Navigating Your Health in Retirement: Tips for Physical and Mental Fitness.
- Lukas Winward
- Jun 7, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 14, 2024
The more I talk to people in retirement the more I realise how important having a focus on health is. Living is more than just being alive, quality of life is so crucial to squeezing the juice out of life as we age. Do you want to be on the couch in your track pants, with achy joints that make it painful to walk and difficult to get out of a chair or would you rather be vibrant, active, and fit? This is a good time to state that I am not a GP, Physiotherapist or Exercise Physiologist and any shift in your own treatment should be done with the advice of a medical professional.
One of the catalysts for my moving into working in the retirement space was a random round of golf I played with 3 men I was lucky enough to be paired with on a casual round of golf, they aged 84, 87 and 91 and they played 9 holes 3 times a week. I was blown away how fit they were, so physically able and that they were still hitting the gym, working on strength, cardio and nutrition. Since then, I have played with many groups of men and women who have retired and I always ask about their health regime. As with everything, some are at it and some will get to it. It changed the way I looked at my own health and my health has skyrocketed up my hierarchy of priorities. I have a family history of cancer, heart attack, and stroke in my family so the penny has finally dropped that I needed to get at it.
If You Don’t Use It, You Lose It! It’s That Simple.
A little on my own health journey to normalise that working on your mental and physical health is hard but you need to choose your hard. I (like many) put on weight during the lockdowns and this inactivity impacted my mood and emotional regulation, added to the anxiety and at times exacerbated my down moods. When the lockdowns ended I swore that I would lose the weight that I had put on, I was motivated and I was going to do it, but I didn’t. I had set up some really bad eating habits and got used to lumping on the couch, it was like my energy was down and I could not reboot. It took my GP (thanks Marc) to tell me point blank “Lukas, you’re fat, got to lose some weight mate” to kick me into gear. I dropped sugar drinks, alcohol, chips, chocolate and ice cream (my favourite). I lost weight and my motivation was working, until it didn’t.
Fast forward a few months and a lifelong friend of mine started selling infrared saunas and he put me onto a few good podcasts, I will leave links at the end. Guys like Gary Breka, Peter Attia, Andrew Huberman and I decided that I was going to seriously focus on my health for the first time since my early 30’s. I set the alarm for 5:15 and started walking, bought a blow up ice bath for the back yard and I was at it. The motivation was my friend again. These health podcasts also had a great message and I figured out that I need to embrace discipline, just like the guys I played golf with.
Motivation Gets You Started But Discipline Keeps You Going!
Discipline then becomes the habits that form the way you want to live. The alarm goes off at 5:15, walk 45, 30 minute sauna to an ice bath and I have never felt better in my life. This change has been so positive that I have never been as in tune with my mind and body, driven to do the work that I want to do, grateful to have the opportunity to use my body how I want to and I do not take it for granted. I also know that my habits are giving me the best opportunity to have the best, healthiest life that I can. My wife often says, “why don’t you have a sleep in?’ I don’t only for the fact that I feel better and enjoy the day more when I have completed my routine, I have conquered my inner wimp at 5:15 am and everything else in my day is easier. This is what I do, you need to find out what works for you.
Good Health in Retirement Requires Discipline
In my opinion, embracing discipline and having a firm focus on health is something that everyone can benefit from. The podcasts will go into the science behind the physiological benefits, dopamine and norepinephrine etc but it's the psychological benefits that are the hokey pokey. Anxiety has now become a friend that I talk too rather than am ruled by, I have not had a headache, runny nose, cold or any other ailment in over a year but the biggest impact has been on my mental fitness. I am working on my mental and physical fitness in a deliberate and focused way and I am reaping the benefits and so are my loved ones. The other word that is in my vocabulary regularly is momentum, we call it the big M in my house. When you have it you feel like you will never lose it, when you lose it you feel like you will never get it back.
Here are some interesting statistics on health in retirement;
You are 40% more likely to have a heart attack or stroke in your first year of retirement
Coronary Heart disease is the biggest cause of death in older Australians
Men aged 65 in 2018 can expect to live, on average, another:
9 years without disability
11 years with some level of disability, including around 3.5 years with severe or profound disability
Women aged 65 in 2018 can expect to live, on average, another:
10 years without disability
12 years with some level of disability, including around 5.5 years with severe or profound disability
For people aged 65 in 2018, this equates to living just over half of their remaining lives with some level of disability (53% for men 54% for women)
During 2018-20, the leading cause of death for people aged 65-74 was lung cancer (8000), followed by heart disease (7500)
For people aged over 85 and over, dementia including Alzheimer’s disease was the leading cause of death (30,700)
In 2020, there were 516 deaths from suicide for people aged 65 and over
Three in four suicides were men
Type 2 diabetes Men 64-75 yrs 17.1%
75yrs and over 20.7%
Type 2 diabetes Women 64-75 yrs 10.5%
75 yrs and over 17.2%
I don’t know about you but these statistics scare the shit out of me and what they don’t show is the loss of quality of life. So many people think that retirement is the 1st phase - Travelling and ticking off a bucket list. What happens to your hopes and dreams of walking the Camino or cruising the streets of Rome if you cannot get off the couch? What does that look like? Not the happy 1st phase of retirement where you are supposed to have the time of your life. Sadly the 1st phase is shorter than you may think, is it possible that these bucket list years are short due to declining health? From my experience, it is a huge factor.
If you plan to have an adventure in retirement you need to consider that the habits you create now will define your ability in the future.
They say that you live two lives. The first you are invincible, nothing can get you, you are immortal. The second starts when you realise that life is finite and that you only have a set time to live. I have started my second life and I have chosen my hard. What about you?
It is hard working out.
It is hard being fat.
Which hard do you prefer?
It is hard working on your mental fitness.
Crippling anxiety and depression are hard.
Choose your hard.
Eating well is hard.
Not being physically able to do the things you want in life (like golf) is hard.
Getting in a sauna and an ice bath is hard.
Getting out of a chair can be hard.
Choose your hard wisely
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