Andrew Weil recounts his visit with the elderly of Okinawa in this month's Self-Healing newsletter. Fresh from the cover of Time's recent aging issue and currently promoting his new book Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being, Weil is all about graceful aging and Okinawans are all about aging gracefully.

Weil distills the basic tenets of Okinawan aging philosophy into user-friendly bullet points. There are a few standouts:

• Stay active: There is no Okinawan word for retirement . . .
• Help each other: Okinawan village life is built on the principle of yuimaru, or mutual assistance . . .
• Eat in moderation:. The Okinawans have an interesting way of preventing overeatinging: hara hachi bu, which means eating only until you feel 80 percent full . . .
• Pay attention to the spiritual side of life: There is an Okinawan adage that goes, “Isha-hanbun, yuta-hanbun,” or “To best understand your problem, see both a doctor and a shaman . . .

For a deeper look into Okinawan aging, Weil recommends The Okinawa Program, by Bradley Willcox, MD, D. Craig Willcox, PhD, and Makoto Suzuki, MD, the head researchers in the Okinawa Centenarian Study.