How to Spend Your Time When You Retire

Why do some seniors feel anxious or unhappy in retirement? Our brains aren’t good at adjusting to dramatic changes, and retirement can be a huge change in lifestyle and routine. You might feel you’ve lost the respect that came with your position or are having difficulty filling your time after dedicating 40+ hours a week to an occupation.

Finding purpose outside of your career in retirement is a normal, confusing adjustment for many, so ask yourself the following to get some ideas of your interests and what would fulfill you:

• What are you most looking forward to when you retire?
• What do you most enjoy doing in your free time?
• What hobbies have you always wanted to start or return to?
• What places do you want to see or revisit?
• What do you want to add to your life?
• What makes you so excited you can’t sleep?

When you have things to look forward to and continue setting goals for yourself, it’s easy to find purpose with all your free time. Explore what you want to do in retirement with these ideas.

Enhance Your Health

The key to a good, long quality of life is staying healthy. During retirement, you can strive to live a more healthy lifestyle by:

• Going on walks
• Getting regular exercise that works for you
• Eating a well-balanced diet that fits your needs
• Joining a class or sports team
• Meditating and doing yoga
• Being out in nature
• Sleeping regularly
• Establishing daily and nightly routines
• Taking time to socialize and foster connections with new and familiar people

Further Your Skills and Education

The best way to avoid boredom and spark joy in your life is to stay curious! Many colleges and universities offer free or discounted tuition for seniors, so you can enroll in a class that interests you. Museums, libraries, and rec centers often provide resources to learn on your own or special speaker events to hear from experts and engage with others on shared interests. Retirement could be a time to further your skills and interests or pick up skills like another language or cooking.

Travel and Explore

There are no limits to your vacations now! Whether you’re going on a quick weekend trip or a three-week excursion, there’s many things you can explore or try:

• Camping
• Going on a cruise
• Traveling to other countries
• Visiting other states
• Crossing off experiential things on your bucket list
• Trying new restaurants and shopping local

Engage in Hobbies

Do you have a hobby you’ve always wanted to try or get back into? With all this free time on your hands, you can easily engage in hobbies as much or as little as you like. Whether it’s reading, writing, woodworking, painting, or getting on the ham radio, there’s abundant things you can explore! You might even want to consider forming a club for your special interest if one doesn’t already exist.

Care for Living Things

Perhaps those caretaking skills are tingling, in which case, you might want to care for another living thing besides yourself to have that sense of purpose. Maybe this is tending to an entire garden or small kitchen plants, which you can also use for food and medicinal remedies. Or you might want to get a pet that you can care for, make memories with, and show off to your friends and family.

Volunteer or Work (Even in Retirement!)

Some people have a hard time letting go of an occupation during retirement, so you might want to consider finding a new or alternative occupation! If you’ve developed a career or skills that you feel you can still give to the world, you can always continue to work side gigs, consulting, or volunteering your time. You could also be a mentor to younger folks who want to learn from someone of your expertise or overall experience in life.

Learn more tips and tricks about aging well with our free ebook, Living and Aging the Way You Want!

At Life Enriching Communities (LEC), we’re committed to ensuring patrons feel well-equipped to plan their future and age how they wish. Explore more resources on senior living or contact us today to learn more about our legacy of services and programs that bring meaning and purpose to every stage of life.