Posted on 06/12/2013 6:49:26 PM PDT by DogByte6RER
Retirement Will Kill You
Teddy Roosevelt once said “the best prize that life has to offer is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” Recent research suggests he may have been more right than he knew: Life’s “best prize” might actually extend life itself.
Our common perception is that retirement is a time when we can relax and take better care of ourselves after stressful careers. But what if work itself is beneficial to our health, as several recent studies suggest?
One of them, by Jennifer Montez of Harvard University and Anna Zajacova of the University of Wyoming, examined why the gap in life expectancy between highly educated and less-educated Americans has been growing so rapidly. (I have explored this topic in several previous columns, and have also agreed to be co-chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel that will delve into it in more detail.)
Examining the growing educational gradient in life expectancy from 1997 to 2006, Montez and Zajacova focused on white women ages 45 to 84. In addition to differential trends in smoking by education, they concluded that among these women “employment was, in and of itself, an important contributor.” The life expectancy of less-educated women was being shortened by their lower employment rates compared with those of highly educated women.
The researchers tried to test whether the problem was that less-educated people had worse health, and therefore couldn’t work. But they found that “the contribution of employment to diverging mortality across education levels is at least partly due to the health benefits derived from employment.”
Unhealthy Retirement
Researchers at the Institute of Economic Affairs in the U.K. have also recently identified ...
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
I’ve been retired for 15 years and love it.
You see, I don’t have the need for someone to tell me what to do everyday (that’s called “work”). I set my objectives and work at the pace I like.
Obviously, not everyone agrees.
I would bet that those are the people who lacked the imagination to come up with ideas as to how to occupy their time.
I retired at 53. I am now 64 and I have only one regret... I should have retired 10 years sooner.
I like every day being just another Saturday.
My grandfather was healty until 79, when he died from a superbug in a hospital where he went in with a very minor problem. He told me that he had friends who retired and their idea of retiring was drinking beer and watching the Cubs on TV. Generally, they were dead in 2-3 years. My grandfather was always doing “something” creative or constructive after he retired, for himself or for others. He was NEVER bored. I have never forgotten this.
Take your theories about heath and household economics and shove them where your boyfriend sticks his...
You gotta wife to supervise you and set your agenda?
Just think; you spend as many hours a day slaving for the benefit of the gov't as the Takers do.
It's only fair.
I feel bad for people who don’t like their jobs. I’ve been working since I was 16 and I’ve liked every job I’ve had, including washing dishes in restaurants, loading baggage onto airplanes and shagging carts at a grocery store. Now I’m a regional manager and I’m always looking for more responsibility, more things to “be in charge of.” I’ve been working for well over 30 years now and I’m not even thinking about retirement. In fact, I would be more than happy to work until the end of my life. Sitting around collecting a pension check has no appeal to me whatsoever.
Been retired twenty years this year and love it - especially since I don’t have to put up with the kinds of workplace atrocities I did in the past, like affirmative action, hostile work environments, sexual harassment, and having more and more tax money taking out of my wages the more I made........
Retirement is deadly!!!
We still work and i’m 76 and my wife is 75.
My dad finally did retire on his 80th birthday.
Another way is to sacrifice everything one owns and holds dear for the pursuit of a dream that will make others' lives measurably better. This is the austere path of the arctic fox pursuing his prey amidst a bleak backdrop. It's up to him alone to catch it.
BIG BUMP to your post no 11, Mac.
Good for you Battery Commander.
Don’t quit.
I think those that do not do well in retirement are those that confused who they are with the job they do.
Their life and identity is their work. No matter how bad or stressful the work is, it is a major part of them. They have never learned to separate work from life.
I began preparing myself for retirement about ten years before it happened. I looked around for things I wanted to do but never had time for. I slowly backed away from work taking more time for myself and my family.
By the time I actually quit working and began my retirement it was an almost seamless transition. It has been six years and I am busy every day. I do not miss my job as it was not really who I was.
As someone else mentioned, it is not retirement that kills you, it is the inactivity.
I’m “brokering” product via other resellers and splitting the margins. Beer money, mostly...
But of course!
Seriously, we both recognize that we have joint responsibility for taking care of our place. And we do. OTOH, I have my own interests and I pursue them.
No, it does not have to be. Only for those lacking in imagination as to what to do with their time. I would perhaps add those who somehow need someone to tell them what to do.
Thank You :)
You very welcome.
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