Activities

Retirement is the time to do things that make you happy. So, the first thing you’ll have to do is some self-reflection. Reflecting on yourself, your likes and dislikes, your hobbies and really just what makes you truly happy. There is an endless number of activities that you can participate in and an endless amount of things to try. Whether you want to fill your days enjoying the small things, trying new things, making a difference in your community, or shooting for the stars, there’s definitely something you can do that will fill your time.

Grow a garden

Growing a garden is a great activity that you can enjoy each step of the way and reap the rewards of your efforts. There are some studies out there that even say gardening can help you live a longer, happier life.

Gardening is an activity that provides you with low-intensity physical exercise, and bonus because it gets you outdoors which is excellent for your health and mental state. Gardening can also help you establish a routine and will give you something to wake up for each day which is very important to have at any stage of life.

Write a book

When you’ve reached the age of retirement, it’s likely that you have had many experiences, gained lots of knowledge and thought up some unique ideas over the years. Why not put some of those into a book? It can be a great way to relive some of your memories, record your life events or just be creative.

The great thing about writing books is that there are no qualifications or education requirements necessary, anybody can write a book. Writing a book can be done in so many different ways, you could write a book just for yourself, and do nothing else with it but read it on your own. You could also write a book for your family members, a loved one, or for the whole world to read. The decision is yours and you can find it along the way as you simply sit and let your creativity flow.

Learn a new instrument

Have you always wanted to learn how to play the piano? Or the guitar? Those two instruments are the most common ones to learn and they are both excellent starting points for anyone who wants to learn some other instrument as well. Learning how to play a new instrument is a satisfying skill that will help to enrich your life and provide you with something to look forward to. Maybe you simply have a favourite song that you want to slowly work towards perfecting. Don’t forget that your voice is an instrument as well, and voice lessons can be a lot of fun.

Make new friends

As people age, it’s common for them to feel like they need to spend time alone, and alone time is great, you can definitely learn how to really enjoy spending time with yourself, and it is very important. However, it’s also important to spend time with friends, it often improves and enhances the lives of others and your own. Having a group of friends will help you stay connected to the world and can broaden your perspective on life and encourage you to try things you otherwise would not.

Learn how to use and appreciate new technology

There is so much happening in the world of technology right now, and it can be very overwhelming. As soon as you figure out how to do something, something new seems to come along. There are many ways you can learn how to use technology to your advantage, especially during these times of COVID where people are staying home now more than ever and are connecting with others via technology. Maybe during your retirement, you learn how to facetime, zoom or skype with other family members. Technology is fantastic for maintaining connections between people. You can schedule regular chats with the people in your lives without having to leave your home, which can be very convenient!

Become a teacher

Many people who become teachers often do so as a second career. Once you have reached the age of retirement, you have gained lots of knowledge that others would likely benefit from. Sharing your knowledge and teaching others is a fulfilling activity that many people find joy in. Maybe you become a teacher for what you were doing throughout your career, or perhaps you teach others your passion or hobbies. Becoming a teacher these days doesn’t mean you have to stand in front of a classroom of people and give a lecture, you can create online courses or even ‘How-To’ videos on YouTube or Facebook. You could also create a small club within your community where people get together to learn something or create something. Maybe you love crafts, and you want to share your knowledge of some DIY (Do It Yourself) projects that other people may be interested in doing. There are lots of different ways to share your knowledge with others and it’s a common activity among retirees.

Explore your community

Travelling is another common activity among retirees, many people relocate to warmer areas or travel around the world to see new places during their retirement. During these times of the COVID-19 pandemic, travelling has become increasingly difficult so many people have instead decided to explore their own corner of the world. It can be very interesting to see the places that you are surrounded by it can offer a higher sense of appreciation for your community and it allows you to see the different kinds of people that reside in your area.

Take-away point

The list of activities is endless. There is so much to see and do and learn and try during your retirement, the most difficult part may just be choosing which one to tackle first.

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As you age it becomes increasingly important to incorporate regular physical activity into life for the overall health of your body and mind. There are endless benefits to physical activity which should be considered as you get older. Exercise helps to improve the overall quality of life and increases life expectancy, which is reason enough to mix it into your routine. Physical activity also aids in the prevention of disease and chronic conditions and –if completed on a consistent basis– can improve brain functionality. Each of these reasons, along with the countless other benefits to exercising should encourage the integration of movement and activity into your daily routine.

