If you’ve already fallen out of your new year diet routine, this book is tailor-made for you, and for anyone, who wants sensible eating-and-living advice from a physician author.
The tone is set in the Introduction with this paragraph, among others: “Remember the first rule of life: We’re all going to die. You can waste all your time trying to extend your life by a few minutes, obsessing over scores of adjustments to your diet or exercise routines, or you can follow six straightforward, smart wellness behaviors and make the time you have healthier and more meaningful.”
These six wellness behaviors are really about your joy and happiness, and about living better. Dr. Emanuel uses them to structure the six chapters of his book:
1) Don’t be a schmuck—avoid self-destructive risks.
2) Talk to people—cultivate family, friends, and other social relations.
3) Expand your mind—stay mentally sharp.
4) Eat your ice cream—consume healthy food and drink.
5) Move it!—exercise well and regularly.
6) Sleep like a baby—get the rest you need.
Each chapter quotes medical research studies, and other experts, includes advice about medications, gets into helpful details, points to differences in people of different ages and stages of life, and includes the author’s own experiences as well as the experiences of others whom he has counseled. It all makes for a warm, affable approach. This is a book that anyone can read, and benefit from, and that might also make a good gift for someone you know who is often caught in the hamster’s wheel of diet and lifestyle advice ups and downs.
Good lifestyle books, such as this one, are really about what we call the spiritual practices of joy, being more meaningfully present, and connections.
Emanuel uses a language from Judaism, albeit very lightly, throughout, including an Afterword which he titles, “Be a Mensch.” There you’ll find: “My … most important message is this: Wellness and living long are only a means to a good life. They are not, themselves, the essence of a good life, as so many influencers and wellness gurus make them out to be. An unfulfilling life, no matter how long and healthy, is not the ideal. It will cause more suffering than satisfaction. A long life is worthwhile only if it is filled with meaningful relationships and activities…. Be a mensch. Keep sight of the reasons you want to live longer. Don’t just try to accumulate years of life without appreciating their value.”
