Change Your Mind Change Your Body or Yoga for Partners

Change Your Mind, Change Your Body: Feeling Good About Your Body and Self After 40

Author: Ann Kearney Cook

The rest of your life lies ahead of you. Do you want to spend it fighting your body and worrying about things you can't change? Or do you want to live your life to its fullest by combining age, experience, and creativity to develop a new vision for your body and self?

Women in midlife face many changes, such as children growing up, returning to the workforce, or retiring from it. Then there are the physical changes: crow's-feet, saggy arms, an expanding waistline. The transformations within us and around us can leave us feeling anxious, ineffective, and out of control, especially in a culture that defines midlife as the beginning of a decline. It's easy to look at our lives and ourselves and wish we could turn back the clock, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Midlife is a time of opportunity to renew, grow strong, set new goals, and redefine who you are. Change Your Mind, Change Your Body: Feeling Good About Your Body and Self After 40 gives you the tools you need to utilize your wisdom and experiences to shape a new vision of who you are and what you want your life to look like -- right now.

Learn how to:

• Cope with the physical and mental changes that midlife brings

• Revamp ideas of what is sexy and desirable

• Turn fears of aging into tools for positive growth

• Develop a positive, realistic body image

• Embrace who you are and who you will become

• Set weight and exercise goals you can really achieve

• Help our daughters create a positive self-image You have the power to renegotiate your relationship with your body, yourself, and the world around you, and Change Your Mind,Change Your Body will help you discover and use it.

Library Journal

Kearney-Cooke (director, Cincinnati Psychotherapy Inst.) helps women in midlife develop a positive body image. Healthy choices are encouraged via cogent examinations of topics like overeating, aging, exercise, and especially emotional eating; personal stories illuminate these discussions. Readers will appreciate the author's respectful tone, as when she advises women to judge themselves realistically and not against a supermodel ideal. Comparing oneself with cultural ideals challenges self-worth, even leading to "body hatred." There is good food for thought here, though readers must struggle through the rambling first section to get to it; for larger collections. A psychology undergraduate and a former stripper, Conrad sends a similar message: "once you stop looking at your flaws and trying to fix them, you'll see that you actually look pretty great the way you are." By focusing on the similarities, instead of the differences, between the culture and bodies of "normal" women and those of strippers, Conrad quickly puts herself on equal footing with readers. Indeed, this is less a guide to life than the collected secrets of a worldly girlfriend. Key to "being sexy," for instance, is the insightful differentiation between "naked" (fraught with anxiety, pressure, and judgment) and "sexy" (familiarity and comfort with one's own body). Keep Mary Taylor's upbeat Bedroom Games: Stripteases, Seductions, and Other Surprises To Keep Your Partner Coming Back for More in mind for technique; Conrad's book is a good choice for public libraries given the revival of burlesque clubs. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

New interesting book: Fuel for Young Athletes or Hair Pulling Problem

Yoga for Partners: Over 75 Postures to Do Together

Author: Jessie Chapman

Union is the essence of yoga, and joining in postures with another person can deepen one's understanding of the practice. An excellent tool for learning two-person yoga, Yoga for Partners features dozens of inspiring photos of the paired asanas. It teaches each partner how to synchronize their movements and breathing, bringing new lightness and enjoyment to any yoga practice. Following a brief introduction, 75 two-page spreads offer a full-page photo accompanied by positioning tips, a short commentary on the benefits of the posture, and advice on breathing techniques and proper focus. This stunning and stylish package, featured in a special lay-flat binding, offers a program that allows two yoga practitioners to strengthen their bodies and improve their technique together.