Improved quality of life and increased life expectancy

As we age, our muscle mass and strength begin to decline. Muscle strength and mobility are necessary for overall bone strength and balance. The gradual deterioration of our bodies leads to increased mobility issues and encourages people to become reliant on others to complete daily activities. To improve the quality of our lives and increase life expectancy exercise and general movement can be practiced on a regular schedule. The benefits of this can also work to reduce depression and anxiety and maintain independence.

Reduces depression and anxiety

Daily exercise and movement can help to improve both physical and mental well-being. Exercise has the ability to drastically improve mood and can alleviate symptoms of depression. The simple action of getting outside each morning has the power to change your entire day. Exercising can take your mind off the stresses of everyday life and releases endorphins that work to enhance your sense of well-being. It also helps to grow levels of self-confidence through meeting goals or taking on challenges related to physical activity.

Many people feel like they are required to dedicate multiple hours each day to exercise in order to improve their mental state and reduce negative emotions, however 10-15 minutes each day is enough to help you feel good about yourself. Its important to start small so as to not overwhelm yourself with the daunting task of exercise. Trying to take on more than you can handle is a common reason people give up on exercise. 15 minutes each day is easy to find and as you turn those 15 minutes into a routine, you’re body will crave more activity and you can begin to increase the duration of exercise you dedicate to your life.

Maintain independence

Daily movement also has the power to help individuals to maintain their independence. Independence in this case is the ability to perform regular daily activities without the help from others. Exercising on a regular basis helps to build muscle and maintain agility which allows people to continue participating in their day-to-day activities independently without relying on the strength of others. Preventing injuries from occurring is important for indiividuals seeking to maintain independence. Injuries can lead to the loss of regular functionality on a daily basis and its important to exercise to gain balance to prevent injuries from occurring. Falling is among the top injuries that occur to seniors and has the potential to lead to broken bones which significantly reduces functionality, movement and quality of life. Exercise and building strength have the ability to prevent or decrease the chance of a fall. Exercise also improves balance and stability, reducing the likelihood of falling and losing independence.

Living an inactive life can cause mobility issues, increase muscle loss and joint pain and increase the risk of injury. As individuals become less independent with day-to-day activities, their quality of life begins to decline.

Prevention of disease or chronic conditions

Regular, consistent movement has the ability to prevent or delay the risk of certain diseases such as diabetes, heart diseases and strokes to name a few.

Exercising increases the circulation and blood flow in your body and allows oxygen levels to rise which helps to keep blood pressure, cholesterol and triglyceride levels low reducing the risk of heart disease and nerve damage. Regular physical activity can also help to reduce pain of asthma, back pain, arthritis and many other illnesses and diseases. For example a consistent activity can reduce the frequency and severity of asthma attacks, improve muscle functionality for affected joints while reducing stiffness.

Lack of physical activity is one of the four main risk factors that lead to chronic diseases. Exercising can also delay the progression of chronic diseases for those that currently have them.

Improved brain functionality

Exercising does not only improve your physical abilities and strength; it also helps improve your brain and mental functionality. We’re not just talking about brain puzzles and cognitive exercises (which are also very important); we’re talking about real physical exercise here.

As you’re exercising, your heart rate increases which in turn increases your blood flow and exposes your brain to a greater volume of oxygen and nutrients. Simply ensuring your brain is getting more oxygen is enough to help your brain’s functionality in some way or another and is another reason to incorporate an exercise routine into your daily life.

How to exercise

If exercise is not already a component to your daily routine, that is okay! You don’t need to be intimidated by elaborate routines, heavy equipment or comprehensive training programs. The important thing here is that you incorporate a little movement into your daily life. There are no rules here, but consistency is key. In order to get the benefits of physical activity, regular consistent movement is needed. This can be as simple as walking to get your mail every day, participating in online yoga class, going for a swim in the lake or playing with grandkids.

It is never too late to start engaging in and participating in a regular and consistent exercise routine. Developing daily movement as a habit has the potential to transform lives and greatly increase quality of life for many individuals.

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Things you can do to live a fulfilled life

A fulfilled person has the power to create positive experiences for themselves, and takes advantage of this know-how time and time again throughout their daily routines. So all it takes to feel fulfilled is to be joyful! If only it were that easy… So what are some things that you can do now to create positive experiences for yourself and feel fulfilled?

