing how they take care of themselves and how their culture impacts their self-care.

By leaning into the HIGH-Maintenance framework, you will gain the tools to fundamentally shift how you care for yourself. The impact of this book includes:

• Healing Burnout: Learn how to identify and prevent the biological stress cycles that drain your energy and drive inflammation.
• Building a Sustainable Lifestyle: Create daily practices that align with your deep-rooted values rather than rigid, punitive rules.
• Integrating Mind, Body, and Soul: Marry evidence-based complementary therapies with conventional medical care to improve your overall quality of life and longevity.
• Reclaiming Your Agency: Empower yourself to make informed health decisions, challenge societal biases, and build resilience on an individual and communal level.
• Finding Meaning and Flow: Cultivate a larger perspective that drastically improves mental health outcomes, reduces anxiety, and helps you utilize your finite time for infinite joy.

You cannot self-care your way out of health issues caused by larger societal problems, but you can build a life of profound value and knowing. High Maintenance gives you the permission and the roadmap to demand better for your mind and body.