Not only early retirement but any kind of retirement that gets the retiree in a mode that they don't have to try anymore will result in cognitive decline. I am seeing this in my dad who has been retired for ten years now. Throughout his work life he was a sharp hard working banker. Now he uses his age and retirement as an excuse for not trying. Just yesterday he wanted me to order something for him from Amazon. I told him to send me the link to the item. He asked me how to do that. I told him if you can't find the Share link just copy the link and send it to me. He responds by saying that he doesn't know how to do copy-paste. He has been using computers for at least the last fifteen years. I asked him how come he didn't know how to copy-paste. His response was - I am retired now and there's nobody to tell me or teach me. I can see the cognitive decline. Things he used to be able to do, he can't anymore. This type of attitude is also affecting his self respect and confidence.
I don't understand how so many people can anchor their lives to work. If you do that, when you retire, you've lost your meaning of life. I have a list of things a mile long that I just can't get to because 40 hours a week is already spoken for. Early retirement speeds cognitive decline? Maybe if you sit on the beach and/or watch TV all day long, but that sounds kind of miserable if done for more than a few weeks.
Well, most people I see did have other plans before they retired, but when finally retired and having no one to force them to do anything, they actually do nothing. The hobbies they complained they had no time for, the charities they wanted to work for, etc all quite rapidly vanish. Smart people with high profile jobs who end up watching tv and doing the odd sudoku puzzle. New generations might be different (although I cannot imagine the much reduced attention span of people helps against this) and ofcourse this is anecdotal but I do see this a lot. I know people who are now retired 10+ years and kind of assumed they would be dead by now while they ofcourse have 20 years more probably. At least 3 I know died over 95 in good health (for 95) while being bored shitless (travelling, which somehow is a retirement obsession, apparently gets boring too) for the past 15-20 years.
Being self-motivated is actually incredibly difficult. Just ask any PhD student who has hands-off supervisors. Learning to chase your own goals independently is a skill you have to cultivate. You need to learn your weaknesses, what tricks you can employ to get working, and what you actually care about enough to achieve.
Hmmm there is a market for self-motivation advice to PhD students but they aren't exactly a wealthy audience, and atleast some of it is purchased by education institutions rather than individuals. Beyond that, there are plenty of motivation oriented smart phone apps and etc. And there is 80,000 hours who sometimes take that as their purview.
I'm a 1000x more productive when I have a support group that I spend time lots of time with. Usually that support group comes from being at the office with co-workers. If I retired and didn't find a support group I'm pretty confident I would not stay motivated.
It's not just having people around either, it's shared goals and shared responsibilities. I'm more productive when I know others need my work. We could be collaborating on a game at a game jam where the game designer needs me to add some new settings they can tweak and the artist needs a way to get some new data in the game and iterate. That pressure is very motivating for me.
But, for me at least, it's both the feeling of wanting to provide solutions for other team members, the feeling of a shared goal, and the feeling of camaraderie I get from actually being with people (vs being remote)
I've been lucky the majority of projects I worked on were things I wanted to work on and see succeed. I can imagine lots of projects where I wouldn't feel that.
What you describe sounds roughly similar to what parent op is warning about. Being reliant on external forces for your own happiness / fulfillment will probably suck in retirement - people generally lose friends, not gain them over the years. Find something that motivates you on its own, regardless of anybody's else involvement.
For me that would be travelling, hiking, and generally being in nature - but this requires at least OKish health for the age, which might or might not be there later. Reality is, we mostly don't know how things (and us) will turn up later in life, and if we end up in good spot it will be mostly by sheer luck.
Besides really bad ailments which restrict you to a bed or location or when your brain gives out (the worst option, but yes, it of course happens; stroke, dementia, etc), I try to build on two things; a) hiking/nature b) brainy hobbies and I try to combine them. I read/write parts while hiking, I program parts while hiking, I interact with my friends while in the middle of rainforests etc. If the a) falls away because of an ailment, I am perfectly happy doing b). I consciously try to prepare for the future as I have seen too many unhappy people and that really is so not needed.
the advice I lean toward is that you need to make an effort to have strong relationships and people in your life rather than find ways to learn to be strong without them.
When you spend years going to work every day in the presence of external sources of motivation (a boss who could fire you, a mortgage to pay, coworkers who depend on you, etc.), it's easy to underestimate just how much of a factor those sources play. It's quite difficult to have to rely entirely on intrinsic motivation to get things done if you don't have a lot of practice doing so.
Yes, that's exactly true. We need education to step up teaching people to enjoy solitude and not get instantly depressed/anxious and 'learn' how to have and enjoy hobbies. for both retirement and universal income.
I agree, it's really not related to work at all. To me, this sounds more like propaganda that falls under the elitest premise that "...people need to be assigned work tasks to be productive members of society."
Perhaps this study gives some merit to this premise, at least for cognitive use, if there's really any relationship at all and it's not purely genetic/age related (past data conflicts with some of these findings).
I find myself far more intellectually stimulated doing activities outside work than during work because people don't want to pay me enough for the things I find alluring, so I often compromise and do some bit of what people will pay me to do.
Some of us see work as the meaning of life. Traveling and doing things just for the experience alone seems kind of meaningless. Great for vacation, but not great for long term goals. Perhaps if you're at a dead end job, then work might feel meaningless, I agree.
To the people downvoting this: why is this an unreasonable perspective?
The commenter isn't advocating one way or another, only pointing out that there are people that exist who are content with work as their self-perceived life meaning.
I can absolutely see how this can be true for people in the sciences. There are many academics who devote their entire career - and often their life - to finding the answer to extremely difficult problems. For those people, I imagine they must feel their work as more of a life mission rather than a regular job necessary to pay the bills.
There are a lot of people who find significant meaning in their work (perhaps greater meaning in their work than they've been able to find outside of it). That doesn't necessarily mean it's bad or unhealthy.