Learn to laugh at yourself

Learning to laugh at yourself is an important skill to attain. Laughing at yourself sets you on an important path to inner peace and self-confidence. If you are able to truly laugh at yourself and the mistakes you make, you’re well on your way to self-acceptance which is important for achieving a fulfilled life. If you’re not able to accept who you are and where you are, you’ll never be satisfied with yourself and will never feel the fulfillment that you deserve. Life doesn’t need to be so serious, learn to laugh a little, even at yourself.

Appreciate the little things

Focusing and appreciating the smaller things in life brings your attention to what sustains you and allows you to live in this life. Being grateful, practicing gratitude and not taking thigs for granted allow you to feel fulfilled, happy and at peace with life. You’ll learn to realize that life isn’t always about you. There are so many other things going on around you that you forget about with the stresses of everyday life. These little things allow you to be where you are and have got you this far. Taking time to appreciate and be thankful for the little things allow you to be happier with how far you’ve come and how far you’ll go.

Find your passion

Participating in what you love and what you are passionate about may be the single biggest step to feeling fulfilled. Partaking in your passion gives you the desire, drive and reason to build new experiences and even relationships and bonds with other people. You’ll never regret revolving your life around what you love, even if you don’t start doing it until you’re retired! It’s never too late to find your passion. If you haven’t found your passion yet, that’s okay! Searching the depths of your mind and your past won’t always help you find it, you’ll easily get caught up in the search. Passion stems from experiences, not contemplation. So if you’re feeling stuck, create positive experiences and simply live your life, you’ll find it along the way.

Take risks

Taking risks in your life, no matter the outcome, allows you to grow and gain confidence, experience and resilience. These are all important to building a fulfilled life. Risks lead to enormous inner growth and admit the ability to look back and reflect and feel proud of the risks you took. Risks give you the opportunity to be more open and accepting of new things, it opens up so many doors in your life and provides opportunities for new experiences. Through risk taking, you learn to be content with your decisions, because often, you can’t take your actions back and simply have to move forward. So you might as well learn to be optimistic about what paths risks can lead you in your future. As people near the later years in their life, they often regret not taking risks, so in order to avoid regret and replace that with fulfillment, learn to take some risks.

Share your knowledge and wisdom

This is another big step you can take to feel fulfilled. Many people feel that the experiences they have throughout their lives gives them permission to have all the knowledge they have acquired and therefore don’t want to share it because they put in the work to get it. Although this is a true statement, sharing your knowledge and wisdom leads you to fulfillment. It gives you, and those you share it with, joy and opportunity. Maybe those you share your knowledge with take action and create something special, maybe it just makes someone smile. Whatever the outcome of sharing your wisdom and knowledge have, it’s better than keeping it all for yourself.

Take time to reinvent yourself

It’s extremely common for people to feel as though their careers make them who they are. When someone asks you to tell them about yourself, it’s likely that you would start by stating what you do or did for a living. Ex: “I’m a retired lawyer, I’ve practiced law for over 25 years”. Your career doesn’t have to define you, and it’s common for retirees to feel lost without their career because they don’t seem to know who they are anymore. So take some time to reinvent yourself, learn to describe yourself without the work you’ve done and focus instead on who you really are and what make you, you! This will help you feel fulfilled rather than lost and will encourage you to continue improving yourself.

Set goals

Setting goals are very important, once you are retired this is still relevant just in a different point of view. Setting goals allow you to live a fulfilled life in the sense that you are continually working towards an objective. If you focus these goals on self-improvement, you can feel fulfilled as you attain each of the goals you set out to achieve. This allows you to continually be successful as you lead a richer life, gaining knowledge, wisdom and experiences.

Take-away point

There are a number of things you can work on to acquire a fulfilled retirement life. Fulfillment is created through positive experiences. Following the above tasks can allow you to form healthy habits leading to a joyous, fulfilled retirement life that you can non-regretfully look back on as you continue to grow.

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To move, or not to move

Retirement brings many changes to our lives. It’s a time where you have to consider how you spend your time, how you spend your money, and which hobbies you want to focus on. Retirement is a time when you have to ask yourself the big questions. One of the big questions that new retirees have to ask themselves is where to live. Do you continue living where you are now, or do you choose to downsize to a more manageable living space?

