Books for Making the Best of Living Longer

Aging brings with it the gifts of experience, wisdom and self-knowledge. While it also brings limits and losses, how we approach this time of our lives can deliver tremendous rewards.

The books below and in the section on retirement planning offer new perspectives on the process of aging and how to make the most of later years of our lives.

To help you benefit from what the experts have to contribute, we have put together a list of books offering perspectives on aging well and slowly.

The links for each book allow you to buy any of these resources that you would like to explore in depth. When you click on a book link and then purchase the book from Amazon.com, a portion of the proceeds goes to support WISE & Healthy Aging.

Myths about what aging inevitably is are shattering as a result of new research. Many aspects of health – both mental and physical – are within our control to some degree. These resources help point the way to living long with gusto.

Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development by George E. Vaillant. This is a collection of interviews with people in their 70s and 80s who share their perspectives on living a long life. The book also draws on three groundbreaking longevity studies at Harvard that have followed close to 1,000 people for 50 years. Topics such as wisdom, how much the past matters, how much people change over time, retirement, play, creativity and the legacy an older person passes on to the next generation are covered in this book.

From Age-ing to Sage-ing: A Profound New Vision of Growing Older by Zalman Schacter-Shalomi and Ronald S. Miller. This is a guide for growing older with grace and gusto. Rabbi Schachter-Shalomi conends that we are at the cutting edge of the next stage in our evolution. He describes his theories of spiritual eldering, including the art of completing one's own life, becoming a mentoring and elders as healers of family and community. Rabbi Schacter-Shalomi describes his own turmoil as he approached 60 as way of illustrating his theory.

Healthy Aging: A Lifelong Guide to Your Physical and Spiritual Well-Being by Andrew Weil, MD. Drawing on both Eastern and Western philosophies, Dr. Weil sets forth a 12-point program for healthy aging. Dr. Weil's approach is not to fight aging, but to do it in the best health possible gracefully. His book offers both science and spirituality. He writes about the legacy of his own mother, who died at 93 and how her example has served as his guide in the process of growing older.

Living a Healthy Life with Chronic Conditions: Self-Management of Heart Disease, Fatigue, Arthritis, Worry, Diabetes, Frustration, Asthma, Pain, Emphysema and Others by Kate Lorig, et al. Getting older often brings one or more chronic conditions along with it. This practical, easy-to-use guide give wise counsel on how to positively manage long-term conditions and live a healthy life as well.

The Mature Mind: The Positive Power of the Aging Brain by Gene D. Cohen. Stereotypes about what age does to the mind abound, But Cohen draws from research studies that are shedding new light on the untapped powers of the mature mind. Among the topics covered in this book are creativity and aging, social intelligence, cognition, memory, wisdom and what he describes as "developmental intelligence."