At Thyme To Feel Alive we are celebrating Refired not Retired Day.
This day marks out a commitment for people to get back to living their life to the full, using their time to get refired about their life.
It was established by Phyllis May, who made a conscious decision after retiring at 55 to make the most of the extra time she had available by doing lots of new things in her life and making the most of every day. She encourages retirees to look at retirement as a time of opportunity and to minimise the chance for regret.
With people generally having a longer life expectancy than previous generations, retirement should be an opportunity to start afresh, set some new goals and aim to experience new things in your golden years.
At aging.com, they encourage those in retirement to aim to keep up a healthy lifestyle after leaving work, which has been shown to increase the chances of being disability-free in old age. Suggestions for a healthy retirement include:
Eat natural, healthy food
Eating fresh, homemade meals is the best way to ensure nutrition needs are met, and having more time on your hands should mean that preparing delicious homemade meals should be easier than ever. Eating well at this age can also reduce the risk of age-related conditions such as Type-2 diabetes and arthritis.
Stay Active
Stopping work is no reason to give up exercise, in fact having more leisure time should encourage you to take up new forms of exercise and make new friends in the process. If you have not been particularly active in the past, it is never too late to start! Benefits to exercising include:
- Reducing risk of dementia
- Improving quality of sleep
- Boosting the immune system
- Reducing chronic pain
Exercise doesn’t have to be high impact. Yoga and swimming are both great options for those who suffer from joint pain, and both have been shown to reduce stress and lower cortisol levels.
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Give your brain a workout too
Keeping your brain active in retirement is crucial, since the challenges of everyday work will be gone. Activities such as crosswords, jigsaws and board games will keep those brain cells working, while learning a new skill such as cooking or another language will provide a further challenge.
You can check out the article here at Aging.com
If you have any more ideas on how to make your senior years the best days of your life, please share them with us in the comments below. Don’t forget to check out our recipes page for some delicious healthy meals to keep your brain and body in top form!
Billy and Elaine
