Did you know that your retirement can be hazardous to your health? No, your retirement is supposed to be a time of your life. You can kick back and enjoy life for a little while, but if you aren’t looking after yourself then it can be a hazard.
Retirement changes your life. All of the routines that you’ve had set in place for the last 30 years are about to go out the window. So whether you’re moving to a part-time work style or you’re becoming a consultant to work for yourself, your schedule will never be the same. Maybe you’re heading out on retirement to travel. All of those healthy habits you spent years building up for yourself could easily be chipped away in retirement because you don’t have a structure or a routine to your day any longer.
The thing is, you can use pretty much anything as an opportunity to embrace your health, and that includes your retirement. You may not be quite ready for the care home yet, but that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare to go into one if you need to. You need to prepare for your future in your retirement as much as you prepared for your retirement when you were working. With that in mind, here’s how you can stay healthy when you retire.
- Don’t stop moving. Stagnating now is not a good idea. You might have spent a lot of time in the gym or pushing yourself to activities and walks while you’re at working age, and that should continue. Without an active commute or lunchtime walks, you could find yourself becoming very stagnant and sedentary, but you can avoid that. Move a habit by making a point of going out for a walk early in the morning and starting and ending your day with a bike ride. If you’ve waited until retirement to adopt a dog, take the dog for more walks than they need. It gets you out of the house and stops you from becoming isolated.
- A new routine is in place. They say that old dogs can’t learn new tricks, but that’s not true. If you spent years cultivating a routine that works for you, then there’s no reason why you can’t cultivate another one. If you know that you’re great with structure, then you have to set yourself up with structure, and that means taking the time to learn the new routine that works for you.
- Think carefully about mealtimes. Eating well is a great way to stay healthy in retirement, and you need to keep an eye on your ageing body. The things that you need now are very different from the things that you had when you were younger. You might have been able to handle more than one glass of wine and some pizza when you were 30, but that might not resonate the same now that you’re in your 60s.
- Get a coach. If you’re struggling to settle into retirement, then why not pay a life coach to help you through it? Stress to do with money or to do with your circumstances can impact your health and it can affect your heart and that’s the last thing that you want in the years that you waited so long for.
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