eBook Review: "Distress-Free Aging" by Amy Sherman

Amy Sherman is a licensed mental health counselor, a blogger, and the author of "Distress-Free Aging: a Boomer's Guide to Creating a Fulfilled and Purposeful Life." "Distress-Free Aging" is a new eBook that promises "simple strategies [to] turn your life around."

As the name implies, the book is aimed at members of the baby boomer generation who are tackling retirement like no generation has ever done before. Boomers are active, healthy and determined not to just fade away. Some don't even want to retire in the traditional sense and instead plan to move on to more interesting and fulfilling careers. So what's the problem you might ask? According to Sherman, despite all of the promise of the new golden years, losing one's youth can still be a devastating experience filled with emotional and physiological changes and challenges. With a full third of one's life still left to live, Sherman says that midlife is the time to take control of the aging process by developing a personal strategy for living these remaining years.

Each chapter of the eBook focuses on a different aspect of who you are and explores those things that shape how you experience life. Chapters also include exercises for implementing what you learn with the overall goal of increasing personal satisfaction and fulfillment. For example, Chapter One focuses on your personal "belief system" and the exercises involve exploring how you think and feel about yourself. Belief systems affect how you behave and interpret what happens around you. The insights gained from understanding your belief systems will help you make changes to the ones that might be holding you back. (Sherman notes that many belief systems were formed in childhood and may silently counteract your attempts at change and improvement--that is until you first tackle the ones that are holding you back.)

While just about every technique in the eBook is readily available in other places, readers will enjoy the immediacy and economy of Sherman's approach (it covers all 10 major topics in just 65 easy-to-read pages). It is available as a mail-order CD-ROM or as a PDF download from Sherman's website and at the time of this review she was bundling it with coaching sessions.

Midlife boomers looking for a structured approach to bringing change to their lives might want to consider using this as their workbook. For more information, visit Distress Free Aging.