You may be doing what you can to stay healthy, but if you want to be even healthier, now and in your future, take a look at “Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being” (Knopf 2005) by Andrew Weil, M.D. It’s chockablock full of good advice.
Weil does not promote anti-aging products or techniques: “We cannot change the fact that we are all moving toward physical decline and death. The best we can do – and it is a lot – is to accept this inevitability and try to adapt to it, to be in the best health we can at any age. … To age gracefully means to let nature take its course while doing everything in our power to delay the onset of age-related disease or, in other words, to live as long and as well as possible, then have a rapid decline at the end of life.”
Weil has that rare ability to talk about complicated things in a conversational tone, while covering complex details of traditional medicine mixed with alternative medicine. As a graduate of Harvard Medical School, he has some authority to evaluate ideas not currently taught in medical schools.
His approach, which he calls “integrative medicine,” consolidates treatments for mind, body and spirit.
In discussing cultures successful at aging, he writes, “I think that ongoing physical activity and strong social and communal ties are most important.”
Some of his advice on aging gracefully you already know – exercise more and eat more fruits and vegetables – but he adds useful details. For example, he recommends eating salmon for the omega-3, but only wild Alaskan salmon, because it is less likely to contain mercury.
Weil, the author of “EightWeeks to Optimum Health” and many other books, is America’s best-selling doctor. My mother – at 91, still living independently, driving, playing bridge and currently on a trip to Nicaragua – subscribes to Weil’s monthly newsletter. She said, “I get more out of his newsletter than any other source.”
His “anti-inflammatory diet” includes daily organic fruits (especially berries) and vegetables from all parts of the color spectrum, variety in all foods, slow food, extra-virgin olive oil, fiber cereal, mushrooms, tea, plain dark chocolate (minimum 70 percent cocoa), purified water, less bread and less food in general. In a nutshell: “eat more plants.”
Because stress “is directly toxic to neurons in the part of the brain responsible for memory and emotion,” he suggests that we look into breathwork, meditation, visualization, psychotherapy and bodywork. He recommends frequent massages.
Weil gives us a 12-point program for healthful aging and advises us to get adequate sleep – he recommends naps, exercise the mind as well as the body, use preventive medicine intelligently and maintain social and intellectual connections.
“Healthy Aging” is available at Main Street Cafe & Books, 134 Main St., Los Altos.
