The thing you’ve been looking forward to after decades of working? Yeah. Don’t do it. According to the mountain of research I pretend to understand while scrolling through my phone at 2 a.m., retiring is basically the equivalent of giving your brain a pink slip. Work gives us purpose, a routine and keeps your social network 25% larger.
Yes, you hate me now. But the negatives associated with retirement are eye-popping. Retirement is associated with a 40% increase in cardiovascular incidents like heart attack or stroke. It increases blood pressure, cholesterol, body mass, chance of cancer and likelihood of diabetes. Heck, the chance of any chronic health condition is 21% greater for retirees. Stay employed and you cut that in half.
“Eric, stop saying these things. I want to retire.”
Memory scores drop by 25%. Chance of major depressive disorder increases by 40%.
“Cut it out, Eric.”
Not retiring reduces mortality risk by 11%. For every year you work after 60, your risk of dementia drops by 3.2 percent.
“Eric, say something that makes me feel good about not working or I’m hitting the unsubscribe button.”
Okay, okay. As you might suspect, actually “having a job” isn’t the crucial factor here. But if you stop working you need to maintain the positive things employment provides: being cognitively engaged, a sense of purpose, social interaction, continuing to learn, etc.
Staying in some form of work means you’re still part of the world, still making connections that don’t revolve around pinochle or comparing cholesterol levels. More than anything else, you need to be engaged with life — and not merely shoving as many hours of television into your eyeballs as possible.
Eric is Eric Barker. Author of Barking up the Wrong Tree” He produces a newsletter. The above is an exert.
A friend of mine, not retired, casually said, “My friends keep dying…they retired” The point is that having a sense of purpose makes a difference, especially as your body is not as youthful and resilient anymore. I often get people talking to me about retirement….mostly because they are fed up and want out of what they are doing. Sadly, that’s the wrong way forward. The key is retiring to something better, which means your focus is entirely different.