Counterclockwise My Year of Hypnosis, Hormones, Dark Chocolate, and Other Adventures in the World of Anti-Aging

A bootcamp in Utah in 118-degree heat. A raw food diet. Hypnotic suggestions. A team of crack computer scientists who can ageand de-agea face with the click of a mouse. The World Convention on Anti-Aging Medicine in Las Vegas (headlined by Suzanne Somers). These are just a few of the stops Lauren Kessler makes on her journey to reverse time from the inside out.At this moment, one in three Americans are entering mid-life and many are wondering, 'how did I get to be this old?' Plenty will turn to miracle creams, injections, fillers, and surgery to reverse the hands oftime, but Kessler investigates the largely unexplored side of antiaging: what it takes to beyounger, not just lookyounger. Guided by both intense curiousity and healthy skepticism, a sense of adventure, and a sense of humor, she investigates America's youth obsession and decides, on a very personal level, what to do about it. She is at once the careful reporter, the immersion journalist, the self-designated lab rat, and a mid-life woman who is not interested in being as old as her driver's license insists she is. Kessler's mission isn't about vanity (well, maybe a little) but about discovering ways to maintain stamina, vitality, fortitude, and creativity right to the very end. Counterclockwiseis a book that will resonate with every woman over the age of 35.

Lauren Kessler is the author of My Teenage Werewolf: A Mother, a Daughter, a Journey Through the Thicket of Adolescence; award-winning Dancing with Rose; Washington Post bestseller Clever Girl; and Los Angeles Times bestseller The Happy Bottom Riding Club. Her journalism has appeared in the New York Times Magazine; Los Angeles Times Magazine; O, the Oprah Magazine; Ladies’ Home Journal; Woman’s Day; Prevention; and Salon. A national speaker and workshop leader, she directs the graduate program in multimedia narrative journalism at the University of Oregon. She lives in Eugene, Oregon, with her writer husband, Tom Hager, her teenage (werewolf) daughter, four carefree chickens, and a cat that thinks it’s a dog.