Lots of healthcare professionals will be retiring soon. In fact, over 70,000 registered nurses alone will retire every year in the U.S. While retirement can be a time of great life satisfaction, it’s wise to prevent one possible outcome associated with retirement – loneliness.
Some individuals will adjust from working life to retirement without many problems. Others may have a more difficult transition and experience depression, loss and a decline in health. Some studies show that it might be better to partially retire rather than fully retire, because full retirement is associated with increased illness, mobility issues, a decline in activities of daily living and cognitive slowing.
One of the greatest hurdles for newly retired individuals is their loss of social connections. The negative effects of loneliness after retirement has been compared to smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being alcohol addicted, never exercising, and is twice as harmful if the retiree is obese.
One way to avoid the loneliness issue is to fully and meaningfully engage with friends and family. Healthy relationships have been known to defeat loneliness at older ages. Meeting new people, forming new relationships, belonging to a church, having travel and workout buddies are all healthy ways to overcome loneliness.
The period of time right after retirement may be riddled with conflict and personal problems. I know of a nurse who, after 20 years of staying home while her husband worked, went back to work because she couldn’t take him being home all the time! Luckily, this usually works itself out after around a year or two.
According to the research, women are far better at forming and maintaining relationships than men are. But when men do have good relationships, they are happier, healthier, and stay away from smoking, drugs, and too much alcohol.
Retirement takes time to ease into. There will be challenges but the benefits should far outweigh them. Be especially aware of the importance of relationships after retirement. They can be the difference between happiness or loneliness.