How to Be Beautiful Inside and Out

It's not about nip 'n tuck or crash dieting. Authors Michael F. Roizen and Mehmet C. Oz, both physicians, have a broader perspective in "You Being Beautiful" (Free Press, $26.99).

The three-part division of their book provides the components of a holistic approach to achieving the glow of inner and outer beauty. But their essential point is that looking, feeling and being beautiful are not separate elements to be combined like fashion accessories, but rather should reinforce each other.

Their advice is eminently practical, including a discussion of how the skin works before prescribing actions to help it. Among their recommendations::

• Check labels on skin-care products for active ingredients. The book lists the ones that work.
• Foods that aid the skin because of their ingredients include egg yolks, legumes, avocados, soybeans, nuts, salmon, green tea, pomegranates and tomatoes. 
• The best way to tone muscles with exercises is with more repetitions with lighter weights, and remembering to do stretching and yoga. 
• Get eight hours sleep. Most people live sleep deprived. Rest not only restores a feeling of energy but also helps the body repair itself. To straighten out your head, don't bottle up your issues; talk them out. Also, exercise to stimulate endorphins and eat a banana -- its ingredients facilitate the work of neurotransmitters. 
• To straighten out your head, deal with the situations that make you frazzled by stepping back and being analytical. 
• Nourish your relationships by specific attitudes, such as giving the other space, as well as good listening and feedback skills; and actions small and large, from bathroom habits to trying something the other person's way for a four-week trial. 
• Take advantage of six paths to happiness -- being positive and generous, feeling empathy, finding authenticity, embracing emotion, exploring spirituality and understanding unhappiness. 
• As the authors say: "You have a body, but you don't have a soul: you are a soul." Don't let what anyone tells you cloud your inner beauty.