Spiritual wellness is a commonly overlooked element of retirement, but it’s just as important as the health and financial aspects. After people retire, they are usually less tied down with the busyness of life – work, raising kids, and running errands. As a result, many retirees find themselves thinking more about the spiritual side of life than they might have earlier. And this is a good thing.
Retirement is more than an end to your working career. It’s a major life milestone, the completion of one life chapter and the start of the next. But retirement can bring with it a sense of loss: loss of familiarity, loss of identity, and loss of social connections.
When you were younger, your life may have flowed according to the rhythms of your job and taking care of your kids. Maybe you went to work and came back around the same time each day, had your family meals around the same time, and planned your vacation trips around work and the kids’ school calendar. Upon retirement, all of those familiar routines are suddenly gone. At this point, many wonder, “Now what?”
Likewise, for decades, you may have defined yourself by your roles: you’re an accountant, an engineer, or a mechanic. When you stop working, suddenly that’s gone. When your kids were growing up, you may have introduced yourself to other parents by saying, “I’m Dan’s Mom” or “I’m Kathy’s Dad.” Now that your kids are grown and you’re no longer attending PTA meetings, you have lost that identity.
Finally, for many people, their main source of social interaction and friendship is with coworkers. After retiring, they may lose most of those connections and have nothing immediately to replace them.
Perhaps the most profound sense of loss occurs as we age. The longer we live, the more likely we will experience losses of those close to us, and possibly some decline in our own health.
Spirituality is crucial as it helps us deal with and overcome these challenges. Spirituality is a basic part of total wellness and strongly affects how well we age and how fulfilling our retirement is.
What is Spirituality?
Spirituality encompasses religion, but the two are not the same. Religion is a specific set of beliefs and practices. Spirituality is a more general sense of connection to something bigger than ourselves and a quest for meaning and purpose. So it’s something that’s universal to all people. Spirituality includes multiple religions and those who are not religious.
For some people, spirituality has been important throughout their lives. Others may become spiritual as they search for answers following a crisis or significant loss. And for many people, spirituality becomes increasingly important as they advance through retirement. A USC study found many retired baby boomers were more likely to attend church or engage in spiritual practices than they had previously.
This video explains more about what spiritual wellness means:
How Spirituality Benefits You
Spirituality has significant benefits. A strong spiritual connection can support good health and longevity. It also fosters a sense of purpose, satisfaction, and contentment and builds coping skills.
Some other benefits of spirituality include:
- Improved cognitive health. A Cambridge University review of studies found spiritual faith and practices tended to stabilize or reduce cognitive disorders. Even older adults with dementia appeared to have slower cognitive declines with spirituality.
- Better physical health. The Mayo Clinic found better spiritual health was associated with less cardiovascular disease and hypertension. Spiritual practices can reduce the risk of stroke and boost immune function. People with active spirituality are also more likely to engage in healthy habits like eating better, exercising more, smoking less, and scheduling preventive health screenings.
- Enhanced mental health. Spirituality instills compassion, empathy, and forgiveness. People with spiritual wellness tend to have closer relationships with other people, more social support, and a stronger sense of belonging. They suffer less from depression, recover better from setbacks, and adapt to life’s inevitable changes better. Spirituality promotes optimism and hope for the future.
When you have spiritual wellness, you have a sense of peace in your mind and your life. You view problems as challenges and accept them as natural and expected. Spiritual wellness also leads you to radiate positivity, which comes back to you through the law of attraction. When you send out positive and peaceful vibes, you bring more of them into your life.
People of all ages and backgrounds embrace spiritual wellness. A 23-year-old originally from India found spirituality changed her life and made it 100 times better: she became more productive, less angry, and more accepting of people. Another person in midlife started making prayer and meditation a routine part of his day and became less anxious and more fulfilled. Still another discovered spirituality after attempting suicide as a graduate student; spirituality filled her life with meaning and purpose, and she now lives with a sense of gratitude.
This video describes some overall benefits of spiritual health:
Understanding Spirituality in Later Life
Most people become more spiritual as they age. A Pew Research survey found that religion had a much greater part in the lives of older adults than younger adults. And an extensive study of people in 80 countries found that people worldwide became more religious as they got older.
Many older adults report being less self-focused and more connected to other people and to causes beyond themselves than they were before; in other words, they were becoming more spiritual.
Here are some reasons many people become more spiritual at retirement age and beyond:
- In their younger years, people may have been focused on career achievement and supporting themselves and their families. As they reach their sixties and beyond, though, many start to realize there’s more to life than status, recognition, and collecting material possessions. They sense that life is transitory and look to spirituality for answers about life’s ultimate meaning.
- Many people gained their identity and sense of worth from their occupation. Once retired, they have suddenly lost all of that. This transition may be especially difficult for the more than half of retirees who retired involuntarily. Spirituality gives a renewed sense of purpose and direction for our being, and helps us redefine what’s truly significant in this life.
- As we age, we become more aware of our mortality. Experiencing new health concerns and the loss of close relatives and friends underscores the inexorable passage of time. Many start to wonder for the first time what lies on the other side. Spirituality gives reassurance and perspective in the face of these issues.
