Many people experience unpleasant feelings during retirement; instead of enjoying their free time, they experience mild depression. The beginning of retirement is a sensitive period for many people, and it becomes difficult to cope with new conditions.
Retirement is a primary philosophy in every working person’s life because they will reach it whether they like it or not, but how to spend this time depends on the person.
Retirement is a withdrawal from work or social aspects of life accompanied by extensive changes in daily life, opportunities, expectations, values, hopes, and fears. Since retirement is one of the important events and the transition from early adulthood to secondary adulthood in many people’s lives, it is necessary to face and compromise with it.
Retirement and mental problems
Many people think about and plan for the golden days of retirement during their working years. For example, they travel worldwide and enjoy life as much as possible. But as soon as retirement arrives, the elderly will experience a sense of identity loss. It doesn’t matter what job you have. After retirement, you may be asked questions about who you are now and what you are striving for.
Many people find retirement difficult due to the change in their lifestyle, but some tips can make it easier to adapt to this stage of life. There are other problems in retirement, such as less money and more time. For this reason, coping with these new conditions and this great transformation causes psychological problems such as anxiety and depression for the elderly.
The most critical challenge of retirement
– Changing the feeling of work to a situation where you have to rest all the time.
– Worrying about the longtime of unemployment and how to spend this time with a valuable and suitable activity
– Loss of identity. (Part of people’s identity is their job, when they are not working, they are likely to face the question of who I am.)
– Feeling of isolation and remoteness due to lack of work interaction
– Changing the daily life schedule and maintaining individual independence in new conditions
– Decrease in self-confidence due to the end of work activities
Strategies for coping with retirement
Waiting for feelings to change
Retirement is a multi-step emotional process for most people. This process is a series of significant dynamic changes that you should expect when you retire. At first, right after retirement, you feel free. It’s like you’re on a vacation that’s supposed to last forever. You have always been waiting for and planning for these days.
The sense of newness of the situation and conditions gradually disappears, and the lifestyle becomes calmer and more uniform. At this stage, you may experience a feeling of regret and constantly ask yourself why this happened. Why did I quit my job? I wish my job would continue and I would go back to work.
In the next stage, anxiety and boredom will come to you. You might even feel guilty that you’re not enjoying your retirement enough. These feelings are entirely normal. Rest assured that you are not alone in experiencing this feeling.
During this time, give yourself enough time to experience different emotions. These feelings can be anything from anger to sadness to regret to guilt. Suppressing or ignoring these feelings causes you to turn to inappropriate ways of coping, such as perhaps turning to alcohol or junk food.
Look for healthy ways to deal with these varied and sometimes conflicting emotions. For example, for things like walking, reading, writing, and talking to others, yoga can be helpful in this situation. Talking to other retired colleagues like you can help you feel better. You can get inspiration from their solutions.
Daily Schedule
Before you retired, you used to follow a particular schedule daily, wake up at a specific time, eat breakfast and leave the house. During the rest of the day, these predetermined plans continued until you reached the last objective: going to bed.
If you lived with a particular schedule before retirement, you could also plan your days during retirement. Experience different activities at different times of the day so that you can find suitable options to include in your daily schedule.
You may enjoy reading the newspaper and drinking tea and want to spend more time on this, but try to plan enough time for sports, social activities and family gatherings.
Planning gives order to your life and saves you from confusion. While you don’t need to follow your schedule as rigidly as you did when you were working, having a specific and somewhat flexible schedule can help you feel more routine. You have a definite plan for tomorrow, and you don’t get bored and lethargic due to a lack of a program.
Set small goals
Before retirement, your life was spent constantly striving to reach milestones, looking for new opportunities, completing various projects, and preparing for career advancement.
In retirement, you can also focus on achieving your goals, although these goals may be slightly different from your previous ones. By trying to accomplish a goal and doing new things, you can experience a sense of usefulness and success again, providing the necessary motivation to continue.
Think about what milestones you want to reach in your life one month, six months or a year after retirement and write down the results of your thinking. Do you want to lose weight, go on a particular trip, or read books you’ve wanted to read but haven’t had the chance to read? The goals you can set are more than you think and aren’t limited to a few fun plans.
Expanding friendships
There is a risk of isolation in retirement. After 30 years of meeting friends daily in the office, you may need help to communicate with your friends easily. Include contact with old friends in your schedule. Plan to go for a walk, have lunch at a restaurant, or hang out with your friends. If you can’t do these programs every week, schedule them monthly. If you and your partner are friendly with other couples, try to invite them over for dinner or board games at least once a month.
If you feel that the number of people you have connections with is too small to be sufficiently social, take advantage of the opportunities that arise in retirement to make new friends. Check out the programs offered by sports complexes and cultural centers, and nursing homes like Cavendish Manor Retirement Residence. Connect with a group of retirees who are pursuing your favourite pastime. Many retirees form multi-person groups and engage in their favourite pastimes. Some seniors even include job groups with their old colleagues and other elderly who share the same career. Walking groups are an example of such friendly connections.
New financial planning
Even the best savers will need to make changes to their financial planning after retirement. At this moment, your income will decrease, and your expenses may also increase. Of course, some costs also change. For example, the money you used to pay for work clothes, you can spend on training classes or cultural centers that you would like to be a member of after retirement.
At this time, you have more free time and need more joy. By reviewing your financial planning, you will likely need a second job to cover living expenses. Or maybe you have enough money and income for a foreign trip. Be sure to include some cash for your entertainment in your new planning.
Doing voluntary work
After retirement, you may want to avoid going back and forth as usual, and that’s understandable. You can start volunteering and set your commuting hours.
Doing voluntary social work that makes you more present among people and society has many benefits for retirement. Doing these makes you feel that you are still a part of the community and that your presence is valuable. In addition, your mental and physical health will improve. You may not believe it, but the health of the heart and blood vessels is regulated, and you will not suffer from tensions and anxieties.
These volunteer jobs range from teaching a craft that you specialize in to helping to nurse those in need, all of which are valuable things you can do in retirement.
Research has shown that the elderly who participate in social and voluntary work feel more satisfied with life and experience fewer symptoms of depression than others.
Flexibility and patience
In all the years you’ve worked, you’ve always sought an opportunity to think more about your passions. Now is the time to find your favourite work and hobby with patience. Give yourself time to understand the situation and adjust to the new lifestyle fully.
During this time, be flexible and try different things. There are so many things to try in this era of leisure. You can spend enough time and investigate all aspects. It is optional to reach a conclusion and follow a path quickly.
Ultimately, it takes time to figure out what you love to do or what you want to do with your life. You can change your life plan whenever possible, and nothing will stop you. One of retirement’s most critical features and benefits is the freedom to experience new things.
Adapt to retirement
Retirement is one of the most challenging times in life. In this era, people have less money and more time. The sense of freedom and liberation of retirement is an excellent opportunity to experience new things. Still, sometimes some people experience a sense of isolation and depression due to being separated from society.
Before you experience isolation and an empty daily life during retirement, by applying the solutions mentioned above, you can spend this time with more enthusiasm and have something valuable to do. Living in the Cavendish Manor Retirement Residence is one of these ways to cope with retirement. This center has provided all the necessary facilities and entertainment for you to enjoy the golden days of your retirement.
