Mary Sandy, A reviewer, 06/24/2007
Carl Helvie’s Healthy Holistic Aging offers a thoughtful and insightful guide for promoting health throughout our lifetimes and prolonging the time of our lives that is disease free. His book offers an approach that is very holistic and that embraces our physical, mental and spiritual aspects, as well as our interactions with each other and our environment. The reader is offered many ways to evaluate her/his health in each of these areas, as well as a number of checklists and questionnaires that help the reader make self assessments and find practical solutions to health-related issues. Many examples of positive physical, mental and spiritual health behaviors are presented. The book is soundly based on scientific research, but includes an overarching wisdom drawn from Helvie’s considerable experience as a nurse, nursing educator and public health practitioner. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on positive mental and spiritual health behaviors and the many passages relating to health and relationships as well as to health and our environment. I liked Helvie’s stress on the importance of intervention and advocacy in matters of the environment and health. I think this is a good book to use to make a solid self-assessment of one’s health from a holitstic perspective, with lots of good information and ideas for contending with health concerns in contemporary society. I highly recommend it.
____________________
Healthy
Living Style, May 14,
2007
Reviewer: Jenny Jakes "Loves to read" (VA) - See all my reviews
Carl Helvie's book, Healthy Holistic Aging, strikes a chord with many of his wise and economical suggestions for living to a drug-free old age. His list of herbs and their uses was especialy helpful. The book is written using his own experiences with the western medical regime (he has earned a doctorate in Public Health Nursing) versus his healing with alternative, gentler methods during his bout with lung cancer. His book also addresses the importance of healthy relationships to prolonging life--a topic that isn't readily addressed in other discussions of old age. Each topic is discussed candidly and clearly, from protecting one's environment to becoming a legislative activist; from surrounding oneself with beauty to eating and exercising wisely and well. Many studies are cited if the reader would like to explore furthur. I highly recommend this book as a general reference as well as for casual reading.
____________________
Booming Population, March 23, 2007
Amazon review (5 Stars!)
Reviewer: Gerontological Nurse "Christine" (Washington DC)
This blueprint advances the field of aging and efforts to improve the population's health and quality of life through direct education and information to the population as a whole. Dr. Helvie highlights the role of the community in assisting the individual and population to successfully attain optimum in health, environment and aging. This population - based approach goes further in its dissemination, beyond the confines of the book to include an interactive component that welcomes the reader to add information and update current research and information. In so doing, the author has engaged the populace in not only one's individual health and well being but that of the entire population. There are no boundaries using this dissemination and interaction approach.
____________________
If you buy one aging book---this is the one!, March 16, 2007
Amazon review (5 Stars!)
Reviewer: holistic nurse
What is exemplary about Healthy Holistic Aging is that the book not only provides an easy to follow blueprint for health and holistic aging, but the author is an exceptional role model for his program. Can you live a healthy and independent life to the age of 100? Can you enjoy positive relationships? Can you maintain a healthy environment? Carl Helvie says you can and at age 74, he's a perfect example of the right things to do. He has no chronic illnesses and is among the 11% of the age 65-and-overs who take no prescribed medications. As a professor emeritus and a doctor of public health, he knows whereof he speaks and cites overwhelming scientific evidence that good diet, exercise, adequate sleep, prayer, meditation, positive relationship with others and a clean and safe environment can ensure successful aging. I just hope all of us will listen. Carolyn Chambers Clark, RN, EdD Author, Living Well with Anxiety
____________________
This book will celebrate the 11% of the non-medicated seniors and rally the rest of our population to common sense health practices. The time is now to come to the aid of your life and health. HEALTHY HOLISTIC AGING provides that aid.
C. Norman Shealy, M.D., Ph.D.
Author of LIFE BEYOND 100—SECRETS OF THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
President, Holos University Graduate Seminary November 6, 2007
____________________
In his usual careful, thorough way, Carl addresses so many of the issues and questions of life in these times- genetically engineered food, bioterrorism, sun safety, and on and on. In my opinion, it is not a book to be read at one sitting, but is almost a reference book to be digested in smaller bites. It truly addresses questions and concerns of these times that have occurred to all of us.
One of the most important sections, however, that is often missing in practical holistic health books is the section on “Positive Mental and Spiritual Healthy Behavior.” This spiritual aspect of each of us, in my opinion, must be addressed in the same serious, committed, practical way that we build healthy physical bodies if we are really going to practice a healthy holistic lifestyle.
I’m certain that many of us will benefit from this comprehensive resource- Healthy Holistic Aging: A Blueprint for Success.
From his Foreword to HEALTHY HOLISTIC AGING
Charles Thomas Cayce, Ph D, Executive Director, Association for Research and Enlightenment, and President, Edgar Cayce Foundation.