Category Archives: Inspiration

6 Steps for Increasing Happiness During Retirement

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Post by Vladimir Fefer

We all want to be happy, and a lot of people have been looking forward to retirement as the time when they can sit back and enjoy life without having to worry about all the stressors that come with deadlines and bosses. But depression is one of the most common ailments plaguing our society and it can hit hard when someone leaves the workforce. Luckily, there is a lot of recent research on the factors that can lead to increased happiness and better overall emotional health and the findings might surprise you. So here’s 5 things you can do to be happier.

Happiness of the Body

(1) Exercise. One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself and your emotional health is to exercise regularly. It does not have to be complicated or hard. Just a 20 minute walk will get you the benefits of improved mood and better concentration abilities. You don’t need to join a gym or hire a trainer. The key is to start simply and build a habit. Start with a walk once a week and build from there.

(2) Sleep Better. Sleep is an often overlooked part of our lifestyle that actually has a huge impact on emotional well-being and happiness. I’m sure you know many people who get cranky when they haven’t gotten enough sleep or are running on low energy at the end of the day. If you’re like me, you ARE one of those people. Building a routine around your sleep schedule can help in many ways. Before I go to bed, I try to go over the things that went well during the day so that my mind is focused on good things as I fall asleep.

Happiness of the Mind

(3) Breath Work. Imagine if you spent all day watching sad movies and listening to sad songs. You’d probably be sadder. If you eat bacon cheeseburgers everyday you’d feel sluggish and unhealthy, so too the thoughts we allow inside our minds also affect us. So this tip is about allowing negative thoughts to pass by. Next time you have a negative thought, do this breathing exercise, it takes about a minute.

1. Exhale completely through the mouth.

2. Close the mouth and inhale deeply through the nose to a count of 4.

3. Hold the breath for a count of 7.

4. Exhale for a count of 8.

5. Repeat for 4 breath cycles.

While you’re doing this, focus on your breath. If other thoughts come to your mind, allow them to pass by, just focus on your breath. Doing this exercise regularly will help to alleviate anxiety and it will leave you more relaxed after you finish.

(4) Meditate. Imagine the Dalai Lama getting road rage. It’s a hard thing to imagine because we all agree he’s probably one of the calmest people on the planet. And he always has the slight smile on his face. Like he’s got a cool secret he wants to share with you. Want to know what that secret is? It’s meditation. The Dalai Lama and other Buddhist monks spend many years training and developing their ability to meditate. There’s many ways to meditate, but the breathing exercise you just learned can be a simple “toe in the water” for you to just try it out. Do the exercise without counting or holding your breath. Just close your eyes and focus on regular rhythmic breathing. You’re meditating! And that’s all it takes to start getting the mental benefits of this several thousand year old practice.

(5) Learn a New Skill. Your mind is incredibly adaptable and was designed to be used. Regular mental activity has tons of benefits (like helping prevent Alzheimers) but what’s important for us is the enjoyment and sense of accomplishment you will feel when you’re growing and getting better at something. I know a many in his 80′s who has spent the last 10 or so years mastering photography technology. He’s taken old pictures and put them on CD’s, and then DVDs, and now he keeps them in the cloud. He’s done this with every new technology that has come out, and the pictures of his grandchildren are cropped and edited by him on his computer. Before he retired all he did was take pictures with old Kodak cameras. He spends some time every day learning about how to do it better and he loves it. Some people knit, some people play cribbage. There are many things you can learn and many tutorials on the internet. Just do a Google search on “learn to……” and you’ll find tons of material.

Happiness of the Spirit

(6) Start a Gratitude Journal. This is probably the most powerful idea that I have come across in all of data on happiness I have read. The concept is simple but the effect is tremendous. Every day write down 2 things that you are grateful for. Once a week, read through it. Do this every day for 3 weeks. After 21 days I guarantee that you will feel happier.

Bringing all together – Focusing on Internal Metrics

My next door neighbor Joe recently retired and I was talking to him about the differences and changes in perspective he’s made since leaving the workforce when he said something very profound. He said “At work, I used to measure my output and how much I got done during the day. Now, I focus on internal metrics.” This transition is not hard to make but it is very important. You can start out by asking yourself once a week “Is what I’m doing adding meaning to my life?” or even simpler than that “What did I do today that made me happy?” Your gratitude journal is an easy place to start.

If you’d like to read more on happiness I recommend Spontaneous Happiness by Dr Andrew Weil, Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert, and The Power of Full Engagement by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz.

Vladimir Fefer lives in Chicago and consults for the assisted living review site GoldenReviews.com

Will Your Passion Dim in Retirement?

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From my US News & World Blog

To enjoy a fulfilling and meaningful retirement, you need to identify what you are passionate about and figure out a way to pursue that activity. Living each day with the simplistic goal of just keeping busy can kill some hours. But to really enjoy retired life, there should be a purpose for each day.

