Retirement might seem like the time to finally put your feet up. After all, you’ve worked hard, the kids have left home and, well, you don’t have to be anywhere. However, slowing down might be just about the worst thing you can do for your physical and mental health.
The Risks of Slowing Down After Retirement
Gerontologists now refer to the retirement years as “the third age” of your life. But rather than taking it easy, they say, it’s a time to cultivate interests and activities similar to those when you were working. “If you think that retirement is the time to put your feet up or to stay home and watch TV, everything will go downhill. You need to exercise your mind and strengthen your body,” says Carolyn Dean, MD, ND, director of the Nutritional Magnesium Association.
Slowing down can lead to gradual functional decline, so gradual you might not even notice. Activities you take for granted, from walking up a flight of stairs, babysitting your grankids or picking something up off the floor, will become more difficult if you don’t keep active.
As the body slows, so does the mind. Thus, almost any form of daily exercise will help keep your mind as sharp as it was before retirement. In fact, numerous studies have found that physical activity, such as resistance training and cardiovascular exercise, supports cognitive functioning in older adults. As Dr. Dean adds, “Whatever mental stimulation you were getting from your job, you need to find other outlets.”
Tips to Stay Active in Retirement
The good news is there’s a lot you can do to keep healthy in retirement. “It’s at the early stages of disability where you can potentially find interventions,” says Ben Lennox Kail, PhD, a gerontologist at Georgia State University. Kail stresses the benefits of stimulating your mind and body, even if it’s just for a couple of hours a week. For example, he says, “Any amount of volunteering is protective against disability.”
While researchers are still trying to figure out why volunteering keeps the body supple, it may be the simplest answer: it keeps us moving. “Some speculate that the physical health benefits might be related to increased physical movement, and that even small amounts of movement could have physical health improvements,” notes Dawn Carr, PhD, a Social Scientist at Florida State University.
And let’s not forget an important part of the body that volunteer opportunities also keep supple: the brain. A 2014 review of literature in the Psychological Bulletin showed that when older adults volunteer, they have a 47% lower risk of dementia and cognitive decline than those who don’t volunteer.
Here are Dr. Dean’s five tips for staying active in retirement:
- Engage in physical activities, such as walking or swimming, for at least one hour a day.
- Join clubs, community programs or a church where you can meet new people.
- Keep your mind engaged by writing a daily journal or completing crossword puzzles.
- Eat a healthy diet high in vegetables and protein and low in sugar, alcohol and dairy.
- Add magnesium to your supplements, it can ease muscle tension and relax the mind.
In the end, you might be stepping off the treadmill of work, but it’s really just about readjusting the settings.
