Our LATER LIFE MANTRAS

When you’re in your 20s and 30s it can be hard to imagine what you’ll feel like a few decades on. Greying hair, the menopause and creaky bones hardly seem like a recipe for feeling your best. Yet research consistently shows that happiness has nothing to do with age.

In a recent study at the University Melbourne, older women, particularly those who had gone through the menopause, reported feeling more patient, less tense, anxious and depressed, and tended to be less withdrawn as they entered their 60s. In another study* it was shown that with age you gather greater wisdom, decisiveness, compassion, self-knowledge and emotional regulation, which enhances your feelings of satisfaction and happiness with life. We asked four fabulous women to share the lessons they have learnt…

‘REMEMBER THAT BEING OLDER IS A PRIVILEGE’

Jo Charnley, 66, runs a marquee hire company in Essex

I’ve had breast cancer four times and unfortunately I have the BRCA (breast cancer gene). When I was young, all these aunties aged in their 50s used to pop