These type of people may be few and far between. But they exist.
didn't downvote but I do feel an instinctive distaste at seeing the sentiment expressed, not because it's a bad sentiment (it's actually a great one) but because of the role it plays in our public discourse.
As you pointed out, the people who share this sentiment are a minority - I'm less convinced it's tiny, what I've read suggests it's a sixth to a third, depending on how satisfied we mean. But that group is heavily weighted towards high-status professions.
As a result, a high-status minority is actively opposed to any social reforms that would increase leisure time, and I do believe we all suffer as a result. I don't think we can really put a price on Albert Einstein staying in that patent office, but I think it's very high and I think we all pay it. That's what I associate with comments like the grandparent - such a person is in a good situation, and good on them for recognizing it. But they often generalize their experience to a majority of the population where that is actually very much the wrong conclusion to draw.
I don't even think you need to be in the sciences. Perhaps it's a result of a protestant upbringing, but I grew up in blue-collar America where virtually everyone was a tradesman. If I may generalize: these are people that while they might complain and dislike going to work, they feel deep satisfaction about contributing back to society.
Or maybe it's that with trades you have a direct connection to the work you do and the effect it has on the world.
Either way I think we could learn something from them. White collar types seem to want to avoid work at all costs. Work isn't to be avoided. In fact if you measure your life by how much it affects others, it's probably the most important part of your life.
As a developer, I feel a deep disconnect between the work I do and any results. At home I make things and I get way more satisfaction from designing a simple 3D object that serves a function and printing it out.
I can see why tradesmen may have better job satisfaction. You can directly improve the life of someone else.
I find immense meaning in my work, and I've gone through long stretches in the past 10 years where I would've said more or less what the parent commenter said, that experience for its own sake is meaningless.
However, my perspective has evolved somewhat, or changed might be the better word.
Just because something is productive and rewarded by society doesn't mean it can't be addictive. And just because something is rewarding and meaningful doesn't mean you're fully enjoying your life as the present. It can be easy to get caught up in always working for the future as life passes you by.
A life algorithm that's always focused on improving future moments, but that never takes the time to enjoy them when future arrives and they become present moments… it's almost like some sort of tragic Greek myth.
I guess there is work under employment (or as a founder, or whatever), and then work outside of this.
Considering a large definition of work, when you are cooking, cleaning your house, taking care of your children or grandchildren, maintaining your free software or participating in your association in your "free time", you are still working, only perhaps with less strings attached for some of these things, and unpaid for that (note that you can see your retirement leave as an indirect payment).
And that is very comforting to me: you can still work as a retired, on things meaningful to you, without anyone telling you what to do.
And sure, you may have the chance to pick a (paid, employed, founder's) job that is meaningful to you. Best to ensure that you'll still be able to achieve meaningful things to you (on your own) after you leave that job if this is important to you.
I think ones health and perhaps even perception of its imminent decline makes people avoid commitments such as taking a role in their association that requires some activity. The same may mean people in their retirement do not engage in long term projects.
As for cooking, cleaning etc one can optimise those activities to do them almost mindlesly I imagine.
I understand without really sharing the parent’s sentiment. I’ll probably continue doing some of the work I do now when I retire. But at some point I do want to spend more time on hobbies and travel that’s more in the more time than money (eg backpacking) vein.
But I understand how someone might find fiddling around with photography or home software projects frivolous if they could instead contribute to projects they find significant-but are of a nature that they really need to work on more or less full time.
Work is the way you contribute back into society. Going to work and doing my job is my way of knowing that I'm giving back into the system that allows me and my family to live. I find it far more fulfilling than anything else.
Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well. At my job, I get to exercise the skills I'm best at.
I can't do any old job though. I have to be able to trace at least a thin line from what I'm doing to the broader society.
I know this isn't a common opinion, but I encourage you to at least consider that work—while not fun—is at least a fulfilling way to spend your time. This should be the case regardless of what you do or how much you make.
> Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well.
Depends. If no one else is doing that particular thing, then by definition you're the world expert. It doesn't matter if there are other people who could hypothetically do it better; they're not in the game.
I have a current hobby that most able-bodied technically minded people could do better than me (genetic joint condition), but as far as I can tell I'm accomplishing things no one else has.
> Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well.
Doing it as a hobby just means that you don't do it for money, not that you aren't good at it. For example often your hobbies overlap with your work. I program games as a hobby and program/design extremely performance sensitive things at my job, they overlap quite a lot.
> Hobbies I hate. By definition I'm an amateur and I don't perform well.
If you love doing something (which is the origin of the word "amateur"), you're likely to be good at it. If you're a professional, it just means you get paid.
Amateurs care primarily about the pursuit itself, while professionals care primarily about their paychecks.
Well, unless you live alone or don't work at all, you will always be spending much more time working than on your hobbies, so you will inevitably be better at working.
I think that the gp is using "work" to mean one specific job or at least only the work one does in their career, while you're using it to mean all work.
I don't think they're mutually exclusive views. I think it's possible to do meaningful and impactful work outside of your job and career, like volunteering or running a side business as a passion project or even creating artwork, and I can imagine that kind of work being the kind of thing you never retire from.
For me, the separation between hobby and work is more of a matter of responsibility than pay. If I feel responsible for some activity/task/project I would classify it as work. It does not matter if it is taking care of kids, growing a garden, being a board member of some charitable organization, or one of my free software projects: I do not get paid, and I like doing it, but I think of it as work rather than a hobby.
Building some software prototypes for ideas I have, that I count as a hobby. Reading all the books I do, however more time I spend on it than some work activities, I still think of as a hobby.
It's not the same. Work requires you to finish. Just having a list of things is not the same. You get lazy, you shift to the next thing too early, etc.
I totally agree. I have so many interests and so little time. I can't wait until I can retire so that I can focus on the things that really interest me. I'm hoping to form groups of like minded people with similar hobbies. I envision my future as one of those old dudes playing chess in the park, except chess would be replaced with one of my many interests.
