Overview

The fears of aging have been one long cascading domino effect through the years: twenty year-olds dread thirty; forty year-olds fear fifty; sixty fears seventy, and so it goes. And there is something to worry about, though it isn't what you'd expect: research shows that having a bad attitude toward aging when we're young is associated with poorer health when we're older. These worries tend to peak in midlife; but in Lighter as We Go, Mindy Greenstein and Jimmie Holland show us that, contrary to common wisdom, our sense of well-being actually increases with our age--often even in the presence of illness or disability. For the first time, Greenstein and Holland--on a joint venture between an 85 year-old and a fifty year-old--explore positive psychology concepts of character strengths and virtues to unveil how and why, through the course of a lifetime, we learn who we are as we go. Drawing from the authors' own personal, intergenerational friendship, as well as a broad array of research from many different areas--including social psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, humanities, psychiatry, and gerontology--Lighter as We Go introduces compassion, justice, community, and culture to help calm our cascading fears of aging.

Full Product Details

9780199360956

Table of Contents

Reviews

I happen to fall (bad word) into the fastest growing age group--the 90 and over crowd. What to do? I say go right now, no matter your age, and get Lighter As We Go because it is the last word on the subject of growing older and living well with it. Mindy Greenstein and Jimmie Holland, at middle and older ages, have great ideas that connect with my own! Live like you're 50--have a ball! When you're 90, act any way you please! This book will help you see the rewards you haven't even thought about. --Liz Smith This delightful, highly readable book utilizes personal stories and a bit of human history to paint a picture of successful aging in which the mind and spirit triumph over physical limitations, and generativity and eudaimonia prevail. This outlook is consistent with information emerging from neuroscience and molecular medicine that not only are physical activity, hedonic satisfaction and good self-regulation of health behaviors important for sustaining good mental and physical health but also that finding meaning and purpose in life can be enormously beneficial. --Bruce S. McEwen, Ph.D., Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and Head, Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch, Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University Drs. Greenstein and Holland have a unique ability to draw the reader into this ongoing and enchanting review of aging writ wide and in the spirit of 'lighter as we go.' The book is truly uplifting and fun, not didactic or sterile, unlike anything I have read about successful aging. One cannot read this book dispassionately or in isolation, so prepare yourselves to join this symposium just as Cicero called his listeners to join him through his treatise On Old Age. And like any good conversation, Jimmie and Mindy leave us prepared and eager to continue our reflections and discussion far beyond the occasion of the book. --Dan Blazer, MD, PhD, J.P. Gibbons Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center

I happen to fall (bad word) into the fastest growing age group--the 90 and over crowd. What to do? I say go right now, no matter your age, and get Lighter As We Go because it is the last word on the subject of growing older and living well with it. Mindy Greenstein and Jimmie Holland, at middle and older ages, have great ideas that connect with my own! Live like you're 50--have a ball! When you're 90, act any way you please! This book will help you see the rewards you haven't even thought about. --Liz Smith This delightful, highly readable book utilizes personal stories and a bit of human history to paint a picture of successful aging in which the mind and spirit triumph over physical limitations, and generativity and eudaimonia prevail. This outlook is consistent with information emerging from neuroscience and molecular medicine that not only are physical activity, hedonic satisfaction and good self-regulation of health behaviors important for sustaining good mental and physical health but also that finding meaning and purpose in life can be enormously beneficial. --Bruce S. McEwen, Ph.D., Alfred E. Mirsky Professor and Head, Harold and Margaret Milliken Hatch, Laboratory of Neuroendocrinology, The Rockefeller University Drs. Greenstein and Holland have a unique ability to draw the reader into this ongoing and enchanting review of aging writ wide and in the spirit of 'lighter as we go.' The book is truly uplifting and fun, not didactic or sterile, unlike anything I have read about successful aging. One cannot read this book dispassionately or in isolation, so prepare yourselves to join this symposium just as Cicero called his listeners to join him through his treatise On Old Age. And like any good conversation, Jimmie and Mindy leave us prepared and eager to continue our reflections and discussion far beyond the occasion of the book. --Dan Blazer, MD, PhD, J.P. Gibbons Professor, Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Division of Community and Family Medicine, School of Medicine A major contribution to the field of aging and adult studies, this study provides a new way to view, consider, and teach aging. --A. L. Lewis, University of Arkansas Monticello, CHOICE

Author Information

Mindy Greenstein, PhD, is Clinical Psychologist and Psycho-oncologist, Writer and National Speaker, and Consultant to the geriatric psychiatry group in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Jimmie Holland, MD, is Wayne E. Chapman Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, Attending Psychiatrist, and Founder of the geriatric psychiatry group at the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Professor of Psychiatry at Weill Medical School of Cornell University.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available