Younger by the Day: 365 Ways to Rejuvenate Your Body and Revitalize Your Spirit

By Victoria Moran
 

        
Filled with humor, useful information, and even generous passages of inspiration and insight, Victoria Moran’s Younger by the Day is one of the best books in a long while in the crowded self-help genre. Moran, author of Creating a Charmed Life and Lit From Within, and the soon-to-be-published Fat, Broke & Lonely No More: Your Personal Solution to Overeating, Overspending & Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places. She is a Life Coach, popular inspirational speaker, and veteran of Oprah. In Younger by the Day takes head-on the issue of accepting the age you actually are, and making the best of it while surrounded by a culture devoted to the worship of youth. While it’s written for women, men can profit from almost everything in it.
        

The thing that makes Younger by the Day so useful is that along with emotional and even spiritual support for learning to accept and enjoy who you are and the age you are, it is filled to the brim with practical suggestions for mastering the nitty gritty of aging with health, vigor, and a positive attitude.
        

She assigns each month a theme: January, for example is “Possibility,” April is “Lightness and Humor,” September is “Wisdom,” and November is “Connection.” The 15th and 30th of each month, instead of just the traditional pay days are to be set aside (as much as a busy schedule allows) as Play Days. Moran helps you recapture the spirit of play that can get buried by mulit-tasking, marriage, kids, and all the rest of it.
        

Younger by the Day is the perfect book to put on your bedside table and devote a few minutes to each morning. You can, of course, read it straight through, and you’ll be tempted to, but one day at a time you’ll get just enough up-to-date information on vitamins, sun-block, make-up for the over-forty crowd, exercise (and how to choose the perfect gym), and dozens of other useful topics. Moran plays the role of an articulate and well-informed best-friend who gives you gentle reminders to, for example, drink plenty of water, take your meds, exercise, why a foot massage can make your whole body feel great.
        

While much of what she reminds you of are things you already know, the reminders are gentle, fact-filled, and timely. The real value of the book, however, is the wisdom of Moran’s basic premise: learn to love who you are and not just accept but revel in the age you are. An easy challenge? No way, but with Younger by the Day on your bedside table it will get a whole lot easier.

Roy Sorrels