Empowering good health and happiness beyond 50
Date Published: 20 March 2026
— Professor Chris van Tulleken, Clinician, Academic, TV Presenter, UK
Aged 50+ is a pivotal stage in many women’s lives. We are entering post-menopause—free from reproductive hormones, periods, and contraception. Children may be leaving home, careers may be shifting or winding down, and there is the dawning realisation that we may have 20 or 30 healthy years ahead of us. This is not an ending, but a powerful new beginning. This stage of life offers an opportunity to reconnect with yourselves, to rediscover what truly matters, and to prioritise self-love and self-care without guilt. This book brings you the wisdom of 50 inspiring women who share their lived experiences with honesty and generosity. Their stories offer guidance, reassurance, and permission to live authentically on your own terms. Together, they show how this stage of life can be rich with meaning, purpose, freedom, and joy. These are Your Joyful Years.
Professor Joyce Harper is a down-to-earth expert in reproductive and women’s health, with almost 40 years’ experience listening to women and translating science into practical, evidence-based guidance. She has published widely about women’s health and is passionate about helping women thrive. Joyce combines research, real-world experience, and a deep belief in living life to the full, and she practices what she preaches. This book is the second in her trilogy: Your Fertile Years; Your Joyful Years; and Your Final Years.
Prologue
A Gift from Me to You:
Embrace Your Health
and Happiness Beyond 50
This book is a gift to women around the world. My
intention is for every woman beyond 50 to live
her best life and for it to truly become the most fulfilling and joyful time.
Writing this book and listening to these women changed my life, and I hope it
changes yours.
Why did I write this book?
Almost daily my mother wished people good health and happiness. Throughout my
life I’ve taken this saying on board and lived a relatively healthy and happy
life. But at 50, having gone through the menopause, I became a single parent of
three boys under 10, and I felt it was time to take my mother’s saying to
another level so I could live my best life ever. I knew I was running out of
time.
Now, I’m a 62-year-old woman
feeling the need to write about the power of postmenopausal life because few
people talk about the wonders of our second spring. But don’t take my word for
it. In Your Joyful Years I share
my stories and the stories of 50 other women who are thriving and happy. I want
these words to be an inspiration to all women. To give you the permission and
motivation to achieve good health and happiness. This is the first book to
share so many stories from women about ageing.
Who is this book for? It is for women
who are struggling at any age. I have especially seen issues for mothers when
their children leave the nest, and at retirement for those who have worked.
Life is a journey, and we all face challenges, particularly through divorce,
grief, perimenopause, and ill health. I genuinely believe that it’s never too
late to find joy and transform our lives by reconnecting with self-care and
self-love. It is not selfish. But the most common response I hear from women is
that they don’t have the time to look after themselves. If you are in your 50s,
60s, 70s or 80s when you are reading this—you are nearer the end of your life
than the beginning. We cannot wait any longer. If you want to live your last
decades as a healthy and happy woman—now is the time. Through the honesty and
wisdom of the stories in this book, I hope you will find inspiration to
reconnect with your authentic self.
But let’s not do this
alone. I believe women supporting women is incredibly powerful and as I have
grown older, the women in my life have become more important to me than ever
before. Let’s find our tribe and flourish.
Society has decided how women aged over 50 should be
behaving. Let’s reset this and rise to our power. This book aims to help you
make this shift and give you tools to help you live the life you have always
wanted. Life does not need to be a constant struggle. By this stage in your
life you may be curious, and searching for more, and this is why you are
reading this book.
In 2023, at the start of
the journey to write this book, I asked my friends on Facebook what they
thought about my idea to write a book sharing the stories of happy women, and I
received so much support, but also a thought-provoking comment from a dear
friend. She said “Anyone who says they are happy is either on drugs or
delusional” which is a sentiment I totally disagree with. I don’t think we can
be happy all the time, but there are those people who are happy most of the
time. And we can learn from each of them.
How did I select the 50 women I
interviewed? Initially, I chose a handful of women who I knew were joyful and I
used a method called snowballing, where I asked each woman for suggestions of
other people to interview. Of the final 50 women, there are five who are
long-term friends, 16 are acquaintances, most of which I have only met a few
times, and the others were totally unknown to me before the interviews. You can find out who they are at the end of this prologue.
