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Defy Aging: Develop the Mental and Emotional Vitality to Live Longer, Healthier, and Happier Than You Ever Imagined
by Michael Brickey, Ph.D., ABPP
Occasionally a book comes along that speaks to multiple audiences about an important cutting edge topic. Michael Brickey’s Defy Aging is such a book.
Billions of dollars in basic and applied research in medicine, bio-technology, the pharmaceuticals, and alternative care industries are yielding exciting breakthroughs in anti-aging science. Religious leaders, bioethics think tanks, and hospital ethics committees are addressing the ethical and spiritual considerations of people living decades longer. As we realize the profound implications of the longevity revolution, we all would like to learn how to be healthy and vital throughout a long lifetime. What is needed is a pragmatic, research-based, comprehensive discussion of this multifaceted and at times contradictory body of knowledge. Defy Aging is such a resource.
Genetic studies find that only 30% of longevity is genetic (and that percentage is likely to decrease with the advent of genetic engineering). The 70% of longevity that is psychological relates to beliefs, attitudes, coping skills, and lifestyles. Consider how helpful it would be to have a book that sorts it out. Ponder having a book to recommend to clients when they deal with issues such as anxiety prompted by a parent dying of Alzheimer’s disease, depression brought on by altered sexual functioning, concerns about self-concept and self-esteem, making sense out of anti-aging claims about hormones, vitamins and diets; and grief and loneliness from outliving family and friends. Defy Aging is such a resource.
Many books and thousands of articles examine circumscribed areas of the newly emerging field of anti-aging. Many are individual studies in scientific journals not easily accessible or understood by nonexperts in the particular discipline. Others are non-scientifically based and subject to conjecture and bias. Many offer a quick fix/magic pill, exercise, or diet. What has been needed is a solid compilation of the vast literature written in a readable style that cuts across disciplines and educational barriers. Defy Aging is such a resource.
In addition to weaving together an enormous scientific literature, Dr. Brickey engages the reader with humor, personal assessments, and thought provoking insights. He wittily refers to aging as “not your father’s Oldsmobile,” tests your mental longevity in a variety of areas with rationale for scoring, and asks you to ponder what it will take to be married for a hundred years or to outlive family and friends. While Defy Aging presents a comprehensive survey of longevity considerations, its focus is on 4 attitudes, 36 beliefs, and 4 coping skills or as Dr. Brickey calls them the ABCs of mental longevity.
In conducting women’s growth groups, I was searching for information to help participants develop attitudes and beliefs that foster psychological well-being and healthy longevity. I was fortunate to be able to use some pre-publication chapters of this book. The women gravitated to and were absorbed by the materials. Now when they ask me where they can obtain more of these great explanations and insights, I tell them, “Defy Aging is such a book.”
Defy Aging has impressive prepublication endorsements including Bernie Siegel, MD, Betty Friedan, four past APA presidents, and the founder and president of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (which board certifies physicians in anti-aging medicine). It is a $24.95, 6” X 9” hardback book with 416 pages and 468 references and is available in bookstores, on-line bookstores, and www.DrBrickey.com.
Carol Roche, Ph.D. is President of LifeCycle Directions. She has doctorates in physiology and in clinical psychology and is a practicing psychologist and life and executive coach. She can be reached at 600 Pleasantville Rd., Lancaster, Ohio 43130, 740-681-8888, E-mail at clroche@mindspring.com.