> Ask a wage slave what he'd like to accomplish. Chances are the response will be something like "I'd start every day at the gym and work out for two hours until I was as buff as Brad Pitt. Then I'd practice the piano for three hours. I'd become fluent in Mandarin so that I could be prepared to understand the largest transformation of our time. I'd really learn how to handle a polo pony. I'd learn to fly a helicopter. I'd finish the screenplay that I've been writing and direct a production of it in HDTV."
Why hasn't he accomplished all of those things? "Because I'm chained to this desk 50 hours per week at this horrible [insurance|programming|government|administrative|whatever] job.
> So he has no doubt that he would get all these things done if he didn't have to work? "Absolutely none. If I didn't have the job, I would be out there living the dream."
Suppose that the guy cashes in his investments and does retire. What do we find? He is waking up at 9:30 am, surfing the Web, sorting out the cable TV bill, watching DVDs, talking about going to the gym, eating Doritos, and maybe accomplishing one of his stated goals.
> Retirement forces you to stop thinking that it is your job that holds you back. For most people the depressing truth is that they aren't that organized, disciplined, or motivated.
This was so true for me, anyway. I've always had beer tastes on a decent income, so I was financially free five years into working. Now I have all the free time in the world and it's killing me. I do have so many interests but no motivation or discipline to do them.
I also have this intention. I am about 15-20 years from retirement but I have palpable fears that I will forsake my dreams of doing something creative, falling into the rut that I've seen my older relatives and friends follow.
You do meet the odd creative and intelligent senior but they are the minority. I hope I fall into that category when I retire!
I hope to emulate my father. He worked til 70. Then went back to university to study a Masters in Mechanical Engineering. After a few months off, he got bored, and has just started back doing a Masters in Aeronautical Engineering. He will be 77 when he finishes.
Damn, that is inspiring. Here I am whining about how late it is in my life to go back to school to get a Bachelor's and your Dad is racking up masters :) I wonder if there are age limits for PhD programs?
Also, I will say, I wish the US was more like Europe in giving people the ability to full-time type work but part-time. I think a lot of older people would jump at the chance to work 40-60% and make full time hourly pay.
> I also have this intention. I am about 15-20 years from retirement but I have palpable fears that I will forsake my dreams of doing something creative, falling into the rut that I've seen my older relatives and friends follow.
I really hope to shift down from 5 days / 40 hours a week to something that allows me to start pursuing my dreams long before I retire. It should help me develop the habit instead of being paralyzed by the sudden shock at an older age.
Actually the thought of having to wait to retire & be an old fart before you can get really started on the things you always wanted to do sounds very very depressing. (Unless you're making FU money and retire early, which I'm not)
I want a plot of land. I want to plant trees and see them grow. I want to grow my own apples; Finnish apples are second to none and you can't buy them in a grocery store. I want to grow berries, vegetables, flowers, birds, butterflies. I'd like to have a piece of forest too, though mainly for sake of preservation and relaxation. Maybe as a source of firewood for sauna.
I also want to make music, and possibly do other arts.
Also, I realized slowly over the last six years how important it is to develop hobbies beyond just writing software. Sucks to have all your eggs in that basket and then burn out or decide it's a waste of time (which I consider every time I take acid or as my social life expands): now what?
Learning a new language was my gateway drug into trying different things for a change.
It's very hard with depression, but work is also hard with depression, though getting some stuff done is much easier with an actual job.
Tried some woodworking stuff but it requires a lot of learning and patience.
But I guess a lot of hobbies don't require that sort of effort, ie hiking. But you sort of need some sort of social contacts to encourage activity. It seems very easy to just stagnate in loneliness while consuming media these days.
Not simply hobbies or interests. Sheer curiosity in the reality enveloping us all would drive me to keep the same hours I work today, but with none of the work-related stress I experience at work.
Retirement for me is merely a financial milestone abstraction. The point where monetary wealth throws off sufficient income to meet opex and reasonable capex requirements for the foreseeable future. The Banksian phrase "money is a sign of poverty" operates here though, so that milestone is just a temporary, necessary means to an end.
Like many others in this thread, retirement enables me to go tinker my interests, fueled by an >10K line Emacs Org Mode "curiuoser-and-curiuoser" list. A lot of it is redneck tinkering to be sure ("What would happen if I attached heat sinks to Tesla solar roof tiles that ran a non-corrosive, thermally-efficient carrier liquid through the body of the heat sinks into a heat exchanger in my hot water supply? Damifino, fire up the CAD/CAM-linked CNC and let's go find out!"). Some is of a more serious philosophical/research bent ("What precise factors move the Coasean Boundary of an organization?"). Some of it is of more pedestrian ambitions (learn blue water sailing and open source my findings to extend boat design along Steve Dashew's philosophies). Some is for pure utility (build a bi-fold door shipping container that is a giant toolbox that extends with another into a climate-controlled workshop). Nearly all of it requires finding allies and co-conspirators if only to share and compare notes with, so they are intrinsically highly social activities.
That list goes fractal, too. Every time I tinker around adding to my notes to scratch my itch for one curiosity, I find other avenues I hadn't initially considered, and yet more curiosities are added. Makes me want to upload my mind into a computing substrate with physical world manipulators and clone myself.
I'm never going to approach even a tiny fraction of my curiosities, but fellow co-conspirators and I are going to have a hell of a lot of fun along the way!
I had the same reaction but then wondered whether the thing that makes work 'work' might help stave off cognitive decline. I.e. At least a few times a week I don't feel like working but, because my livelihood depends on it, I have no choice but to force myself to. On the contrary, if I don't happen to feel like engaging in any one of my numerous hobbies it's easy for me to veg out instead and thus risk cognitive decline.
Perhaps there's some threshold of 'vegging' that isn't obtained if one has enough hobbies.
I have noticed the same thing, but not from age, instead I attribute it to ux/ui.