Finding a passion that drives and excites you is not always easy. Just consider all the people who are drudging through life in careers they hate. If fully living each day were easy, everyone would have figured it out by now.

Once you have successfully identified a passion to pursue in retirement, there’s always the possibility that your passion for that activity could begin to dim. Over time you might not get as excited about what used to delight you. When this happens, your days may begin to drag on listlessly. Or perhaps your passion will become too expensive to afford when you are living on a fixed income and inflation slowly erodes your purchasing power.

A friend retired about twelve years ago from a fulfilling teaching career. Each day he was inspired to try to positively impact his students. He was a favorite among the students because of the passion he brought to the classroom and his clever ways of presenting otherwise boring material. When he retired, he knew exactly what he wanted to do: dancing and travel. So he became a dance instructor on cruise ships.

During the next ten years he danced the night away teaching novices the steps to ballroom dancing. As a passenger on various cruises traveling the world, he was able to fulfill his travel goals at the same time. He spent the early part of his retirement dancing with new people each evening while aboard a luxurious cruise ship sailing toward the next port of call.

Then, for some inexplicable reason, his passion for dancing and travel began to flicker. He found himself less interested in what had been giving meaning and inspiration to his retirement. Was he getting tired of the same thing? Had ten years of travel been enough to satisfy his bug to see the world? Although he is still a dedicated Dancing with the Stars viewer and remains physically fit, his desire to dance has diminished.

It is not surprising that the things that drive and excite us change over time. But it is scary to think that discovering your passion and pursuing it offers no guarantee of long-term satisfaction.

It may be that the best we can hope for in retirement is to pursue our passion for as long as it exists. The reality that a retirement passion may lose its luster at some point should serve as renewed motivation to keep at it while we are still drawn to an activity and to continue to search for new passions throughout retirement. Having more than one passion to pursue can help keep us engaged, should one passion lose its luster.

Dave Bernard is the author of Are You Just Existing and Calling it a Life?, which offers guidelines to discover your personal passion and live a life of purpose. Not yet retired, Dave has begun his due diligence to plan for a fulfilling retirement. With a focus on the non-financial aspects of retiring, he shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement–Only the Beginning.

Giving Thanks for Growing Old

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From my US News & World Blog

We are all well versed in the negatives that inevitably infiltrate our lives as we get older. Simple things like tying our shoes become challenging. A minor stumble can result in a fall with catastrophic consequences for a senior citizen. That quick memory we took for granted all these years suddenly evades us. It is easy to get caught up in what we have lost and forget about all that we have.

[See The 10 Sunniest Places to Retire.]

Although not everything is rosy, if we pause for a moment we may discover that we have much to be thankful for. Here are some of the positive aspects of growing older:

Watching our children grow up. Over the years we have witnessed our sons and daughters growing from bundles of uncontrollable frenetic energy into the adults they are today. We have supported, encouraged, prayed for, laid awake at night worrying about, cried with, laughed with, and grown together along the way. Through it all, we have loved them and ultimately received their love in return. It has taken years to get here, but we are fortunate to have had those years and should be thankful.

[See 7 Misconceptions About Retired Life.]

Gaining wisdom with the years. When we think of youth we tend to think of people who are distracted, immature, impatient, temperamental, and quick to anger. Having attained a more seasoned age, we are generally more secure in the person we have become. Many people have become more patient with others, tolerant in uncomfortable situations, able to take the good with the bad, and appreciative of each day and moment we live. This wisdom is acquired through life experiences and only comes with age. It is rarely an easy path, but if we are learning at each step along the way it can be a productive journey.

Perfecting our relationship with our spouse. In retirement, there is no one we will spend more time with than our significant other. No one knows us better and no one loves us more. After years together we have become attuned to subtleties that others are blind to. We know where we can go during an argument and where we dare not tread. Ultimately our personal happiness becomes a reflection of the happiness we see in our spouse. This sharing of passions and fears is made stronger over years spent together. And with regular effort on both sides the relationship deepens and brings us happiness that is often the envy of those around us. I see this every time I spend time with my parents.

[See Why Baby Boomers Will Have a Great Retirement.]

It is not always easy to be a senior citizen. But with a little reflection, we should be able to find moments and memories that make our life meaningful. We accumulate these experiences over the years and appreciate them along the way. And if we are wise we remain thankful and hopeful for more of the same.

Dave Bernard is the author of Are You Just Existing and Calling it a Life?, which offers guidelines to discover your personal passion and live a life of purpose. Not yet retired, Dave has begun his due diligence to plan for a fulfilling retirement. With a focus on the non-financial aspects of retiring, he shares his discoveries and insights on his blog Retirement–Only the Beginning.