Fitness: Retirement Is More Than an Opportunity to Put Your Feet Up

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When you imagine retirement, are you more or less active than you are now? Do you feel like sleeping more, enjoying a good book and spending time on the beach? Or is your idea of ​​retirement filled with daily games of golf, tennis, or pickleball between active vacations filled with hiking, biking, and walking?

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Studies monitoring the lifestyle habits of recent retirees offer insight into trends in activity. For most people, saying goodbye to the 9 to 5 grind means more sleep and more time with your feet up. That may sound great, but a sedentary lifestyle doesn’t bode well for long-term health, especially as we age. Regular activity not only slows down some of the physical and mental decline associated with aging, but also improves health, mood, energy levels, and social engagement.

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Interestingly, physical activity behaviors in retirement can often be linked to occupation. Those with manual jobs tend to become more sedentary in retirement, while those who worked in an office environment become more active. But daily lifestyle changes rarely happen in isolation. When 24-hour movement patterns include extra sleep, does that mean less time is spent watching TV? Or is it more likely to lead to less daily exercise?

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“The transition to retirement has been shown to affect sleep, sedentary lifestyle and physical activity, but no previous study has examined how retirement changes the distribution of time spent daily on these movement behaviors,” said a group of Finnish researchers. in a study. recent publication in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

The researchers evaluated the lifestyle habits of 551 public sector employees (average age 63) during their first year of retirement. Using a wrist accelerometer, the subjects’ movement habits were recorded 24 hours a day for a full week before and after their last day of work, approximately one year apart.

Retiree data was broken down by occupation and gender. Manual workers included nursing assistants, cooks, cleaners, and maintenance workers, while teachers, doctors, registered nurses, and technicians were classified as white collar workers. The portion of time spent sleeping, light physical activity, moderate to vigorous physical activity, and sedentary activities was counted based on information collected by accelerometers.

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Before retirement, the women (representing 86 percent of the study subjects) slept eight hours a night, spent 11 hours in sedentary activities, four hours in light physical activity and 50 minutes in moderate to vigorous activity daily. Men logged 16 fewer minutes of sleep, 60 more minutes of sedentary time, and 46 fewer minutes of light activity than women. Women and men logged the same number of minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous activity.

Looking at the impact of occupation on their daily movement patterns before retirement, blue-collar workers recorded less sedentary time and more physical activity than their desk-bound counterparts, a pattern consistent across men and women. That changed in the first year of retirement.

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“Blue-collar workers’ daytime hours were more sedentary after retirement compared to workdays before retirement,” the researchers said. “Therefore, physical activity at work may have been partly replaced by sedentary activities such as watching television after retirement.”

For white-collar workers, lifestyle habits trended slightly differently. Sleep improved, with a decrease in the amount of sedentary time and an increase in physical activity, which the researchers suggest is related to less time sitting behind a desk.

Women in manual occupations experienced the greatest change in daily life habits post-retirement, sleeping 45 minutes more, spending 64 minutes less on light physical activity, and 17 minutes less on moderate to vigorous activity. Sedentary time increased by 36 minutes. Men who withdrew from manual occupations experienced a smaller increase in sleep and sedentary behavior relative to physical activity.

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A decrease in moderate to vigorous activity was also observed between both types of workers (up to 17 minutes a day), which the researchers hypothesized could be related to a change in commuting habits. With no bus or train to catch and no clock to tick, retirees got a little more sleep and enjoyed a slower, less active start to the day. Also of note is the popularity of active transportation among the Finnish population, which the researchers suggest could be another reason why activity, especially moderate-to-vigorous intensity, declines after retirement.

The data collected by the Finnish researchers is similar to other studies that indicate that for a large subset of the population, retirement results in a more sedentary lifestyle. A greater drop is also seen in moderate to vigorous activity than in light activity. Both of these changes could have negative health consequences. But there are mitigating factors.

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“White collar workers appeared to replace some sedentary time with sleep, which may benefit the health of those who do not get enough sleep before retirement,” the researchers said.

That said, the extra sleep shouldn’t come at the cost of less daily physical activity. We all look forward to a few extra minutes of sleep when there are no deadlines to meet, but a lazy start shouldn’t spill over into the rest of the day.