People used to know how to type a url into an address bar. If they didnt type it correctly it didnt work. They knew how to type an email address. Now for the life of people, its actually uncomfortable to type example.com without a space into an address bar and go directly to a site and not to google. They purposely put a space between the words because they only know how to search for terms. (This could also be a semi-unconscious learned safety behavior to avoid typos in domains.) The same applies to autocomplete in the TO field of email programs. If a name doesnt autopopulate, "well that email must not exist, because autocomplete isnt suggesting their name."
As fields started thinking more for us, and the raw structure of paths has become more and more hidden (websites to apps, chrome overall shrinking and hiding protocols), I dont think its fair to attribute "well I cant find the url" to cognitive decline. Our interfaces are purpose hiding this stuff and making us depend more and more on fuzzy representations of structure.
I am a senior software engineer and I do the "google instead of type the domain name" thing intentionally every time... I want to be sure I don't mistype the domain. It is not semi-unconscious... it is very much intentional.
Unless, of course, you're looking for Sci-hub or Library Genesis, in which case Google will suggest you every thinkable misspelling of the domain but the right one :)
When I figured out that address bar autocomplete could look for matches in bookmarks, it started to change how I interact with internal tools at work. I still like to have a wiki page with all of the links for a subject area, but I'm as likely to start typing the name into my address bar and seeing what pops up.
>People used to know how to write in cursive too. Some skills just get obsolete.
I heard this few times. Is it actually a thing that people don't know how to write cursive? Natural writing (cursive) has been a part of primary education in most(perhaps all) countries since the beginning. Did they actually remove it recently? That would be insane. How one is supposed to be able to write quickly, as in when taking notes, without cursive?
> How one is supposed to be able to write quickly, as in when taking notes, without cursive?
One usually types said notes into their phone or speaks them into their watch. Or just writes them quickly the typical way, since there aren't likely to be cases where that wouldn't be sufficient.
> Is it actually a thing that people don't know how to write cursive?
Of course. Cursive writing is a use-it-or-lose-it kind of skill, and almost no one uses it any more. It has been replaced by typing. When was the last time you received a letter written in cursive? When was the last time you wrote one?
It was part of my education through middle school up to 2004 and I had never used it since so I don't remember it.
On the other hand there are kids today that aren't taught proper typing and they can manage 30 words per minute at best while I can do 140 because I type constantly.
insane? I learned cursive but I was always faster writing without it. this has never been a problem for me. I type faster than handwriting. Cursive is a waste of valuable school time. there are more useful things to teach.
if you actually think "fast hand-written note taking" is a critical skill you should advocate for teaching shorthand. I'm not convinced cursive is actually faster and the science on that is hardly clear. http://nautil.us/issue/40/learning/cursive-handwriting-and-o...
Learning cursive is a waste of time like video games are a waste of time. The process teaches hand-eye coordination, patience, and even learning itself.
ok... so should we teach video games in schools? I'm not saying we should ban the use of cursive. I'm saying it doesn't deserve a prominent place in school curriculums.
Sometimes answers like these can be confabulations. My father will make up anything as an explanation when you ask why, even when it's obviously not true. He still scores ok on the mmse, for now at least.
There's no doubt that people decline cognitively in their old age. I don't think this study's saying that all cognitive decline is due to retirement. People get old and their bodies and brains deteriorate. To my mind the question is whether the rate of decline can be reduced by keeping mentally active.
People's cognitive decline statistically starts as early as 40. You can see that from the age distribution of biggest discoveries in physics and mathematics. You can also see that from the HR policies of the software companies.
This may be changing somewhat as people live longer. The average age for nobel prize work is around 48, but many scientists are productive their whole lives.
Since most software development isn't anywhere near nobel or turing-class difficulty, age discrimination policies in hiring and firing make more sense in the context of other factors such as a desire for cheaper workers, trying to avoid retraining costs, and a desire for workers with minimal family or outside commitments (and no interest in work-life balance) as well as fewer health issues.
> researchers have discovered that Alzheimer’s Disease is preceded by DECADES of gradually worsening glucose hypometabolism.
> Brain glucose metabolism can be reduced by as much as 25% long before any memory problems become obvious. As a psychiatrist who specializes in the treatment of college students, I find it positively chilling that scientists have found evidence of glucose hypometabolism in the brains of women as young as 24 years old
Your chart seems to indicate software development related intelligence peaks somewhere between 40-60. Given this, why do software companies like young people so much?
To steal from patio11, an employment contract is both payment for current services and also an option on future services-- hiring people is hard, and you want to keep them around.[1] A 60 year old is less valuable since they're more likely to retire than a 30 year old.
The chart of intelligence vs age is terrifying in a sense, I'm amazed it's so clear. When I was in my 20s working on my phd, it's true I was learning a lot more new things. If I pursue a new phd at age 60, I wonder if it would push my ability up. Nothing I use in my day to day job was hardly invented 30 years ago, I've had to learn everything. I think most people not in fast changing engineering fields don't get that constant mental stimulation.
I did a masters and then a juris doctorate in my 20s. I am now in my early 40s, and I am doing another masters with the goal of doing a PhD when I am done.
Before I started, I was pretty concerned about whether I would be able to do this even. Most of my peers are in their 20s and 30s, though it was surprising to me when I started this program that I am not the oldest candidate and there are a couple of us in the higher age ranges. Anyway, I had wondered if I would be able to keep up with the youngsters. In fact, I don't think it has been an issue at all. I think that I am performing at least at as high of or possibly a higher level today than during my first run at graduate education.
I think there are certain factors that I, as an older, more settled, less let's-start-living-life(!) person have as an advantage over my young peers. Many of them still focus a lot of time on socializing, whereas I have my spouse and kids and old friends whom I don't have to see every weekend (the old friends--I see my spouse and kids every day). My younger colleagues do a lot of dumb things still, ones that I sure did also when I was that age and have gotten out of my system.
