Ways to Help with Retirement Transitions

As we saw in the last post, there are those who are reluctant to retire, who might even be drawn into depression over it. However, it doesn't have to be that kind of shock. We may have the attitude of work till you drop or work until a certain age or goal and then enter a new stage in your life. In either scenario, it doesn't hurt to be prepared! Since I strongly believe in successful aging, I also believe in preparing for a successful transition into this next stage, retirement.

In this study, Mobilizing Resources for Well-being: Implications for Developing Interventions in the Retirement Transition*, the researchers sought to identify what people needed for a smooth transition into retirement and what programs could be created to help them. Almost everyone described a desire for well-being in retirement, just like the rest of us. We hope for a time in our lives when we can do what we want to do, travel, see friends more often, volunteer, etc. Interestingly, the study participants did not associate later life (also identified as the Fourth Age) with retirement; later life is farther down the road after you've been retired for a long time and your health declines. Think about what “later life” means to you. What does it look like?

The interventions the researchers came up with were based on the issues participants anticipated for their retirement, from having enough money to having a sense of citizenship (giving back to the community). The study suggested tools that would be used to create workshops on specific topics. The study seems to suggest that employers should provide these interventions. For instance, something we don't often talk about but the problem still exists: “Assisting individuals and couples to consider the ‘challenge’ of having a potential lack of structure.” The tool utilized would be a Retirement Time-reflection Tool and the workshop would help individuals and couples to visualize current patterns of time use and potential patterns of time use. The intervention would occur before retirement, of course. There are more tools to help with the variety of issues that come up as we face retirement, and these interventions would help us with a successful transition.

*Mobilizing Resources for Well-being: Implications for Developing Interventions in the Retirement Transition by Ben Heaven, PhD, Nicola O’Brien, PhD, Elizabeth H. Evans, PhD, Martin White, MD, Thomas D. Meyer, PhD, John C. Mathers, PhD, and Suzanne Moffatt, PhD from Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, UK., Centre for Diet & Activity Research, MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas at Houston, and Human Nutrition Research Centre, Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, Campus for Ageing and Vitality, UK. Read in The Gerontologist, 2016, Vol. 56, No. 4, 615–629.