Staying Sharp During Retirement

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. We were just talking in our last segment about and with young men. We're going to end by talking about older men and women and older anybody. The topic is your brain on retirement. New research shows that verbal memory generally declines after retirement. Retirees are also more prone to experiencing depression. But a lot of those negative cognitive impacts can be mitigated and even reversed, according to research, by finding new things to learn and ways to socialize.

Joining us now to break down her latest reporting on how to stay mentally sharp and healthy through the major transition of going into retirement is Mohana Ravindranath, reporter covering longevity, aging, and brain health at the New York Times. Mohana, hi. Welcome to WNYC.

Mohana Ravindranath: Thank you so much for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we can get some callers in on this one, too. What were some of the changes you noticed in your mental or cognitive health, specifically when you retired, specifically, let's say, in the first year or two after retirement, if any, 212-433- WNYC, 212-433-9692, or if you're nearing retirement, are you making a plan now? Because planning is one of the keys here, Mohana, to just jump right into solutions for staying undepressed and cognitively sharp, right?

Mohana Ravindranath: Right. The researchers I spoke to did find some link between retirement and cognitive decline and mood changes as well. But I do want to emphasize that we what they found does not apply to everybody. Retirement is a unique experience for everybody. The challenges with a story like this is that there isn't just one single pattern that happens. It depends on what your job looked like when you were working or whether it was physically or mentally harmful to you, in which case retirement can be a time to flourish and take on new habits that you didn't have before.

But the researchers I spoke to did emphasize that your brain is adaptable. Even if you do experience some of that decline in retirement, you can take on new habits, new activities to reverse that. They talk about things like making sure to socialize, making sure to exercise if you can, taking on new hobbies, trying to be creative, things like that. There are ways to reverse what you lose in your working life.

Brian Lehrer: You're saying if your job was fulfilling, then you're more at risk of both cognitive decline and depression when you retire?

Mohana Ravindranath: That is one of the trends that some researchers notice is that people whose identity and sense of purpose was tied to their jobs, do really struggle when they lose that. It doesn't mean that they can't find a new sense of purpose in retirement. It just means they might have to be a little bit more intentional about finding that and building a new routine that encourages that healthy mental engagement.

Brian Lehrer: Studies suggest you write that people with a sense of purpose tend to experience less age-related cognitive decline. What does finding purpose look like post-retirement? If people have advice?

Mohana Ravindranath: This is something that I found really interesting when I read all the comments that came in after I published the story. There's such a vast diversity of ways that people find purpose in retirement. It could be taking on a new hobby. I heard from someone who got really into photography, somebody else is getting into writing and launching a blog and all these things.

It's really less about what that sense of purpose is and more finding one and recognizing that the time when you retire can be this really critical point at which you very suddenly lose this thing that has dominated your life for decades. You have to be intentional and recognize this could be a cliff or it could be an opportunity to find a new sense of purpose.

Brian Lehrer: Let's hear from some callers. Here's Joe in Brooklyn. You're on WNYC. Joe, Hi.

Joe: Hi. I retired about two years ago and I did have a very fulfilling job and retired unexpectedly. But I found that I took up scale modeling and it really triggers my creativity, my problem-solving, and I had to learn some new skills. I'm currently sitting here working on a model of the Starship Enterprise Bridge. I had to learn to program microcontrollers and use fiber optics and it's really helping me.

Brian Lehrer: Joe, thank you very much. We're right to another caller. Alan in Chelsea, you're on WNYC. Hi, Alan.

Alan: Hi, Brian. I've been retired for nine years. I found it is the biggest change in my life since I started working. It's also something very, very few people are actually prepared for. You ask them what they're going to do in their retirement and they say things like, I'm going to work on my golf game or I'm going to catch up on my TV shows. It's no one thing. It's a whole bunch of things.

I started a blog. It's called Hello Pension, Goodbye Tension. It's about how to lead an engaged life in retirement. One of the things I did, among many, is when I worked, I was senior executive. I knew what life work felt like in the C suite. I wanted to see what life felt like in the driver's seat. I became an Uber driver. I loved it. It was a great way to spend part of my day. I did it for a number of months. I didn't do it for the money, I did it for the experience. By the way, I have a 5.0 rating as a Uber driver.

Brian Lehrer: Alan, thank you. Did you have more?

Alan: Yes. Travel, all of that is important. You got to think. There's no one thing. There's a whole bunch of things. Log on to my blog. Hello Pension, Goodbye Pension. It doesn't cost anything. There's a whole bunch of ideas on there for you.

Brian Lehrer: Alan, thank you very much. One more in this set. Sean in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, Sean.

Sean: Hey, Brian. I love your show and thanks for this opportunity. I retired almost two years ago and it has been the best two years of my life. I have traveled much more than I used to be able to. I was a director of IT for a school district and was working 16-hour days regularly, especially through Covid. I'm learning a second language in retirement. I'm traveling a lot. I'm volunteering for a number of social service committees providing IT support basically. But I find it to be much more rewarding to pick and choose how I use my skill set than to have it dictated by urgency imposed on me from others.