I would say that there were certain advantages to doing graduate work when I was young, and certain advantages now. I find it impossible to say which is better, but it is at least no worse now than then.
Age causes brain volume decline and intelligence loss, like distance causes tiredness in marathon runners. i.e. it can't cause anything, it's an abstract measurement - age doesn't cause rust, oxidation does. Distance doesn't cause tiredness, running does.
Increasing age and increasing decline can't mean that age causes decline, it shows one or more of: processes which cause decline keep happening, repair processes either don't happen or get worse, new generation either doesn't happen or gets worse.
(If worms were eating your brain, your brain volume would go down and your intelligence would go down as time passed and your age increased, it wouldn't prove that age caused your intelligence loss. Correlation isn't causation).
Lack of testosterone because they already have a mate.
There is a lot of science to back this up. That getting married and/or having kids is what marks a man's decline in innovative output, because they no longer have to impress potential mates.
But it's also correlative and not causative, and assumes most men make the breakthroughs, which has been traditionally true but almost certainly because of some other factor than just gender.
To those who silently downvoted it: is it politically incorrect to talk about cognitive decline at any age in general, or only starting from a particular age? If 40 was too early, what is the allowed age? 65? 85?
Overall production declines but relative levels have a greater variance when one isn't "mated". Also other hormones, all of which contribute to "impressing a potential mate".
One factor may well be that when you start studying a subject a large part of what contributes to new developments may well be that you bring a new angle, and lack of understanding of what is accepted.
E.g. I remember my first CS classes, and how I during my algorithm classes "invented" thing after thing just to read on to the next chapter and see my "inventions" covered. But now and again someone will come up with a genuine invention to a problem that is novel and important in part because they've not yet come to learn what the "right solution" to that problem is.
As you learn more, you tend to focus on the perceived narrow gaps of uncharted territories or at adding more at the peaks, where making progress is a massive slog.
From a different perspective, having done multiple startups, I think one of the advantages I had in terms of willingness to jump into something new when I was younger, was lack of knowledge.
I went head first into starting and ISP without knowing either the business side, or the technical side of it - I had enough knowledge to know where to start figuring it out, but not enough to know why it would be hard. And so I did it. We weren't tremendously successful, but we learned a hell of a lot, and in the end it kickstarted my career.
Today, it's far easier for me to look at an idea and think up a hundred reasons why it will probably fail because I know more. While that probably saves me a lot of misery, I've also been through enough startups to know that a lot of the objections people raise that looks fatal can be easily overcome; it's very hard to know which flaws will actually be a problem and which will not, and some even turns out to be advantages (e.g. you find a way past them but your competitors don't). In a sense it is frustrating, and I sometimes wish I could look at an idea and ignore the obvious flaws the way I would have at 20...
Another advantage was being less risk averse even when I did see the risks and flaws. I had far less to lose:
No career to ruin; no house to lose; no child I was responsible for, more time to do something else if I got nowhere.
So when we then look at breakthroughs, to determine if it is down to cognitive differences, we also need to consider how large a proportion at different ages are willing to take those risks and put in that level of effort.
My first startup was planned in a couple of weeks; we got seed funding from some random person one of us met in a bar (...); the following week I moved out from parents into a room in our new office.
I'd never be willing to move that fast today, nor live in the office, because my priorities are different. And while I strongly believe I am more likely to be successful at the things I try today, I am also a lot more cautious about the attempts I make. In the end I'm probably less likely to end up with a stratospheric success due to less willingness to take huge risks and fewer attempts, but I'm also less likely (I think, at least) to end up crashing and burning. Startups are obviously different from e.g. success in science, but I'd suggest similar mechanisms are at play - you build a reputation that depends on certain things that are easier if you stay "safe" in a niche you know you can keep publishing in than if you go for something of totally uncertain payoff; you get comfortable in a working pattern that fits your life etc.
Of course that does not rule out cognitive decline as part of the explanation as well.
My dad was the same - he literally wrote software for a computer that hadn’t been built yet. That’s just such a foreign concept to me. But in his last years he was barely able to use a web browser despite the fact he spent nearly his entire adult life as a developer. I don’t know if the slowdown comes first or if it comes after retirement but it frightens the hell out of me either way. And it is probably the thing that I most think about when policies like UBI are brought up.
This sounds shockingly close to my own dad, except he's still working (albeit in a much, much less technical role), which makes me suspect that it is the age...
> His response was - I am retired now and there's nobody to tell me or teach me.
There's something prescient here. I can't count how many times a day just being surrounded other people I've seen them do or use something slightly more efficient than the way I would do it, and have integrated it into my workflow.
Isolation may be a factor in cognitive decline, we absorb a ton through fleeting social interactions.
There's an attitude thing there too though (while I agree with you that you can often pick things up just by being around them), between reacting to lack of knowledge by looking for someone to tell you or teach you, and just asking someone else to do it if you're not told, vs. actively seeking out the knowledge yourself.
Personally I think part of why I've learned a lot of what I know is because as an introvert I often notice that I'm willing to put in a lot of effort into figuring things out myself to avoid asking someone.
As a child I was blind to my motivations, and sometimes it made me miserable because I'd stress out over how to do something that I could have trivially asked about and where figuring out the solution was a lot of effort, but learning the skill of figuring out "anything" on my own has been incredibly valuable.
Today I'm aware of this tendency, and will often force myself to pick the social interaction based on a conscious trade-off of the relative pain of asking vs. doing, but I will still often choose to find a way to learn how to do something on my own rather than ask even when asking would be "less painful", both because it often teaches me more and because maintaining the skill of learning on my own is something I value in itself.
I asked him how come he didn't know how to copy-paste. His response was - I am retired now and there's nobody to tell me or teach me. I can see the cognitive decline.
Are you positive that for the 15 years he spent using a computer at work he just wasn't constantly asking younger people in the office to do stuff for him and never learned because computers are scary?