I have interviewed many of them on my podcast, with further interviews planned
in the future. What they have in common is that they all are thriving.
We need to see role models who are
flourishing—these are the women in this book.
Chapter 1 begins with these
women’s views about ageing. After spending years on the treadmill of life, many
of them have finally paused, reflected, and turned their attention inward. They
realise that they are now living their happiest and most authentic lives, and
they feel that ageing is a privilege. But life has not always been like this
for these women. You will read about the challenges they have faced, including,
illness, bereavement, divorce, abuse, and trauma. What stands out is how they
responded to these difficulties, learning from these experiences and moving
forward with resilience and hope.
While this book is about
looking forward, I felt it was crucial to share the women’s menopause stories
in Chapter 2: Redefine Menopause: The Realities, The Myths, and The Truths. A
few of them experienced no symptoms, while others went through some of the
toughest periods of their lives. They emerged on the other side, viewing
menopause as a reawakening and a gateway to a new chapter.
The main section of the
book is divided into two parts. The first part, Look After Your Happiness,
explores: hobbies; creativity; adventures and challenges; relaxation; time in
nature; quality time alone; sense of purpose and retirement; and sex and love.
I believe these should be in our happiness toolkit. The second part, Look After
Your Health, focuses on the five pillars of wellbeing, which include:
nutrition; exercise; sleep; mental health; and friendships, including family,
friends, community, and lovers. Throughout these chapters I share the
experiences and words of the women I interviewed.
The final chapter, The
Future is Yours: Reflect, Reimagine, Reinvent, brings together my thoughts
about how women can lead their most authentic lives, with good health and
happiness. I explore what the women think about religion and spirituality, if
they feel free, and what advice they would give their younger self.
Each
chapter ends with thoughts to take with you.
This book is global. The women I interviewed live in the: UK, USA,
Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Iceland, Israel, New Zealand, and Spain,
where they work as: an adventure activist, App designer, author, charity
director, coach, doctor, editor, fitness instructor, home maker, influencer,
journalist, literary agent, model, nurse, personal assistant, physiotherapist,
podcaster, radio producer, wellbeing and yoga retreat centre manager, teacher,
are retired, and much more.
Before
I introduce you to the women I interviewed and reveal how they answered the
questions asked of them, I would like to ask a favour. I would like you
to ask yourself the questions I asked the women. Maybe do this with a friend
and listen to each other’s answers or write them down in your journal. Take
your time. All the women had my questions in advance to give them time to think
about their answers. Most of the interviews took well over an hour and many of
the women said they thought it was therapeutic to answer these questions. I
think it is key to reflect on our lives and see how far you have or have not
come from the struggles you have experienced. We are still on our journey.
About the Author
Joyce is deeply passionate about empowering women to live their best lives through good health and happiness. Her last book, Your Fertile Years, published by Sheldon Press in 2021, explores women’s health from puberty to menopause. In Your Joyful Years, she shares the wisdom of 50 women over 50 who are thriving, to empower women to lead a life of good health and happiness. She has started writing her next book, Your Final Years, about the end of life.
Her podcast Why didn’t anyone tell me this? is ranked in the top 10% of podcasts globally on Listen Notes and is listened to in more than 90 countries.
Joyce gives many public talks. She regularly appears in the press, on radio and TV. She is a regular guest on various BBC programmes including Women’s Hour and the BBC World Service. She has been a guest on Brian Cox’s Infinite Monkey Cage and his radio show A Question of Science and she explained sex to Philomena Cunk, in Cunk on Life.
As co-founder and co-lead of the UK Menopause Education and Support Programme (InTune) with Dr Shema Tariq and the International Reproductive Health Education Collaboration (IRHEC), Joyce is dedicated to improving reproductive health education for all ages. She collaborates with schools across the UK and globally to deliver impactful programs that promote knowledge and understanding.
An avid cold-water swimmer, Joyce is also a founding member of the research network SwimHer, which investigates the links between women’s health and cold-water swimming. Her groundbreaking work includes publishing the world’s first study about how cold-water swimming affects menstrual and menopause symptoms.
Since 2016 she has run a local women’s group in Saffron Walden, The Purple Tent.
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