The Inside Story
The Surprising Pleasures of Living in an Aging Body
by Dr. Susan Sands
What if the secret to healthy aging has been inside of you all along?
Awards
Independent Press Award, 2023 Distinguished Book, Aging/Midlife category
Next Big Idea Club selection, 2022
The new science of embodiment tells us that interoceptive awareness—sensing the body from within—is crucial for our well-being across the span of our lives. In this eye-opening and wide-ranging book, Dr. Susan Sands unpacks the research to make a bold call to aging women to find safe harbor from the ravages of age right where they strike the deepest—in the body. Most of us in our heady, image-based society have never really gotten to know our bodies, to sense and feel our bodies from the inside out. Growing older can provide a golden opportunity to heal this mind-body divide. “As older women, we are actually primed to experience our bodies more deeply and pleasurably,” Dr. Sands says. “Our bodies are quieter and slower. Aging can open up a transformative new capacity to actually live in our bodies, allowing us to experience our full selves for perhaps the first time in our lives.”
With wise and humorous insight, Dr. Sands calls on case studies, personal stories, and scientific findings to help us rewrite the cultural beliefs that put us at odds with our own bodies. Powerful yet accessible embodiment tools such as meditation, yoga, breathing practices, neural feedback, and guidance on exercise, sleep, diet, and more make this a practical as well as enlightening self-care manifesto for women at midlife and beyond.
“How can we manage the losses of aging? Stop focusing on the ‘outside body’ that others see—the one you may think is too fat, too wrinkled, or too saggy—and move your attention to the ‘inside body’ that you sense and feel.”
Susan Sands
Susan Sands, PhD, is an internationally recognized clinical psychologist best known for her trail-blazing work on female development, eating disorders, body image and aging. She publishes and presents widely on these topics and is a core faculty member at the Psychoanalytic Institute of Northern California in San Francisco and an assistant clinical professor at UC Berkeley. She incorporates Buddhist thought and meditative practices in her work with patients. Previously, she worked as a journalist, as a reporter, writer and editor, including posts at Newsweek and The Saturday Review. Dr. Sands lives in Berkeley, CA, where she maintains a private practice in psychotherapy and supervision of other therapists.
Photo by Nan Phelps