I've seen it before from people who have been using computers at work for decades.
I don't want to suggest I'm diagnosing anything, but my Mum taught some computer use as a high school teacher. She ran a computerisation project as school librarian. In retirement she did computer courses and helped w charity at which she used computers often. Then she started having to write down sequences of instructions for relatively basic things (like 'cut&paste an image into an email') to the point of not being able to do basics. By this stage, frustratingly, one could try and teach here very basic things and it was like she had no short term memory at all. She'd go along with things, make the right noises as if she were taking things in, do things as you talked her through it. Then you'd say "right, now try by yourself" and she'd just be lost and not know where to start. The year after (about 4 years ago) she had a mental health crisis, and was diagnosed with vascular dementia and Alzheimer's disease (I realise now, her dad had Alzheimer's too).
Or maybe he always had assistants to do most of that for him at work and now that he's retired he doesn't have that anymore so he's reaching out to you? Anecdotal evidence is dangerous.
"[Geometer] H.S.M. Coxeter lived to the age of 96, working and lecturing right until his death. He attributed his long life to a strict vegetarian diet and he did 50 push-ups every day. He said, I am never bored."
Maybe your father will be sharp in other things not computing. I will have good level of computing when i reach +75 but well, maybe newer concepts will escape me a little bit but maybe i have other skills that are even more sharper than you can imagine.
Yes and no. Your statement is true about under-the-hood stuff, but false about user interfaces. Your phone interface is not like Windows 95, still less like a green screen terminal talking to a mainframe.
LOL. Downvoted? I think most people browsing HackerNews will not be freaked out by minor UI changes 30 years from now. Even a 3 year old child can figure out how to use an iPad.
A lot of people spent their entire lives looking at a screen, performing some operations and little else. Above all people from the banking sector, where everything is organized in a hierarchical way. I remember bankers who only had one screen with a summary and that's all they saw before. Today everything has changed, as everything is done through computers, but if your father is an older person, he probably hardly ever used computers.
This sounds like a long complaint about your dad veiled as commentary about the article. I suggest you take him out to lunch and have a good time, without spending too much time wondering how much he is or isn't trying anymore.
Another way to think about it - it is a kind of self-defence mechanism against bad thoughts in old people - imagine how hard it would be if they could fully realise that tomorrow, next day or year is the last one for them.
You should send him exactly what you wrote here. He probably needs someone he cares about to challenge the comfort he has accepted. Depending on his personality, it could increase the time you have left to spend with him
That is probably mostly just age, you can't say that an elderly person that retired is declining due to no job when they'd decline due to age 80% as much. There is obviously a sweet spot here, retire in the the 50s and play music all day is my goal.
To be fair, working with text is really hard on mobile and has regressed a long way from general purpose computers like the pc. To undo you have to shake the fucking thing, and text selection takes time and patience (if you can select the text at all!)
Apple mice only had 1 button because they said they didn't want to confuse people. And nowadays? Multi fingered gestures, long presses, etc. What a shit show!
I don’t know how many times I’ve been frustrated at my iphone for not having any way to undo.
Who thougt this was a good idea? There was a thread the other day about obscure iphone commands, but this takes the shaking cake.
In iOS 13 it's worse, because they just changed all of it up. Now shaking and the old gestures for moving the cursor or getting the copy/paste menu don't work either. Instead it's three-finger directional swipes and pinches and long-touching a caret to pick it up and whatnot.
There are a couple of problems with that. One is that now instead of coordinating one finger you have to coordinate three, which may not be as easy for someone older. To be fair I think all of the gestures do have a simpler secondary alternative somewhere, but that brings the next issue.
iOS (and everyone else) quit documenting stuff a long time ago aside from in help snippets, over the idea that everything was "discoverable."
Aside from the core issue of expecting a user to "discover" complex and rarely-used gestures with no affordances, what happens when you "discover" they don't work anymore?
I guess you get to discover the help entry via Google, or find it in a Tom's Guide "35 things you didn't know you could do..." type article...once you finally realize they changed and that it isn't just you screwing it up.
We really need to create the equivalent of CUA for phone interfaces. Prior to that being broadly adopted, we had to deal with all kinds of variant menu structures and shortcuts in DOS-based and early GUI apps. After that, it was easy to move between things and (eliminating the entire freaking menu bar aside) things have stayed pretty stable since.
Afraid so, but there you go. Only reason I found out earlier is I lucked across it in my news feed so don't feel too bad. It's pretty obnoxious they didn't have a transition period where both sets of gestures worked.
Ok but sharing is easier. Click the share button and it will put the link into email or SMS or... Dropbox, whatever you got lying around on your phone.
Both my Grandfathers retired shortly before seventy. One sat down in his Chair and did not get up. He ignored his health, and passed within 10 years.
The other is highly active in his community and church, still gardens, and travels constantly. He is in his mid 80s with no sign of slowing down. Barring a major health incident, he will live well into his 90s like his mother, and may pass 100.
Not doing anything is bad for your health, both physical and mental. The effects are exacerbated when you are older, but are still prevalent when younger.
I don't mean to be rude, but your living grandfather is very fortunate. Your deceased grandfather lived an average lifespan for someone in most of the developed world. I don't know ... a great deal about the background of your anecdote, but I would hesitate to overextrapolate, though. Sometimes the lack of activity is the manifestation of the underlying health issue that contributes to mortality.
Its definitely anecdata. My surviving Grandfather has lost two wives (both active as he was) to cancer, so his life style alone does not confer longevity.
That does not mean the will to live is not real, and those without out it fade much faster.
And sometimes you have poor genes for atherosclerosis. Exercise is still a miracle drug, but I think the young underestimate the physical disabilities that inevitably come with age. The will to live may be correlated with mean survival years because of the same underlying health issues.
That’s a really good point. I can’t imagine someone’s will to live staying strong if they’re in constant severe pain from accumulated bone/joint/nerve issues.
