Everybody ages, so why not embrace it? Filled with practical advice for happy, healthy, and independent aging to understand and overcome the changes ahead. Currently, there are over 95 million Americans who are 50 years old or older, more than at any time in our history. This demographic shift is expected to continue. While recent advances in the diagnosis and treatment of several disorders have contributed to our increased longevity, we are at greater risk of age-related health conditions. But these age-related health conditions are modifiable. We have a say in how we age! In Embrace Aging:Conquer Your Fears and Enjoy Added Years, Dr. Jeannette Guerrasio empowers people over 50 by guiding them with practical advice for happy, healthy, and independent aging. Combining her clinical experience with thousands of elderly patients, as well as her knowledge of cutting-edge research, Dr. Guerrasio focuses on the everyday aspects of aging to help readers understand how their bodies change with age and how best to overcome and adapt to these changes. Encompassing an astonishingly wide range of topics, Embrace Aging covers subjects commonly associated with aging from osteoporosis to cognitive impairment as well as concerns that other books ignore, such as constipation, medication dosing, sexual dysfunction, and home safety. Embracing traditional as well as alternative medicine, Dr. Guerrasio focuses on proven methods and treatments; there are no false promises. Moreover, she generously shares both her own and her patients’ experiences. Filled with tips and optimism, the author’s warmth and compassion shine through on every page. This valuable guide ensures that getting old is a joyful experience.

More than thirty years ago, an entire generation sought a new way of life, looking for fulfillment and meaning in a way no one had before. Leaving his teaching job at Harvard, Ram Dass embodied the role of spiritual seeker, showing others how to find peace within themselves in one of the greatest spiritual classics of the twentieth century, the two-million-copy bestseller Be Here Now. As many of that generation enter the autumn of their years, the big questions of peace and of purpose have returned demanding answers. And once again, Ram Dass blazes a new trail, inviting all to join him on the next stage of the journey.

Bestselling author and renowned family counselor Michael Gurian teaches you how to embrace aging and life after fifty through this spiritual and comprehensive guide. The topic of aging after fifty is frequently only discussed in terms of health—what are the physical symptoms that come with advanced age, and what can we do about them? The Wonder of Aging, however, aims to look at aging in a new way—as something that is positive, showing how miraculous our second half of life can be. Gurian divides life after fifty into four stages: Stage 1: The Age of Transformation. This is the stage of life from the late forties to approximately sixty. Stage 2: The Age of Distinction. This stage of life lasts from approximately sixty to seventy-five. Stage 3: The Age of Completion. This stage involves completing our life-journey, both together (if we are still coupled) and alone, if our spouse has passed on or if we are divorced. He developed these stages in response to both scientific and anthropological information, and in response to the needs of his clients, who sought help in understanding where they were and what to expect in the second half of life. With updated research and anecdotes to help you discover a new paradigm for aging, you can understand how aging affects you physically, mentally, relationally, and spiritually, and how to celebrate these changes holistically and healthfully.

Finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction A New York Times Bestseller Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction Winner of the WSU AOS Bonner Book Award Winner of the 2022 At Home With Growing Older Impact Award As revelatory as Atul Gawande's Being Mortal, physician and award-winning author Louise Aronson's Elderhood is an essential, empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life. For more than 5,000 years, "old" has been defined as beginning between the ages of 60 and 70. That means most people alive today will spend more years in elderhood than in childhood, and many will be elders for 40 years or more. Yet at the very moment that humans are living longer than ever before, we've made old age into a disease, a condition to be dreaded, denigrated, neglected, and denied. Reminiscent of Oliver Sacks, noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy--a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself. Elderhood is for anyone who is, in the author's own words, "an aging, i.e., still-breathing human being."

Based on extensive fieldwork, Nature’s Embrace reveals the emerging pluralization of death rites in postindustrial Japan. Low birth rates and high numbers of people remaining permanently single have led to a shortage of ceremonial caregivers (most commonly married sons and their wives) to ensure the transformation of the dead into ancestors resting in peace. Consequently, older adults are increasingly uncertain about who will perform memorial rites for them and maintain their graves. In this study, anthropologist Satsuki Kawano examines Japan’s changing death rites from the perspective of those who elect to have their cremated remains scattered and celebrate their return to nature. For those without children, ash scattering is an effective strategy, as it demands neither a grave nor a caretaker. However, the adoption of ash scattering is not limited to the childless. By forgoing graves and lightening the burden on younger generations to care for them, this new mortuary practice has given its proponents an increased sense of control over their posthumous existence. By choosing ash scattering, older adults contest their dependent status in Japanese society, which increasingly views the aged as passive care recipients. As such, this study explores not only new developments in mortuary practices, but also voices for increased self-sufficiency in late adulthood and the elderly’s reshaping of ties with younger generations. Nature’s Embrace offers insightful discussion on the rise of new death rites and ideologies, older adults’ views of their death rites, and Japan’s changing society through the eyes of aging urbanites. This book will engage a wide range of readers interested in death and culture, mortuary ritual, and changes in age relations in postindustrial societies.

In this newly revised and updated edition of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, you will find an empowering guide with practical tools to help live a passionate, fulfilling, growth-oriented life. The baby boomer generation is reaching retirement age with unprecedented good health and resources, and is no longer satisfied with their parents’ approach to aging. Many older adults are seeking an empowering vision for their future but find that hard to come by in a world that glorifies youth and has largely forgotten the gifts that can accompany the life stage of elderhood. With this expanded and updated 10th anniversary edition of Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, you will find a contemporary manual filled with practices and tools to help you navigate your elder years with purpose and clarity. Ron Pevny’s provocative model of “conscious eldering” opens the door to the rich possibilities of intentionally growing into elderhood, as contrasted with merely growing old. Through advice, practices, and personal stories, this book will help you distill wisdom from your many years of life experience, navigate loss and grief, identify new passions and goals, and remain engaged and relevant as you enter life’s later chapters, creating a lasting legacy and a healthier world for the generations to follow. It’s time to engage with family, community, your spiritual source, and the world, which needs your talents. Don’t just grow old. Aim high and claim the gifts of elderhood.

Renowned psychotherapist and aging expert Andrea Brandt, PhD, MFT, helps you throw out the old stereotypes about getting older and move toward the welcoming new evidence that you future is alive with possibility, providing steps to thrive today and into your golden years. This book is full of exercises and tools to help you embrace a new mindset and blaze a new trail in your life fueled by passion, purpose, and creativity.