Retirement marks a significant transition in life, offering a new-found freedom that can be both exciting and daunting. While finances are important in retirement, maintaining your wellbeing is equally crucial to fully enjoy this new chapter in your life.
Here are 5 tips to help you navigate the psychological aspects of retirement.
1. Approach it like a new job
Retirement is a difficult time for some people because they have an unrealistic view of what it will be like. Sitting around all day watching TV might be fine for a while, but you need structure in your day to maintain your mental wellbeing.
We tend to get bored without things to stimulate us and this can lead to depression and anxiety. To help prevent this, it can be helpful to approach retirement like a new job, which means actively planning your retirement beforehand.
Write down what activities you’d like to do.These may be things you’ve always wanted to do but, because of work, you have not been able to. Or perhaps there are aspects of your work that you love and would like to continue to do.
Or maybe you want to give back to your community, or support a cause you’re passionate about, by volunteering. All of these are potential activities you can pursue in retirement.
It can help to call these activities ‘work’ when you’re retired, so other people do not assume you’re not doing anything with your time.It can also help you to build a new identity and prevent the sense of loss people can feel when their career is no longer a core part of their identity.
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2. Structure your days
Once you’ve decided on the activities you would like to do, you can start to structure your new ‘working’ life around them. The benefit of retirement is that you can choose your working hours, so if you do not want to start work until midday then you do not have to.
But it’s important to identify your working hours and stick to them, so when you’re not working you’re free to do other things and enjoy them as a reward for the work you’ve done.
3. Discuss your plans with family
Speak to your family about your retirement plans, so they do not have unrealistic expectations of how much free time you’ll have. For example, if you have grandchildren, you may be asked to look after them more when you retire, so it’s important your children know how much spare time you’ll have.
You can then build looking after your grandchildren into your day or week. Also, by sharing your plans with your family and developing them together, you’re more likely to get their agreement and support.
4. Build new social networks
You may not realise it until you retire, but workplaces offer important social structures. If you enjoyed work and made good friends, you may want to keep up those relationships after you leave.
But if you did not enjoy work, you may distance yourself from work colleagues when you retire. If this happens it can lead to social isolation and loneliness, which in turn carry a risk of depression.
Pursuing activities that you enjoy can help prevent this. Most activities require some form of social contact, even if it’s only with a few people. So getting involved in an activity makes it easier to form and maintain social connections and build new friendships.
We all need social support, and the more we have the better.
5. Get healthy before you retire
It’s important to be healthy in retirement so you can enjoy it to the full. This means making time for your health before you retire, such as attending health checks for risk factors for heart and circulatory conditions, like high blood pressure and high cholesterol, and having regular dental, eye and hearing checks.
A healthy lifestyle, such as eating a diet with lots of vegetables, fruits and wholegrains, maintaining a healthy weight, getting enough sleep and exercising regularly, is also essential. Staying active is especially important as it offers social and mental health benefits as well as physical ones.
It does not really matter what you do – join a dance club or go for a walk in nature. Pets, like a dog that needs to be walked regularly, can be a great way to exercise and get together with friends at the same time.
The benefits of volunteering
A British Heart Foundation (BHF) survey of 770 volunteers shows volunteering can boost happiness and wellbeing, all while making a difference to a cause you feel passionate about. The survey found:
- 8 added to their overall happiness.
- 8 out of 10 (80 percent) said it helped them meet new people
- 7 out of 10 (68 per cent) said it improved their mental health.
- 6 out of 10 (58 per cent) said it improved their physical health.
- 5 out of 10 (52 per cent) said it helped them overcome loneliness.
Become a BHF volunteer.
Meet the expert
Gregory Fitzgibbon is an occupational psychologist with 30 years’ experience. He is based in London and is associate fellow of the British Psychological Society
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