YOU: Staying Young: The Owner’s Manual for Extending Your Warranty (Free Press, 2007). Oprah‘s favorite docs since Phil—Mehmet Oz, MD, and Michael Roizen, MD—continue their informative and entertaining “You” series with this exploration of 14 major “agers.” The book supplies the tools you need—everything from diet, exercise, and sleep to controlling anger—to help stave off premature aging.
Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development (Little, Brown and Company 2003). George Vaillant, MD, knows about aging well because he is the director of a study that followed hundreds of people who have done it. This book looks at Dr. Vaillant’s Harvard Grant study of white males (started in 1921), the Inner City study of nondelinquent males (1930), and the Terman Women study of gifted females (1911), so it’s filled with stories of people who serve as great role models for growing older and better.
Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being (Knopf, 2005). Alternative medicine guru Andrew Weil, MD, provides a scientific and reasoned approach to aging: Don’t fight it; just do it gracefully. Eschewing the “young at all costs” attitude (he warns against Botox and $100-a-jar creams), Dr. Weil promotes a healthy lifestyle (good nutrition, regular exercise, and stress reduction). But he’s so utterly convincing about the advantages of age (wisdom, peace, and richness) that you’ll want to embrace your wrinkles, not erase them.