Brian Lehrer: Sean, thank you very much. It's interesting, Mohana, that most of the calls we're getting, as exemplified by those three, are people who have positive stories to tell. We heard from the guy who's building models of the Starship Enterprise and things like that. The one who's driving an Uber just for the experience, doesn't need the money. Sean there, who's doing a variety of things. Any thoughts as you were listening to those callers?

Mohana Ravindranath: I think according to the researchers that I spoke to, the three callers are really exemplifying retirement at its best. Staying active, whether it's physically active or mentally active, and learning new skills and finding new senses of purpose. The studies that I reference in the story paint a little bit of a different picture for probably a different population of people that don't do those kinds of things.

It's people that retire after a long career in a certain industry and don't make a plan for what to do. One of the researchers in the story was telling me the worst-case scenario is you retire and then you treat it like a long-term vacation where you don't really do anything right. You no longer get out of bed, you no longer socialize, you never think about mental engagement, things like that. It is understandable that someone would want to do that after decades of a stressful job. But I think the key is remaining active in whatever way you can. it seems like these three callers are doing just that.

Brian Lehrer: Let's see if I can get in a couple of callers who are now on the line who may have more troubling or challenging experiences to report. Angela calling us from Costa Rica. Angela, you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Angela: Hi. Good morning, Brian, how are you? This is Angela, the teacher from Bushwick. I used to call you all the time.

Brian Lehrer: Oh, hi Angela.

Angela: [crosstalk]

Brian Lehrer: Are you retired in Costa Rica?

Angela: Yes, but here's why. I mean, I'm retired, I'm in Costa Rica, but I living in Costa Rica with my mom who has dementia. When she retired some years ago, I thought that she was active, which is why I wasn't too concerned. But she was active in the church and community groups. It wasn't enough. I've come to find that it wasn't enough. When I took her to neurologists in New York, two different neurologists said that you can't reverse this. But she has to learn new things to engage the brain. What I'm doing with her right now, what she does do is word search, crossword puzzles.

But now I'm a little bit concerned because I now realize I see what happened to her. She's the first person in my family with dementia. It's not something that I believe is hereditary. But keeping her situation of mine. Now I'm here three years retired, trying to do things, to engage myself, my brain. I'm not actually learning something new. We have property here and I'm acting like an entrepreneur, which is out of my comfort zone. I talked for 30-something years. But because I'm struggling to do different things, I'm realizing, okay, sit down and do the research, engage my brain because I don't want to end up like my mom.

Brian Lehrer: Wow, Angela, thank you. Keep calling us from there. Going to put one more in this set. As we're starting to run out of time, we want to get one more response from our guest. Hugh in Manhattan. Hugh, I'm going to have to confine you to a minute. Hello?

Hugh: Well, sorry. I accidentally retired two years ago. I'm almost 80 years old, and I discovered that I had heart problems. I spent five days in the hospital, and so I'm under the care of doctors. I suffer from depression. But I will say what I wanted to say was a great source for people. It hasn't done me that much good, but it's the New York Public Library. They offer all kinds of things. A friend of mine who works there talked me into taking a Cantonese class, believe it or not. That's something that people should look to. I'm not very outgoing. I suffer from depression, and I'm dependent on--

Brian Lehrer: Did the depression just kick in after retirement?

Hugh: No, no. I've suffered depression since I was 19. But the only thing that keeps me going is Klonopin antidepressants.

Brian Lehrer: Let me leave it there. Again, I apologize. I said I had to confine you to a minute. I appreciate your story. There's two more challenging stories. For Angela, with her mom, it sounds like she was saying her mom started developing symptoms of dementia just a couple of years into retirement. Is this something you looked into? It's going to be genetic, it's going to be developmental for a lot of people who probably couldn't help but develop it at a certain point. Is part of the point of your article that there's a risk right after retirement?

Mohana Ravindranath: Researchers are still trying to disentangle exactly whether this is causal or not. When it comes to a lot of the mitigating solutions they suggest, I think they're all intended to lower the risk. But I'm sure that they would never say they can eliminate the risk of cognitive decline. In some cases, if there's a genetic predisposition or other factors, it's possible that some of these solutions could delay, but it's possible that they won't be able to prevent them. I think it's a point very well taken that in some cases these factors may not be enough to reverse a condition like dementia.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it. Callers, thank you. My guest has been Mohana Ravindranath, reporter covering longevity, aging, and brain health at the New York Times with that take on Youn Brain on Retirement. Thank you so much.

Mohana Ravindranath: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: That's the Brian Lehrer Show for today, produced by Mary Croke, Lisa Allison, Amina Srna, Carl Boisrond, and Esperanza Rosenbaum. Zach Gottehrer-Cohen edits our Daily Politics Podcast. Our intern this term is Henry Saringer. We had Juliana Fonda at the audio controls. Megan Ryan is the head of Live Radio. Have a great weekend, everybody. I'm Brian Lehrer.

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