Our attitudes about our image and aging can directly affect our health and well-being. The over-publisized belief that we lose our value in society as we age can wildly diminish our quality of life. During a time of life that should be celebrated, women in their 50s are bombarded by the media with ideas of reconnecting to their youth. But, should they want to reconnect? To discover tools to keep us hearty and healthful as we ripen, Positive Psychology Podcast Host Lisa Cypers Kamen speaks with two expert authors about how attitude can affect a healthy, happy, aging process. Dr. Louann Brizendine is a researcher, clinician, and professor who founded the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF. She highlights the research at the core of her book, The Upgrade: How the Female Brain Gets Stronger and Better in Midlife and Beyond, and describes ways women can make the most of the second half of their lives. Dr. Becca Levy is a psychologist credited with creating a field of study that focuses on how positive and negative age stereotypes can have beneficial and adverse effects. She discusses the central theme of her book, Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long and Well You Live, and shares her vision for The Age Liberation Movement.

About Lisa’s guests: 

Dr. Louann Brizendine MD completed her degree in Neurobiology at UC Berkeley, graduated from Yale School of Medicine, and did her internship and residency at Harvard Medical School. She has served on the faculties of both Harvard and UC San Francisco, where she founded the Women’s Mood and Hormone Clinic at UCSF. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Female Brain, and its follow-up, The Male Brain.

Dr. Becca Levy received her Ph.D. in psychology from Harvard University and held a National Institute on Aging postdoctoral fellowship at the Division of Aging and Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. Credited with creating a field of study that focuses on how positive and negative age stereotypes can have beneficial and adverse effects, respectively, on the health of older individuals. Dr. Levy has given invited testimony before the United States Senate on the effects of ageism and contributed to briefs submitted to the United States Supreme Court in age-discrimination cases.