Selling your family home is a tough decision to make. You’ve probably made some incredible memories in your home. Watching your children grow up, making friends around your neighbourhood, creating a lifestyle around your environment, these are all things that are difficult to leave behind. Selling your home is a decision that usually comes as you realize that maintaining a larger house and a yard is actually a lot of work, especially if you’re an empty nester and no longer have kids around to help out with daily chores and tasks.

So what are the benefits of downsizing?

Eliminate Stress

Do you really enjoy mowing the grass every weekend? Is shoveling your driveway an enjoyable way to spend your mornings? Retirement should be a time of relaxation and freedom, you’ve worked hard for many years to get to retirement and now, it’s time to really enjoy the life you’ve worked so hard for. Life itself is stressful, especially during times like these, so anything we can do to eliminate a little bit of that stress is important.

When you downsize, you are no longer responsible for maintaining and keeping up with a large space. A smaller space is simply easier to manage, both physically and financially. When you downsize, you reduce your maintenance and living expenses such as property taxes, utilities, plumbing, landscaping and many others. These expenses can be significantly lowered through downsizing which in turn works to lower your stress levels and give you some peace of mind, allowing you to better enjoy your retirement.

Get Organized

For the majority of people, organization is difficult at any stage of life, whether you’re a student, raising children or living on your own, but it can get easier during retirement. Downsizing forces you to choose what you actually need in your life, you can’t pack up your entire home and shove it into a smaller space without feeling cramped up and overwhelmed. Downsizing is a great motivator to go through your belongings and donate or sell your unneeded items. This also helps you decide and determine what is really important to you which is beneficial when transitioning into retirement. Once you’ve established the items you want to keep, it’s much easier to stay organized and you’ll have a lot less to worry about and maintain.

Focus on the important things

Similar to getting organized, downsizing also pushes you to transition from accumulating possessions to collecting memories. For many people, it’s around the age of retirement when you realize that what makes you feel happy and fulfilled are not the material belongings in your life, it’s the people, the knowledge and the experiences you have. Your perspective on life often changes when you acquire a new lifestyle, allowing you to focus on what will be valuable, useful and beneficial in a new environment. Decluttering your belongings allows you to see and be mindful of how your values have changed over the years, and how they will continue to evolve. Downsizing gives you the ability to focus on your personal journey, your life goals, hobbies and habits you want for your future rather than maintaining your living space.

Choosing your environment

During retirement it’s important to remain physically, socially and mentally active. Your surrounding environment plays a large role here. Downsizing provides you with the opportunity to position yourself in an area that is beneficial and complementary to your desired lifestyle. You can relocate to a neighbourhood or community that provides you with the convenience of an active lifestyle surrounded by people living in a similar stage of life as you. Maybe you love to go for walks, or read at the library. You might have a desire to be closer to a yoga studio or a good coffee shop. Moving to an area that offers these conveniences helps to ensure that you will lead the life you want to live in your retirement with ease.

Relocation Abilities

Travelling is a common practice among retirees. You are no longer tied to your job and you have been granted freedom to do as you please and go where you wish. Moving around is a great way to spend your retirement, but as you age moving, cleaning, decluttering and relocating is not as easy a task as it once may have been. Downsizing your belongings is a great way to ensure easy relocation abilities. You’ll have less items to worry about and less financial cost when leaving your space unattended. It’s also much easier to pack up and go whenever you please which is one of the major benefits of living in retirement.

Mobility Convenience

Reaching retirement usually indicates that you are in the later years of your life, and as you continue to age, your body struggles to keep up. Daily tasks and everyday movement becomes more difficult and small things such as climbing up and down stairs suddenly becomes a challenge. To prevent aching muscles and bones, downsizing has a benefit. You are able to downsize to a building or home with minimal mobility concerns. This could be a one story home, or an apartment complex that allows you to move about freely without concern. Moving around your living space is not something that you want to be worried about as you’re living in your golden years. Removing this concern is an action many individuals take to live a care free life.

Take Away Point

Retirement is an accomplishment many of us have looked forward to for a number of years, we crave freedom, convenience and simplicity. Downsizing offers you the opportunity to transition into retirement in a way that is complementary to your desired lifestyle without sacrificing quality. Allowing you to live a fulfilled, stress free retirement life.

