Retirement may not be what you think it is

Hannah Seo, America is doing retirement all wrong, Business Insider, December 11, 2024.

When we think of retirement, we often think of endless leisure and zero responsibility. You might imagine yourself relaxing poolside with a book, strolling through a golf course, or binge-watching TV shows. In fact, many retirees live like this. The 2023 American Time Use Survey found that adults between 65 and 74 spent, on average, almost seven hours a day on leisure and sports, with four of those hours spent watching TV. Adults 25 to 54, on the other hand, averaged about four hours of leisure time and about two hours watching TV.

Spending your twilight years lying around might sound ideal — after all, everyone deserves a chance to relax after decades of working. But research suggests a life of pure leisure doesn't make you happier or healthier. About a third of American adults have said they struggled in transitioning to a life without work, and sedentary lifestyles are associated with earlier death. People are living about 15 years longer than they did a hundred years ago, which means we have many more years to spend in retirement. While there's much hand-wringing over how to save up enough money to enjoy those work-free years, much less discussed is how we should spend those years. More and more research is finding that both physical and social activity are crucial for well-being in old age — they keep people happier and living longer.

Retirement is not a breeze:

Dee Cascio, a counselor and retirement coach in Sterling, Virginia, says the growing urge to work in retirement points to a larger issue: Work fulfills a lot of needs that people don't know how to get elsewhere, including relationships, learning, identity, direction, stability, and a sense of order. The structure that work provides is hard to move away from, says Cascio, who is 78 and still practicing. "People think that this transition is a piece of cake, and it's not," she says. "It can feel like jumping off a cliff."

In an online survey conducted early this year by Mass Mutual, a majority of retirees said they'd become less stressed and more relaxed upon retirement, but as many as a third reported that they'd become unhappier. Research from the Health and Retirement Study from the University of Michigan suggests that some of the negative effects people can experience in retirement are tied to lifestyle changes such as being less active and social in the absence of work.

Purpose in retirement:

Meanwhile, more and more research suggests that a sense of purpose is a vital factor for health and happiness, especially in older age. "Higher purpose in life is associated with reduced risk of heart attacks and strokes," says Eric Kim, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia. For adults older than 50, it's also associated with better grip strength and faster walking speed, better overall health, healthier habits, less loneliness, and a lower risk of depression.

There's more at the link. 

See the post I wrote about my father playing solitaire in his retirement.