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Your brain when you retire is challenged is to stay mentally sharp
and healthy throughout retirement. Careful planning
is key. Consider Brain Health guidance you gain
in a Guest post courtesy of NYTimes.com
Written By Mohana Ravindranath
March 26, 2025
For the millions of Americans who retire each year,
stopping work might seem like a well-deserved
break. But it can also precipitate big changes in
brain health, including an increased risk of
cognitive decline and depression.
Before retiring, you’re getting up in the
morning, socializing with co-workers and dealing
with the mental challenges of your job, said Ross
Andel, a professor at Arizona State University who
studies cognitive aging and retirement. “All of a
sudden, after 50 years, you lose that routine.”
There’s this idea that the body and brain adapt
when they’re “no longer needed,” he added.
“That’s when you see the deterioration and its
natural response to inactivity.”
But retirement can also be an opportunity for
improving cognitive and mental health, with
newfound time to socialize and take on hobbies. And
even if you have started to experience some
decline, there’s strong evidence that your brain
can bounce back from periods of inactivity, even in
older age, said Giacomo Pasini, a professor of
econometrics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
who studies the impact of economic policy on
seniors’ mental health.
A Decline in Cognition and Mood
One analysis of more than 8,000 retirees in Europe
found that people’s verbal memory (the ability to
recall a set of words after a certain amount of
time) generally declined faster once they retired,
compared with when they were working. Another
survey conducted in England showed a steep decline
in verbal memory after retirement, though other
skills, like abstract reasoning, were not affected.
“There’s some evidence out there that
retirement may be bad for cognition, because when
you retire, you don’t challenge your brain as
much,” said Guglielmo Weber, a professor of
econometrics at the University of Padova in Italy
who worked on the Europe study.
Research has also found a link between retirement
and the onset of depression. Suddenly going from a
“busy work life to a lack of engagement can
exacerbate feelings of worthlessness, low mood,
sadness” and “severe depressive symptoms and
memory loss,” said Xi Chen, an associate
professor of public health at Yale University who
studies aging.
The nature of your work — and how you view that
work — seem to affect the risk of decline. For
example, researchers think that those who worked in
higher-ranking jobs may show a steeper decline than
others, possibly because their identities were more
strongly tied to their careers, Dr. Chen said.
The study in Europe also found that people who
stopped working earlier than the standard
retirement age where they lived showed less of a
decline than those who stopped working later, Dr.
Weber said. That could be because the people who
retired earlier may not have had as mentally
demanding jobs, resulting in a more gradual decline
once they retired.
People who are forced to retire “due to health
issues or blatant ageism,” or who face financial
challenges in retirement, can see more severe
effects, said Dr. Emily Fessler, an assistant
professor at Weill Cornell Medicine who specializes
in geriatric care.
And women may be less likely to experience a steep
mental or cognitive decline, potentially because
they are more likely than men to continue to
socialize and spend time with family after they
retire, Dr. Weber said.
The Value of Having a Plan
Retirement can be an occasion for growth instead of
decline, the experts said. The key is to lay some
groundwork ahead of time.
Don’t wait for retirement to plan for retirement.
“The plan cannot be, ‘I worked so hard for so
long that I’m going to take this long vacation
and then I’m going to figure it out,’” Dr.
Andel said.
Ideally, you should introduce new mentally and
physically engaging routines a couple of years
before you stop working, said Dr. Alison Moore,
chief of the geriatrics, gerontology and palliative
care division at the University of California, San
Diego. Even if you don’t start them right away,
you should make the plan ahead of time. Delaying
those decisions — like whether to spend half the
year traveling — until after you’ve retired
makes it harder to take the plunge, she said.
The goal is to “pivot from one type of daily life
to another,” she said. “Being open to new
experiences before you make this big life change
can kind of prep you.”
Find a new sense of purpose.
“People may have felt their purpose was
contributing through work, and when that’s taken
away, they have to invent something else to take
its place,” said John Beard, a professor of
productive aging at Columbia University Medical
Center. Studies suggest that people with a sense of
purpose tend to experience less age-related
cognitive decline.
Volunteer work, in particular, can help, Dr. Chen
said. Research has found that people who regularly
volunteer in retirement show slower rates of
biological aging, and that they can head off
cognitive decline by staying active and engaged
(without the stress of full-time employment).
Commit to staying social.
It’s common for people to lose social connections
during retirement, said David Richter, a professor
of survey research in the department of educational
science and psychology at Freie Universität
Berlin. “We have rather solid proof that first
social contacts are reduced, and then cognition
declines,” he said.
To stave off the depression, cognitive decline and
early mortality that can come with social
isolation, Dr. Richter recommended that retirees
replace workplace socializing with routine
in-person or virtual gatherings.
Not all socializing is created equal, he added. The
best activities are ones that challenge your mind
and foster meaningful discussions with others;
think things like book clubs.
“Listening to the radio, watching TV is not the
same,” he said. “We really need to have this
back and forth of a conversation.”
Try new things.
Doing something creative and novel can give you a
sense of purpose and keep your brain agile.
Research suggests you can practice creativity just
like any other skill, said Jonathan Schooler, a
distinguished professor of psychological and brain
sciences at the University of California, Santa
Barbara. That could mean writing for a few minutes
every day or attempting an adventurous new recipe
for dinner. Regular exercise is critical for brain
health as you age, so you could also consider
trying a new type of fitness class.
Creativity can also boost a person’s sense of
“meaning,” Dr. Schooler added. “There is
great evidence that finding meaning in life gives
one a great personal satisfaction.”
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Will you use this retirement planning guidance
to create a healthy, happy life you love?
Hadley Finch
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