Videos about aging are a dime a dozen. Here are a few of the best.
"When I'm 65" is a one-hour program by Detroit's PBS station, DPTV, about managing our money so we can retire as we wish. It's bound to be harrowing for many of us, but it's essential viewing for most. The affiliated website is chock-full of great retirement planning resources, news, and videos curated by staff of Detroit Public Television (DPTV).
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Psychologist Laura Carstensen, founder and director of the Stanford Center on Longevity and author of A Long, Bright Future is famous for (among other accomplishments) discovering that older people are happier than younger people. She explains her research for a lay audience here. Thank you, Dr. Carstensen!
Check out this interesting interview with Twyla Tharp on PBS NewsHour, on the occasion of the publication of her new book, Keep It Moving: Lessons for the Rest of Your Life. The brilliant choreographer is ever-inspiring. I write about her book briefly here.
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The University of Michigan's Thad Polk, cognitive science researcher, gives a clear and concise explanation of why aging is not what we think.
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Dr. Bill Thomas, author of Second Wind and many other books, gave this closing keynote, a wonderful introduction to his work, at the 2018 conference of the MId-America Institute on Aging and Wellness at the University of Southern Indiana.
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If you don't know the Khan Academy, you should. Their free video tutorials cover, it seems, every topic on the planet. Truly deeply impressive. This video gives a friendly 3-minute overview of the findings of the research of Thad Polk and others about cognitive development with age.
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This video from Huffington Post's "Listen to America" series, "The Harmful Effects of Ageism," brings home how ageism can kill.
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Aging is harder on women than on men. It's just a fact. As men age, they gain in authority and sexiness for a good long while. Women, in contrast, are far more likely to be made invisible after menopause, at the latest. The San Diego-based Old Women's Project is brilliant, impassioned, and even funny about it all. This video, by filmmaker Jennifer Abod, is a great primer on ageism-as-sexism and a wonderful introduction to OWP.
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AARP boldly experimented with blatant ageism in this "Under-40 Food Truck" experiment. It's saddening to see how people are hurt by it, and happy to see how many people are affronted on others' behalf.
JoAnn Jenkins, the astounding CEO of AARP, lays the groundwork to disrupt aging. After you watch the video (Jenkins starts talking about 5 minutes in, after a lengthy introduction), read the book, noted here.
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What's not to love about Jane Fonda? Her book Prime Time, is well-informed and well-written, and her TED talk about "Life's Third Act" is fun and sometimes inspiring viewing.
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Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks! A Manifesto against Ageism and the first guest on "Aging for Life," discusses the impact of ageism in this TED talk.
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Atul Gawande's 2014 book, Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End, is indispensable reading about aging, declining health, and decisions we make, in tandem with health care professionals, that make the inevitable process of dying far worse than it needs to be. Read the book, and watch him discuss it in this hour-long, interactive lunchtime talk with Google staff.
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In this hour-long 2015 talk to the American Planning Association, Debra Whitman, Executive Vice President and Chief Public Policy Officer of AARP, gives a detailed introduction to AARP's Age-Friendly Communities initiative. The initiative is designed to keep us thoroughly integrated into intergenerational communities as we age. Whitman unveils AARP tools useful for city planners, policy makers, and individuals wondering where to live as we age. This is the best explication of age-friendly communities I've seen. Find a 3-minute explanation of AARP's "Livability Index" here.
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Most of us are surprised by age. We know, but don't believe, that it's really going to happen to us. Some of us respond by running out for cosmetics, plastic surgery, and anti-aging miracle cures. The artists Alice and Richard Matzkin responded by turning toward their aging bodies and those of their friends and acquaintances, and documenting the beauty they found. In this brief video they discuss the book they created to document their process, The Art of Aging: Celebrating the Authentic Aging Self. It is a remarkable gift to the world.
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