ArcaMax

A study in the JAMA Psychiatry journal revealed a surprising health risk among older Americans. Researchers compared data from a national survey of about 40,000 conducted in 2001 and 2002, and again in 2012 and 2013. They found that "high-risk drinking" had increased for every age group, but the greatest increase was among older adults. The ...Read more

As many of you know, my much-loved husband, Tony, died a few years ago. Since there are almost 14 million widows in America today, I am well aware that whatever challenges I've had to deal with since his death are probably not all that unique. Unfortunately, I have felt blindsided by many of the issues that survivors must face after the death of...Read more

Poet Robert Browning once wrote, "Grow old along with me!/ The best is yet to be."

Today, I'd like to continue sharing with you my fondness for Dr. Sherwin B. Nuland's remarkable book "The Art of Aging: A Doctor's Prescription for Well-Being." This gifted author (who died in 2014 at age 83) wrote the book when he was in his 70s, and used his ...Read more

For four decades, I was lucky enough to be a professional book critic. Sometimes my reviews would appear in The Wall Street Journal; sometimes they would show up in The Sunday Times; and frequently they would be in large American local newspapers -- from Los Angeles to Seattle to Dallas to Miami -- that regularly included "book pages" as part of...Read more

Most of us can fondly remember what it felt like to turn 50. And now that we've celebrated and survived additional landmark birthdays, it's easy to dismiss the anxiety and surprise that can accompany reaching a half-century of life. When I first picked up "Flip-Flops After 50: And Other Thoughts on Aging I Remembered to Write Down" by Cindy ...Read more

Here's a story to help you feel young at heart no matter how old you happen to be.

While paging through The New York Times a few years ago, an article by Vincent M. Mallozzi really impressed me. It was about an elderly man and woman who had fallen in love and decided to get married. You may find this hard to believe, but the bride was 98 years ...Read more

Full disclosure: Even though I've been obsessed with health issues my entire life, I've never been interested in working in the medical field. Most of my classmates from my all-girls high school chose nursing as a career, but I was so freaked out by hospitals and illness that I was the only teenager in my class to actively boycott working as a ...Read more

It's no secret that I've been labeled an alternative health advocate for most of my adult life. There's something undeniably seductive about the idea of trying to be the captain of your fate when it comes to taking care of your body. For that reason, I've been a huge fan of Dan Buettner, the National Geographic fellow and New York Times best-...Read more

The number of people in America who are over the age of 65 is expected to double during the next 25 years. Some major readjustments need to be made regarding how and where seniors live (and, as your peer, I'm speaking to you, baby boomers). A 2010 AARP survey found that almost 90% of respondents over the age of 65 said they want to stay in their...Read more

If you're like me, you probably experience plenty of days when you feel as if you are simply too old or too tired for whatever happens to be annoying you at the time. After all, we've weathered more than our share of challenges in the past decades, and the idea of lounging on a tropical beach or simply taking an extended break from our normal ...Read more

When I share my thoughts on growing older gracefully with my readers, it's important for everyone to know that, as in so many areas of life, I bring more enthusiasm to my activities than expertise. Fortunately, curiosity and enthusiasm often compensate for brilliance or a list of college degrees. Having said that, I'm going to go on the record ...Read more

Sixty-five years ago, Dr. Norman Vincent Peale revolutionized the publishing world with his enormously popular book "The Power of Positive Thinking." Fifty-one years later, the equally popular book and video "The Secret" proposed the same argument: that focusing on the things that we want (i.e., being positive or optimistic) can pay big ...Read more