Toward Spiritual Wellness
How do you work toward and maintain spiritual wellness? There are many ways. Here are a few activities that can enrich your spirit.
Find Your Purpose
Many people find themselves bored and lost after retirement. As humans, we’re wired to have a sense of direction and meaning in our lives. These are individual and personal for each of us. So think about what ignites a passion for you and find ways to pursue those passions.
For example, you may find you have a passion for music. You find fulfillment and happiness when you play a musical instrument, and it may even become part of your new identity, i.e., you’re a musician. Finding and activating your passions is a vital way to find meaning and purpose in your life.
Joan Steidl, for example, retired at 66. After retirement, she tried her hand at comedy writing and also enrolled in journalism classes at Kent State University. She even created a podcast about reinventing yourself, which was a finalist in the 2022 NPR College Podcast Challenge. She says, “I’m pretty certain Comedy Central is not going to call, and I don’t even think I’ll make the dean’s list. But that’s not the point. I’m just having way too much fun learning, growing, and reinventing myself.”
Engage in Spiritual Practices
If you follow an organized religion, you may benefit from participating more regularly and actively. People who attend worship services have better physical and mental, as well as spiritual, health. Taking part in religious services increases social interaction, fosters a sense of purpose, and cultivates gratitude, all of which increase spiritual wellness.
If traditional religion is not right for you, other spiritual practices can benefit you.
Meditation and yoga. These are shown to promote inner peace, calm thoughts, and lower stress. Yoga also encourages self-reflection and serves to bring the body and mind together.
Mindfulness. Mindfulness is being fully present in the moment, being aware of what is happening around and within you (e.g. your breathing and physical sensations) without thought or judgment. Constant planning, worrying, and negative thinking can be tiring and make you anxious and stressed. Mindfulness also includes focusing on breathing and movement, which can reduce stress.
Mindfulness includes being present with your mind and body when you interact with others. This can strengthen your relationships, which improves spiritual wellness.
Communing with nature.Being in the great outdoors lowers stress and anxiety, increases energy, and builds a stronger immune system. You may have experienced some of the benefits if you went for a walk when you were feeling worried or angry, or were thinking over a difficult situation.
Enjoying the sights, sounds, and aromas of nature helps us connect to a world beyond ourselves and a sense of a higher power. Staying close to the natural world unleashes spiritual experiences that help us become our best selves.
Cultivate Gratitude
Gratitude promotes healthy emotions and crowds out negative ones. Tony Robbins says, “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” To practice gratitude, make lists of what you are grateful for, or focus on one thing or person each day for which or for whom you are grateful. Take negative events and think of the positive from each.
Give Back
Giving to others is among the most effective spiritual wellness activities. It cultivates gratitude, provides social interaction, and gives us a sense of purpose and significance. You may give of your time and energy, your knowledge and skills, or your financial resources.
Dr. Lee Alward, a retired ophthalmologist, and Gary Dyson, a former U.S. Air Force and retired FedEx pilot, volunteer with an international organization dedicated to restoring eyesight to people around the world. Dyson flies a former FedEx cargo plane that was converted to a teaching hospital, and Alward volunteers in the hospital and mentors eye health providers in foreign countries. Dyson says of this organization, “I always knew I wanted to give back in some capacity, and after retiring, I think it gave me the perfect opportunity to continue using my skills to benefit others.”
While you may not want to volunteer on a global scale, serving and contributing to your community connects you to others and causes larger than yourself.
Forgive
All of us who have lived in this world have experienced hurts, frustrations, and letdowns. By forgiving others, we are letting go of the past hurts and allowing new growth to take place.
Forgiveness does not necessarily mean reconciliation, nor does it mean excusing people for their actions. Forgiveness is about you, not the other person. Forgiving people for past wrongs dispels our negative energy and gives us the ability to move forward instead of dwelling on the past. It denies them any power over our thoughts, feelings, and actions. You may be subconsciously allowing past hurts to adversely influence your present-day thoughts and actions. Forgiveness means a new beginning.
Forgiveness can also mean forgiving yourself. You may harbor guilt feelings or regrets over things you said or did, even years or decades ago. Forgiving yourself does not mean forgetting what happened. Rather, it means accepting responsibility and learning from past mistakes but letting go of negative feelings and emotions. It means extending yourself the same grace you might to anyone else.
Share Your Story
You have decades of experience and a life story. For thousands of years, older adults have shared their lifetime of knowledge and insight with younger generations. But sharing your story is much more than an accounting of facts and events. Storytelling is emotional and expressive. Sharing your story, along with your inner thoughts and feelings, helps you connect more to yourself and others. It helps with self-discovery and emotional healing.
For couples, sharing their stories helps bring their minds more in sync and brings them closer together. Incorporating stories into planning for the future helps a couple create a shared vision and relational intimacy.
There are free platforms like Medium and Substack on which you can publish your stories. You might also work with a storytelling coach to help you create your story.
To learn more about how to cultivate spiritual wellness, the Touro University library has a wealth of online resources in the form of links to books, articles, and videos.