My dad lead a VERY active lifestyle - triathlons, squash, swimming, working on building sites, etc. What reward did he get for all that exercise and activity? Replacement hips, painful knees and developing spinal issues (spinal stenosis I think, but can’t quite remember off the top of my head) that he’s been told to live with until he can’t stand the pain anymore because surgery is incredibly risky and might not help or make things worse.
He does have great cardiovascular health though and he still works at his own business, learned how to use an iPhone, etc. Still walks a ridiculous number of steps a day that puts me to shame. The mechanical issues do make it more difficult than it used to be for him though.
My grandfather is passing 94 and exactly as you describe. He wants to see us all have his great grand kids, and says he’s not going anywhere until that happens.
It motivated him to completely alter his diet when the doctor said so, take up physical therapy when the doctor said so, and all manner of other healthy life choices that most people just wouldn’t bother with so late in life.
Good reason to live is a massive part of making choices that keep you living.
In my experience grandparents live longer than “average” unless they’ve done something obviously harmful like smoking or sitting all day.
My great grandmother just died at 90 and really what killed her was being forced to stop walking, she lost so much bone mass that the increased Gs in elevator buckled her shin.
One of my grandpas was an alcoholic, did not much more than sit around, drink beer, and go out to eat pizza and roasted chicken about once a week for the last couple of decades of his life. He lived until 100.
The other had one of his lungs shot by tuberculosis, but despite that, smoked his entire life. Not particularly active either after retirement. He lived until his late 80s (EDIT: just checked, 85 actually).
EDIT: Obviously staying active is important for good health but anecdotes are not super informative.
My dad always refers to his body in a similar manner to how one would refer to a car, I.E. “too much mileage on me”, “I walked a lot so now my knees are worn out”. I wonder if their generation has a more simplistic view of our bodies as mechanical things.
From what I’ve seen it seems more likely that joints take constant low level wear but at young ages the repair mechanisms easily compensate for everyone but extreme athletes, while at older ages it takes much less to overwhelm the repair mechanisms and start doing long term damage.
I am only in my mid 30s, but losing 20lbs, switching from heavy weight lifting to more cardio/light weight training, taking a few supplements, long stretching sessions and sauna sessions have me feeling more spry than I did when I was 21. Not sure how long that will keep up, but I don't intend to give into inactivity without a fight :p.
Sometimes I imagine a future where you van replace parts of your body.
A knee, hip or ankle replacement, and a yearly revision after 70 (like a cara), and we could live until 200.
Probably this thinking comes from "ghost in the shell" mixed with Asimov's books.
It's sad to see people you love doing this. You cannot equate retirement with not working. Work in things that you do enjoy and always wanted but didn't have the time, or get a hobby.
From what I hear my grandfather was in a downward spiral until he bought a new house, made some improvements, and then went back to work part time. He was pretty sassy until the big C got him.
Which makes things dicey for retirees with post-polio syndrome. Moving keeps them mentally sharp, but also speeds post-polio progression (as I understand it).
This is something I think about a lot. I plan to never stop doing mentally stimulating activities, even in my old age. The difference you can see in cognitive ability between the elderly is staggering.
One particular instance that sticks in my mind was a video filmed in the UK where for some unrelated reason four older men and women were interviewed, with ages ranging between 80 and the low 100's. The mid 80 year old had trouble recalling information, spoke slowly, and generally seemed to exist in a fog so thick you could practically see it. On the other hand, the person around 100 was completely lucid, maybe even sharper than me! I can't say for sure that this is due to keeping busy and not partially genetic as well, but the variability really struck me.
Humans are social animals, so I tend to agree. My hunch is that feeling, on a visceral level, that you are necessary to the people around you in some fashion is what will keep the will to live burning bright. It can be actual or merely delusional - the important aspect being the level of conviction in the belief.
I wonder how that tallies up for introverts vs extroverts. Personally I'd rather stick sharpened pencils in my eyes than partake in social activities with a bunch of other retirees.
Yes, definitely. But it's not a single factor thing and want to emphasize that. Dying prematurely is not always some failing of will, nor is not keeping active. Degenerative joint issues, for instance. Also vision, like ARMD. Et cetera. I personally suspect that things that prevent activity are manifestations of the same age related wasting. But stay active at any age, mentally and physically. Even if it had zero impact on longevity (and it has a positive impact) it's good for quality of life.
Pierre Bourdieu would put into perspective notions of work/activity and retirement.
So he was interviewing if I recall people from North Africa, some were used to western industrial work and others not. (He wasn’t aware of that yet)
He asked them if they worked lately. Those who knew industrial work said no or partly and the others yes.
He asked both groups what they did during their typical working days.
The « no/partly group » described some kind of chain/industrial work and unemployment traps.
The « yes/busy group » said their typical work day was to discuss with their wives during 2 or 3 hours, attend and assist in solving the disagreements between neighbours in the public place of the village... etc.
Taking care of their animals and fields was not that time consuming or exhausting (subsistence agriculture).
In western societies, most of the socialisation and interactions happen in the work and professional environment.
So what would one expect from « retirement »?
I hope not, I recently retired. Still, the idea makes some sense. In retirement, I try to read one paper a day (usually deep learning, PGM, or classic AI), play at least one game of Go and Chess, do some recreational programming, and read. But, I don’t work into a state of brain-tiredness anymore like I used to at work.
Statistics are useful for understanding a population but not for an individual. Some people get bored without work. I have never felt bored when not working. My grandfathers both worked as professors until they where forced to retire due to Alzheimers. Running marathons and working into their 70s didn't stop their mental decline. Should I focus on the statistics or my genetic history?
Do you exercise? Lifting weights regularly (3 x week) and getting some light cardio every day will help keep your body strong into your retirement. It dramatically reduces the chance of getting injured by a fall and will keep you healthly and happy longer.
