Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging
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.
1119045494
Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging
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.
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Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging

Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging

Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging

Lighter as We Go: Virtues, Character Strengths, and Aging

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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.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780199360956
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Publication date: 09/23/2014
Pages: 306
Product dimensions: 5.50(w) x 7.10(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Part I: Character, Character Strength, and Continuity Over Time
Chapter 1. The Oak Tree and the U-Bend: Age, Well-Being, and the Experience of Me-ness
Chapter 2. A Look at the Grownup Years
Chapter 3. Character Strengths and Virtues
Chapter 4. Older Age in the Olden Days: A History of Aging in the Western World

Part II: The Virtues
Chapter 5. The Virtue of Transcendence: Beyond the Self
Chapter 6. The Underappreciated Virtue of Humor: You Can't Spell Joy Without the Oy
Chapter 7. The Virtues of Humanity and Social Justice: Do Unto Others
Chapter 8. The Virtue of Courage: If I Only Had the Nerve
Chapter 9. The Virtue of Wisdom: Knowing What We Don't Know
Chapter 10. The Virtue of Temperance: Moderation in All Things (almost)
Chapter 11. The Virtue of Passing on to the Next Generation: The Bridge Between Past and Future

Part III Putting the Virtues to Work
Chapter 12. When Older Doesn't Feel Lighter: Loneliness and Social Isolation
Chapter 13. The Virtue of Appreciating the Cycle of Life in Elders

Appendix: Vintage Readers Book Club Readings
From the B&N Reads Blog

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