Your retirement 'health pot'

When you think about preparing for retirement, probably the first thing that springs to mind is your pension pot – but actually good health, both physical and mental, and retirement (or a more enjoyable retirement) must go hand in hand.

Sadly, not everyone is blessed with good health, as my own family experience shows. I lost my wife aged 44, my mother at 58, and my father at 70 – so only enjoying 5 years of retirement between them.

As my experience shows, unfortunately there will always be health issues beyond our control but, that said, there is much we can control to help have a full and enjoyable retirement – and these are the things we need to think about more than we perhaps do.  

Planning for your retirement is not just about aiming to have a big enough pension pot to allow  you to do the things you want to do, arranging a phased retirement or the detail of what you would like to do when you retire. It is also about how you intend to be both physically and mentally well enough to enjoy that retirement which, in all other aspects, you have planned so meticulously.

Good health will also give you added resilience to help cope with whatever life throws at you. So, have you invested the time in your health and wellbeing before and/or during retirement? If you haven’t, it is not too late for you to start.

How you enjoy retirement is personal to you – more time for a hobby, a sport, perhaps more travel - but you will almost certainly need to be healthy to do what you want to do.

Men: don't dodge the 'embarrassing' health checks!

How you choose to keep physically and mentally healthy during retirement is also very personal, but things like exercise, healthy eating, precautionary medical checks, apply to us all.

Men are notoriously the worst at having these health checks done – often citing ‘embarrassing’ or invasive examinations as reasons!

I lost both my wife and mother to cancer, and have recently found out that two friends, both 68, have been diagnosed with prostate cancer (hopefully early enough to beat it). The earlier a medical condition is detected the more chance you have in overcoming it and so one of my ‘rules’ is to take full advantage of whatever medical checks are available, from general health checks to prostate and bowel cancer screening.

There is no reason not to start these early and if only more people did; it has recently been reported that only about a third of people in the 40-74 age group who are invited for the simple NHS midlife MOTs checkup do attend.  

Both physical and mental health are so important to my retirement. Although I’ve been lucky to have enjoyed good physical health I have had my own mental health issues. This only became obvious to me a few years before I retired, but realistically, my poor mental health had been affecting me for much longer - I just didn’t realise it. 

How sport helps my mind and body 

One of my main mental health releases is being able to play hockey, both league hockey on a Saturday and regular age group Masters (veterans) hockey, a sport I have now been playing or coaching for 53 years.

Once I recognised my mental health challenges, I knew that being able to continue to play hockey well into my retirement would benefit me both physically and mentally. In fact, not only does sport get me through some mental struggles, it also reduces when I suffer from them – and it’s my aim to still be playing at an appropriate age group when I am over 75!

However, playing is not enough on its own because as I get older it’s increasingly difficult to keep fit enough.  Just before I finally retired, I lost weight  and improved my fitness levels by increasing my all-round physical activity. I’ve found this extra exercise also helps my mental wellbeing because, just like hockey, it helps reset my mind as I am not able to think about the problem whilst exercising. I feel so much better after each session, regardless of the activity… well, after I have got my breath back!

Of course not everyone wants or needs to undertake such training; that will be personal to you and what you enjoy. Maintaining your health doesn’t have to be about hockey matches or long running races. It’s also about doing the everyday things more easily, from the more mundane shopping and cleaning the car to the simple pleasures in life, like looking after grandchildren (and we know how demanding they can be!) or enjoying a gentle evening walk.

Retirement is – hopefully - not just a few years so the longer you keep healthy, the longer you can enjoy doing the things you want to do.

As someone once said, every day is a weekend when you are retired – and who wouldn’t want to make the most of that?

Graham Munday is a retired chartered surveyor - still playing hockey and volunteering as a LionHeart ambassador.