Prime Time - Jane Fonda [150]
10. DISCIPLINE: For one week, practice meditation each day, whether you are in the mood or not. Even if it is for only five minutes, commit to a regular practice. See how you feel. If you notice a difference (or even if you don’t), commit to another week. Then consider joining a meditation group or taking a retreat and receiving more in-depth instruction and support in your practice.
I am grateful to Elizabeth Lesser for permitting me to include her meditation guide in my book. I hope this practice will be as a meaningful for you as it has been for me.
Acknowledgments
IT TAKES A VILLAGE:
First and foremost, I am forever grateful to my editor, Kate Medina, for her patience, talent, and encouragement.
Her assistants, Millicent Bennett and Lindsey Schwoeri, helped me in countless ways.
Copy editor Bonnie Thompson and associate copy chief Dennis Ambrose performed miracles that helped me organize and clarify. Barbara Bachman created the beautiful design. Thanks also to Paolo Pepe for his front- and back-cover designs, and to Ken Wohlrob for bringing me into the world of eBooks.
A special thanks to Lisa Bennett, who helped me illuminate all the ways that seniors help (rather than hinder) society, and what society needs to do to help make seniors’ lives easier.
My thanks to Angela Martini, for her wonderful illustrations.
And to my friend and assistant, Steven Bennett, who put in countless hours on permissions and such, with the help of Carol Mitchell and Laura Masseur.
Deep gratitude to Terry Savage for so generously letting me borrow her financial expertise.
Thanks to the late Dr. Robert Butler, whose commitment to gerontology was responsible for deepening and expanding the entire field. It was he, with his seminars at the International Longevity Center (which he founded), who introduced me to many of the scientists whose expertise deepen this book. Dr. Denise Parks is one of them. She is director of the Center for Vital Longevity at the University of Texas at Dallas, whose expertise about the brain was essential to me. Another is Dr. Richard Sprott, executive director of the Ellison Medical Research Foundation, who explained, in terms I could understand, the cutting-edge research on aging.
Dr. Butler brought me to Dr. Diane Meier, who heads the Center to Advance Palliative Care (CAPC) at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She helped me understand what palliative care means in the most moving, soulful terms.
Thanks to Dr. Michael Hewitt, research director for exercise science at Canyon Ranch health resort. He kindly reviewed my workout chapter to make sure everything was accurate, and allowed me to borrow his Key-3 exercises.
And thanks to Dr. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who, together with Katherine Tallmadge, kept me straight on the topic of nutrition.
Thanks to Dr. Marion Perlmutter, with the department of psychology at the University of Michigan, who helped me understand some of the great deepening that can come with age.
Dr. Michael Perelman is Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Reproductive Medicine, and Urology at Weill Medical College, Cornell University, and co-director of the Human Sexuality Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Perelman greatly expanded my understanding of sexuality and aging, as did Dr. Michelle Warren, medical director at the Center for Menopause, Hormonal Disorders and Women’s Health, Columbia University Medical Center, New York. She helped me understand women’s