The quality of sleep also improves, as retired people experience less early morning awakenings or nonrestorative sleep, unlike in their last working years. When people retire from work life, they sleep approximately 20 minutes longer than before retirement.
Retirement depression — feeling sad or lacking energy and focus after retiring — is surprisingly common. A study published in the Journal of Population Ageing found that those who were retired were about twice as likely to report feeling symptoms of depression than those who were still working.
Retirement affects your health
More specifically, research has found retirement significantly increases the risk of being diagnosed with a new chronic disease, such as angina, heart attack, diabetes, stroke, arthritis, cancer or psychiatric problems (1).
Research shows a connection between the early stages of retirement and cognitive decline, and numerous studies indicate that retirement can exacerbate a slew of mental health challenges, including anxiety and depression.
For many people, the hardest tasks in retirement are establishing a structure and personal relationships to replace what they had in their work environments. Work dictated the structure of their days and weeks for decades. In retirement, that structure has to be replaced.
Results indicate that complete retirement leads to a 5-16 percent increase in difficulties associated with mobility and daily activities, a 5-6 percent increase in illness conditions, and 6-9 percent decline in mental health, over an average post-retirement period of six years.
As a general rule, early retirement leads to a longer and happier life. The optimal age is your mid 50's, when you're still young and healthy enough to enjoy everything. The only caveat is ensuring sufficient savings to support your desired lifestyle.
In an instrumental variable approach that takes into account the joint relationship between work and mortality, delayed retirement reduces the 5-year mortality rate for men ages 62-65 by 2.4 percentage points, or a 32-percent reduction relative to non-workers.
Retirees enjoy over seven hours of leisure time per day, according to 2019 data from the American Time Use Survey. They use their newfound free time in a variety of ways, including taking up new hobbies, relaxing at home, watching TV and lingering over daily activities. Many retirees also continue to work or volunteer.
Generally speaking, the golden years begin at age 65 and last until age 80 and beyond. However, some experts question whether “golden years” still belongs in our vocabulary because the time span and definition of retirement have changed over the past half-century. “Older Americans live longer now than they did in 1960.
Depression after retirement is also common. It's estimated that almost one-third of retirees in the United States develop symptoms of depression at this stage of life. Managing depression is possible, though, and self-care and support can make a difference.
Loss and loneliness
The divorce rate typically increases during the first few years of retirement, leaving many living alone. A 2003 study published by the Journal of Aging and Mental Health found the most significant contributor to self-reported depression was a sense of loneliness.
A 65-year-old can expect to live another 19 to 21.5 years, on average, according to the Social Security Administration. What's more, the government agency says a third of 65-year-olds will hit age 90, and 1 in 7 will live beyond age 95.
Key Takeaways. Rules surrounding Social Security benefits established age 65 as a common retirement age. Men retire at an average age of 64.6 years, while women remain at work until age 62.3.
Money goes behind health, great relationships, and meaningful career in terms of importance, but as Ziglar says, “it's right up there with oxygen.” The sad fact of life, however, is that less than 5% of people will be financially free by the retirement age. Over 95% of the people will retire poor.
Early Retirement Won't Make You Lazy. Some people may think early retirement will lead to laziness, but I don't agree. If you're not lazy before retirement, you'll find plenty of things to do in retirement. Retirement doesn't change who you are.
For many older adults, boredom is their worst enemy in retirement. Sometimes retirement feels like being stuck in a limbo of procrastination with lots of free time (or lack of free time, believe it or not) but not enough motivation to actually get up and do all of those things you dreamed of.
Once you have an estimate of your annual retirement spending, you can begin to work out how much you need overall by multiplying your annual spending by the number of years you expect to spend in retirement, figuring in an extra 3% per year for inflation.
The rule works just like it sounds: Limit annual withdrawals from your retirement accounts to 4% of the total balance in any given year. This means that if you retire with $1 million saved, you'd take out $40,000 the first year. Even so, you'd also adjust this amount annually for inflation.