Age Smart - How to Age Well, Stay Fit and Be Happy shows you how to use your brain to exert control over the way you age. Age Smart is the first book to incorporate cutting edge principles of positive psychology, "the science of happiness," into work for this age stage. You can't control every thing that happens to you, but you can control the way you respond. Aging happens. You can't stop it, but you can influence the process by keeping mentally fit and aging pro-actively.

Age Smart is interactive. Each chapter ends with a carefully designed Mental Fitness Workout containing practice exercises and activities that sharpen mental acuity, improve memory, promote happiness, and are fun to do. Each begins with a Relaxation Warm-up and Mental Calisthenics and ends with a Cool-Down. Exercises have levels of difficulty and target specific mental skills. The memory aids offered are tools, not gimmicks. Components help you identify your personal strengths and virtues which foster more than momentary happiness.

The engaging activities are not only enjoyable, they produce positive results and demonstrate transfer of learning - that much desired but hard to achieve goal of behavior modification. These are not simply paper and pencil exercises. Nor are they convoluted, difficult, trick questions few can answer.

Age Smart builds on the findings of the MacArthur Foundation study of successful aging, which indicate people are responsible for the way they age. You learn how to use the mind/body connection to guide the aging process. Just as there are exercises to strengthen the muscles of the body, there are exercises to strengthen the "muscles of the mind." These muscles support important cognitive functions on which mental activity and memory depend. Use it or lose it applies as much to the mind as to biceps and quads.

Chapters outline the book's game plan, analyze aging, discuss mental fitness, explore the mind/body connection, and demonstrate how to pursue happiness. Myths about aging are debunked, and effective methods for enhancing other key components of successful aging - physical, social and emotional fitness - are included. Their connection to mental fitness is fully demonstrated. Age appropriate nutrition, physical exercise and life style factors are fully covered.

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