The post Why Downsizing Is a Good Idea For Retirement appeared first on Ariva.

The WELL Building Certification was designed through the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI). IWBI is leading the movement to promote health and wellness in buildings and communities all across the world with the belief that buildings should be developed with health and wellness at the very center of the design.

IWBI is a public benefit corporation with the goal is to transform buildings, communities and spaces world-wide in ways that allow people to thrive in a prosperous, healthy environment. IWBI is the first company to exclusively focus on the ways in which buildings and their encompassing environments can enhance comfort levels, improve good decision making and generally advance the health and well-being of individuals and communities.

WELL Building Standard

The WELL Building Standard that IWBI created is the premier standard for features that support and advance human health and wellness for buildings, communities and interior spaces. WELL was developed through a rigorous process that involved integrating medical and scientific research and literature on health, behaviour, and risk factors that affect human health in regard to building design, construction and management. To achieve potential high ratings, the WELL Building Standard Certification underwent an exhaustive three-phase peer review process –scientific, practitioner and medical review– to ensure the greatest level of accuracy was achieved. WELL is in use by over 4,000 projects in more than 60 countries, encompassing over half a billion square feet of real estate around the world.

WELL utilizes strategies that have a goal to improve health and wellness through the setting of performance standards for operational protocols and policies, design, interventions and a dedication to building a healthy culture with a strong focus on wellness. The standard provides a framework that allow communities to improve human experience and livelihood through a strategically designed environment. This framework is designed to support overall human health while encouraging an active, healthy lifestyle.

WELL v2 Certification

The WELL Building Standard was launched a few years ago and many communities have acquired this standard of living and have achieved the WELL Certification. WELL v2 is the second version of the WELL Building Standard, allowing the WELL team to incorporate strategies, information, protocols and procedures from the successes of version one of the WELL Building Standard. WELL v2 draws expertise from thousands of WELL users, practitioners, medical professionals, public health experts and building scientists around the world.

The Well v2 Certification was designed as a distinct scale rating system that sets a new global benchmark for healthy communities. WELL v2 is currently the most well-tested and vetted version of WELL Building Standard and is centered around 10 concepts that impact human health and well-being, these concepts include:

• Air
• Water
• Nourishment
• Light
• Movement
• Thermal comfort
• Sound
• Materials
• Mind
• Community

Each of these concepts are incorporated into the WELL v2 rating system which is backed by relevant scientific research and industry best practices to ensure proper health, comfort and the overall well-being of communities.

Achieving the WELL v2 Certification involves extensive on-site testing, assessments and measurements, and are completed by an authorized WELL Performance Testing Agent. The designated agent typically spends up to 3 days completing a series of performance tests to ensure proper requirements are met.

The Value of a WELL Certification

The WELL Building Standard incorporates extensive research, industry best-practices and the review and feedback from over 150 WELL concept advisors to ensure accuracy and legitimacy of the requirements to become WELL certified. WELL is grounded in a vast body of scientific and medical research that examines the connection between buildings and their impact on the health and wellness of individuals spending time in those buildings.

Did you know that on average, people spend over 90% of their time indoors? That’s a large part of our entire lifetime and there are significant positive and negative effects that an environment can have on your well-being which will in-turn impact your daily life.

Residing in a WELL Certified space ensures that you are spending time in a space that is specifically designed to help you thrive and live in the best version of yourself simply by being there. That is literally their only goal, and with the strict certification requirements, you can be assured that you are in a healthy environment.

Building designers and architects have been majorly influenced by this modern building certificate as it allows the area to be designed in a way that optimizes human wellness. WELL understands that humans thrive in a balanced environment that connects them to nature, and it doesn’t matter where in the world you are residing, our biological needs are the same. WELL works to ensure that wherever in the world you are, those needs can be taken care of in a quality environment in a WELL Certified building.

The pure understanding that people need to be the center of an environment was critical to the development of WELL. When you place humans at the core of design, every decision is made with the wellbeing of the public in mind. This creates a unique atmosphere of inclusion, community and prosperity. This is what Ariva embodies, and that’s why the WELL v2 Certification is an important step that makes sense to take.

To learn more about WELL and their WELL Building Standard Certifications, check out https://www.wellcertified.com.

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