Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being

3.87

1,367 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 0739315994 ISBN 13: 9780739315996

Publisher: Random House Audio, 2005

Spontaneous Healing . . . Eight Weeks to Optimum Health . . . Eating Well for Optimum Health . . . The Healthy Kitchen–in each of his widely acclaimed, best-selling books, Dr. Andrew Weil has been an authoritative and companionable guide through a uniquely effective combination of traditional and nontraditional approaches to health and healthy living. Now he gives us a book about aging that is unlike any other in the breadth and depth of its information and understanding. Hugely informative, practical, and uplifting, it is infused with the engaging candor and common sense that have been the hallmarks of all his books.

At the heart of Healthy Aging is Dr. Weil’s belief that although aging is an irreversible process, there are myriad things we can do to keep our minds and bodies in good working order through all phases of life. To that end, he draws on the new science of biogerentology (the biology of aging) as well as on the secrets of healthy longevity– diet, activity, and attitude–that he has gathered firsthand from cultures around the world.
In Part One–“The Science and Philosophy of Healthy Aging”–he explains how the body ages, and he explores the impact of gender, genes, environment, and lifestyle on an individual’s experience and perception of the process of aging. He describes the various would-be elixirs of life extension–herbs, hormones, and antiaging “medicines”–separating myth from fact and clearly delineating the difference between the spurious notions of preventing or reversing the process of aging and the real possibilities of inhibiting or delaying the onset of diseases that become more likely as we age. He writes movingly about the ways in which an acceptance of aging can be a significant part of doing it well, and of recognizing and appreciating the great rewards of growing older: depth and richness of experience, complexity of being, serenity, wisdom, and its own kind of power and grace.

In Part Two–“How to Age Gracefully”–Weil details an easy-to-implement Anti-inflammatory Diet that will protect the immune system and aid your body in resisting and adapting to the changes that time brings. And he provides extensive practical advice on exercise; preventive health care; stress management; physical, mental, and emotional flexibility; and spiritual enhancement–all of which can help you achieve and maintain the best health throughout the lifelong process of aging.

Healthy Aging–a book for people of all ages–is Andrew Weil’s most important and far-reaching book yet.
From the Hardcover edition.

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Review:

Dr. Weil has raised dispensing health advice to an art form. Instead of making his audience feel inadequate or guilty about bad habits, he seems to subconsciously convince readers to do better merely by presenting health facts in a non-threatening way. Healthy Aging is his most scientifically technical book yet (you'll learn all about enzymes like telomerase and cell division and the chemistry behind phytonutrients like indole-3-carbinol, and the connection between cancer and other degenerative diseases like diabetes) yet by far his most fascinating.

His main mission here is to recommend "aging gracefully," which he considers accepting the process instead of fighting it. As the director of the country's leading integrative-medicine clinic (combining the best of traditional and alternative worlds), of course he disses Botox and the slew of $100-a-jar face creams out there. It's also no surprise that he focuses on proper nutrition, moderate exercise, and meditation and rest among his "12-point program for healthy aging." (Triathletes and exercise addicts should take special note of the research linking excessive exercise and ALS, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.) He occasionally references his earlier works, including 8 Weeks to Optimum Health. But the most eye-opening sections are those that discuss the spirituality of aging and its emotional aspects. "Aging can bring frailty and suffering, but it can also bring depth and richness of experience, complexity of being, serenity, wisdom, and its own kind of power and grace," he writes. At 63, Weil is still a bit shy of senior status, but is aging well indeed, with the legacy of his late 93-year-old mother (who’s touchingly eulogized by Weil in this book) to guide him.--Erica Jorgensen

About the Author:

Andrew Weil, M.D., has worked for the National Institute of Mental Health and for fifteen years was a Research Associate in Ethnopharmacology at the Harvard Botanical Museum. He has traveled extensively throughout the world collecting information about the medicinal properties of plants, altered states of consciousness, and healing. He has written for the New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine and other national publications. He is under constant demand to lecture and appear on radio and television. He is currently Associate Director of the Division of Social Perspectives in Medicine, and Director of the Program in Integrative Medicine at the University of Arizona in Tucson, where he practices natural and preventive medicine.

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