Frank Tallis - Wise

How should we age wisely? Is it possible to remain psychologically healthy, given the daunting challenges of later life? Accumulated regrets, bereavement, disappointments, physical deterioration and the big one: our mortality.

We are, after all, living longer than ever, thanks to medical advances.Frank Tallis, acclaimed author and clinical psychologist, offers reassuring answers in his new book Wise.

In it he explains how we can embrace the inevitability of death, even if our brains are hard-wired to resist it.

Tallis, 67, urges us to make the most of the time we have left.

A midlife crisis for some, an opportunity for the wise.Intriguingly, the greatest philosophers and psychologists, from ancient Greece to the 21st century, concur in their advice.

We have a single task to accomplish: wholeness.

Benefits such as better decision making will flow in the second chapter of life once mind and body, past and present, rationality and intuition the polarities within the self are fully integrated.The key to a greater sense of ease is self- awareness.

There is an enormous emphasis at the moment on the young, Tallis says.

With Wise, he says he just wanted to redress the balance.