Retiring is too often associated with the idea of decline. Yet, this doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all of your experience. You have all this time available to do what you’d like and it’s important to embrace this idea. At the same time, establishing ways to prioritize your health and well-being gives you the tools to enjoy your retirement to its fullest.
Let’s look at a few things worth focusing on.
Stay Social
While occasionally alone time is important, long periods of isolation are not often considered positive for your mental well-being. The sense of loneliness can trigger or exacerbate stress, depression, and anxiety. Unfortunately, this is something that tends to be a common feature when people head into their retirement years, due to friends and family moving away or, sadly, passing away. Therefore, one of the strategies for retirees to prioritize health and well-being is to make efforts to stay social.
Some of the ways you can do this could include:
- Joining a club: Joining a club is something you can do both to spend more time with existing friends and to make new ones. The environment can also be more relaxed. After all, everyone is engaged in something fun or creative, with socialization coming more naturally. You could consider finding a club in line with activities that particularly interest you. This could involve active hobbies — such as dancing or a sports team — or something more creative, like a theater group.
- Volunteering in the community: Many people choose to spend some time in retirement giving something back to their community. There are usually various options available here. Perhaps look for some that match your values and priorities. For instance, environmental clean-ups or tending food banks. Importantly, you can also build relationships with other volunteers. One of the great things about this is that there are usually people from a diverse range of backgrounds and ages, while also being likely to share your values. This combination can make for really enriching interactions.
Alongside these more structured social opportunities, it’s also important to keep in touch with people in your day-to-day life. This doesn’t mean you have to be a social butterfly. At the same time, it can be really easy to let these connections slip without regular effort. You can make standing appointments with friends and family to meet for a coffee or just a walk in the park. If your loved ones have moved away, you might consider scheduling video chats to keep connected.
Embrace the Changes
One of the things that tends to change as people transition into retirement is the sense of self. Age can influence your relationship with your body, as you continue to develop wrinkles or experience body shape changes. It’s not unusual to find it difficult to adjust to these natural alterations, as they don’t necessarily fit with the image you have of yourself. Nevertheless, making efforts to maintain a healthy self-image can be essential for your physical and mental well-being.
You can make a difference here by finding ways to embrace these changes and celebrate your body. This begins with catching and challenging negative thoughts you have about your current self-image. Question how accurate these are and look for evidence that counters them.
It can also be a great act of celebration to be curious about the changes in your body. After all, this represents a new phase in your development and you bear the marks of a life well-lived. You could even consider this an opportunity to adapt your sense of personal clothing style to accentuate the changes. Try new colours that help any new changes in your hair colour pop or experiment with tailoring.
Above all else, it’s worth remembering that your outer appearance doesn’t represent your whole self. Who you are inside is the truest reflection of the person you’ve become over the years. Even when you’re struggling with changes, focusing your attention on your inner qualities can help reinforce positive feelings about yourself and boost your self-esteem.
Try New Things
When you prioritize health and well-being you keep your mind and body active in retirement. Physical activity boosts your immune system, mobility, and mental wellness. Performing tasks can also strengthen your cognitive processes. Not to mention that not being stagnant simply staves off boredom! However, just doing the same activities all the time is not always particularly interesting. Retirement offers you the luxury of time. Being open to trying new things can help you reap the benefits of keeping active while also bringing a sense of vibrancy to your everyday life.
Exercise Hobbies
Taking up an exercise-related new hobby in retirement is one of the most direct ways to boost your cognitive and physical well-being. If you have specific health or mobility challenges, it’s important to make choices that don’t negatively affect your wellness. Walking, gardening, or swimming can be good low-impact active hobbies that tend to put less physical strain on joints. Joining sports teams aimed at retirees also tends to be good for enjoying exercise with people who share similar needs.
Travel
Travel is one of the most popular activities when people enter retirement. It’s also a fantastic way to expose yourself to new things. International travel, in particular, can introduce you to interactions with people with different lifestyles and empower you to discover new cultures. This exposure to diverse perspectives and experiences can help keep you cognitively active as well as broaden your horizons. But even if international travel isn’t an option, travelling to different states can still be a good way to discover geography, history, and communities you haven’t connected with before.
Learning
It has long been recognized that learning new things can keep your mind active. After all, following your curiosity can certainly boost your mood and overall mental well-being. A 2014 study — “Association of lifetime intellectual enrichment with cognitive decline in the older population” — found that continual learning helped delay age-related mental decline. You can take traditional structured classes or even learn independently online. Languages and music are particularly noted for being fun, enriching, and cognitively stimulating.
Conclusion
You can prioritize health and well-being strategies that empower you to stay active throughout your retirement. This can include taking steps to embrace your body changes alongside following your curiosity into new experiences. Remember, though, that your needs will shift as you age. Take a little time occasionally to assess your current abilities and limits. This enables you to make changes that prioritize your wellness as well as lead a fulfilling life.
Do let us know in the comments what activities you prioritize to keep your health and well-being after retirement.
