Experts in finance tell us that the best retirement plan is reaching your financial goals. That may give you peace of mind about your lifestyle in the future. Of course it’s important, but what about the fundamental need to age well as you enjoy your retirement years? Financial advisors are vague on that, as it’s not their area of expertise.
Health experts, on the other hand, remind us that all the money in the world doesn’t do much good if you lose your health. We tend to focus more on financial safety than we do on a lifestyle that will allow us to live better in our later years. We think of relaxing, traveling, enjoying free time after years of putting in hard work at the jobs we had. Do we ever contemplate that those retirement years need to include something hard? By this I mean something physically challenging.
Researchers have known for years that exercise helps preserve brain function, especially later in life o. And yet, According to the CDC, only about 24% of adults in the United States meet the recommended guidelines for both aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities. The minimum recommendation is about 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity per week and muscle-strengthening activities at least two days a week. Brisk walking is readily available but most people don’t even do that. Before retirement, the most common excuse is “I don’t have time”. But in retirement, you do. What now?
What Do We See Among Those In Declining Health After Retirement?
As a consultant in the aging field, I see plenty of impaired older adults. Some are in their 60s and 70s. Many more are in their 80s and beyond, still living on, but with multiple chronic illnesses. Their families are struggling with how to best care for them as their health declines. The wealthiest ones are not spared from these chronic diseases. The difference between them and their less financially secure age-mates is that those who have ample resources can afford the best care.
What Does It Cost?
In one real life example, a retired professional who has a life threatening illness is going downhill fast. He is in a high end private nursing home with their staff on hand and a full time, private “companion care” person at this side 24/7 so he won’t try to get out of bed and fall. It costs him $50,000 a month to be there. I don’t think he planned on spending the last part of his life that way. Was his condition preventable?
Preventing Or At Least Delaying Chronic Illness Is Possible
As a witness to so much decline, dementia, extensive medical need and family stress over the aging parents we see in our consulting work at AgingParents.com, I am fearful. I don’t want to be like that. I’m willing to take in the advice of gurus like Andrew Huberman, neurobiologist at Stanford University, who has a popular podcast. He was not the first one to suggest that hard exercise can help us live better longer. He has highlighted the concept. Scientists like him promote the idea of preventing chronic illness. It’s work. I accept that. I’ve adopted the strategy of prevention for a few years now and I make it a mission. He urges us to do hard things. OK. Got it. I found my hard things.
Pick Your Own Physical ‘Hard Thing’
What seems hard will be different for each person. Some who have never exercised before struggle to walk around the block. And that walk around the block can gradually get faster. Then it can extend to two blocks, and so on. For someone who has never joined a group to exercise, it might be learning to play pickleball. For those who seriously want to slow the muscle loss that accompanies aging, they will get some light weights and use them at home, or go to a gym and keep it up. The point is, you need to see it as a physical challenge. As one does this, the challenge changes and you can keep adapting to what “hard” means to you personally.
My Journey With Aging
At 63, I had retired from a very stressful second career and I wanted to exercise more. My nursing background (first career) had shown me that a healthy lifestyle absolutely had to include aerobic exercise very regularly. The lessons from thousands of patients I had been responsible for attending to taught me a lot about who stayed healthy, and who got sick. Who recovered faster was a lesson too. So, crazy at is seemed, I took up the multi-sport challenge of triathlon: swim, bike and run together, back to back, in each event. I picked only the short distance ones, never any long hours, all day things. That was my hard thing. It still is at age 77. I’m not a particularly talented athlete in any of the three parts. But I do get to the finish line and am overjoyed to cross it at this point in life.
Now, of course multi-sport is not for most older people. Too many can’t run anymore if they ever did. And other limitations get in the way of something that vigorous. Nor is anything that tough necessary to prevent chronic illness. But doing something hard, often, is likely necessary if you want to keep your independence and stave off what so many older people face in their retirement years. So far, it’s working for this elder. No chronic illness, no prescription medications, normal blood work and all that in my physical exams. Thank you, triathlon.
The Takeaway
As you look at retirement ahead, or maybe now, pick something physically challenging for yourself to start. Get off the couch and do something you personally see as your own “hard thing.” It doesn’t have to be “killer,” just challenging. There is no need to compare yourself to anyone else. There is a need to commit to your own healthy aging. If you don’t want to lose your own precious independence, it will take work. It is not magic or just luck. No doctor and no pill can do it for you. It is a choice you can make to live better longer.
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