I'm approaching 40 and have built it into my schedule after several years of doing little and I'm feeling great for it. Next year we're moving to a large house and I'm going to have a small gym in the garage so I can keep to a tight schedule (I miss too much training because of having young kids).
I hike at least ten hours a week (I live in the mountains) and go to the gym once a week. Your advice is excellent. My Dad is in good shape at 98 and he does thirty minutes of Canadian Airforce Exercises early each morning (he started doing this in 1964).
My experience with both my parents was "I retired and I don't want to use my brain anymore," and they have both definitely experienced decline since retirement. Some of my friends' parents, however, have adopted more of a "I'm retired and now I can dedicate all my brainpower to these special projects I've always wanted to focus my energy on." These people have mostly declined not at all or very little. I think the answer is not to retire and go rot in a chair while taking 5 naps a day.
Consider that the reason they don't want to use their brains is that they don't seem to work effectively, but they don't want to admit they have some cognitive decline.
Like not wanting to go to a social function because you find them hard, one might say "I'm tired" or offer some other excuse because putting your failing on show is difficult too, the moreso when you're already smarting from a knock-back (being confronted with another failure).
> "I'm retired and now I can dedicate all my brainpower to these special projects I've always wanted to focus my energy on."
I'm not retired yet, but this is precisely what I'm looking forward to. The need to constantly generate an income is a time sink that really limits the ability to engage in far more interesting intellectual pursuits.
> I think the answer is not to retire and go rot in a chair while taking 5 naps a day.
Yeah agreed. I think the key to retirement - both early and standard aged - is that you don't stop doing stuff. You just get to do the stuff you really want to be doing. If all you do for the remainder of your life is park yourself on the couch and watch TV, yeah of course your both mental and physical health is going to decline.
My dad is a doctor in his 70s. He works 60 hour weeks (which he claims counts as retirement for doctors). He truly believes that true retirement is suicide. He wants to be found dead while doing rounds at the hospital.
A man once told me that he used to work very many hours, until one day when he came home and met his four year old daughter. The girl startled and ran to the kitchen: “Mummy! The man is here.”
I can certainly imagine having meaningful work that's the purpose of life, not just a source of funding for other activities. It's definitely not the case for many (probably most) people, but it is that way for some; there's probably a correlation with "high-status" jobs.
For the OP example of a doctor, it's quite plausible that their social and ethical goal in life is healing people and their home life is just there to support their work; instead of wanting to (for example) play golf and having to heal people for money to support that. Or for example, did Feynman work on physics in order to "live" or was that work a goal in itself?
It'd be interesting to better understand the control for this research.
The main premise here is that "those receiving pension benefits" (i.e. no longer working) have faster cognitive decline. But is there a correlation between the kind of work you did and receiving a pension? Perhaps the word "pension" means something a bit different here, but in U.S. English, we usually use it to mean a company-sponsored retirement plan, and that is something that is less common than it once was.
Could it be that if you had a job where you knew you'd get a pension, maybe you didn't have to try very hard while you were working? That is, maybe you spent the last decade coasting and taking it easy before you retired.
All of this could be invalid speculation if they just mean "retirement benefits" of any kind?
Yeah, that was my first question: Is this not just a hopelessly confounded correlational study? I was disappointed that the article didn't seem to talk about this.
Well, at least it links to the paper, so here's a starting point: "In this paper, we estimate the causal effect of the NRPS program on cognition among individuals ages 60 and above. The expansion of the program affected an easily identifiable group, as the policy was introduced only in select areas. Our identification employs a triple difference (DDD) strategy. We exploit the staggered policy implementation between 2009 and 2013 and compare the cognitive outcomes of individuals 60 years and older who live in areas that implemented the NRPS program to the cognitive outcomes of individuals of the same age group who live in areas that did not implement the NRPS program."
Yes, it seems far more likely to me that those who start experiencing cognitive decline make the choice to take their pension benefits earlier. I'm really surprised to see so many people here commenting as if this study demonstrates anything.
Could also be confounding cause and effect (if not correlation and causation). Maybe people with medical/mental decline issues retire early at higher rates than background.
The much more likely cause is people who are aging poorly are more likely to retire.
My grandmother retired then experienced sharp mental decline. For a long time I thought her retirement caused the sharp mental decline. But looking back at it after learning about dementia, and talking with other family members she retired because she was experiencing mental decline which was the predecessor to dementia.
Anecdotally, my grandfather is 92 or so and still works as a journalist (reduced hours). He is still super sharp and does yoga every day. Blows my mind.
My Dad is 98, retired when he was about 80. He is still very sharp mentally, but has taken on hobbies like video production and 3D animation. Hopefully hobbies count towards brain health.
There's nothing special about a job! If anything, I'd believe that someone who had the drive to do challenging activities on their own (and engage socially with others) is doing more for their mind and body than someone clocking in and out at a boring job.
I've been wondering lately about whether video games will have any impact on this for future retirees. Anecdotally, I think today's teens/20/30/40 year-olds spend more time playing video games (whether solo or as part of their social interaction) than the current generation of retirees. Theoretically that may be one more tool to keep someone's brain sharp after they retire.
Have there been any studies about video games and their effect on maintaining cognitive function?
Anecdote: My grandma retired in her 60's, she is now 102. She used to own a bar, in France (you can imagine the secondhand smoke, back in the 60-70's). She is mentally sharp, although the last couple of years, she is napping more. Vision (always had issue) and hearing (super annoying now) are declining, but memory is still here, and with hearing aid, the conversation is fine (if you do not mind repeating sometimes).
So got retired for about 4 decades now (she lost my grandpa at the same time, it is crazy she lived ~40 years with him, and ~40 years without him). Even though she was not "working" (i.e. for a salary) in the past 40 years, she always kept herself busy, taking care of her house until 2 years ago when she went to assisted living place (not ideal, but it was becoming too dangerous for her to stay by herself past 100 years old). She like to do stationary bike until her 90's.
Her daughter (now 82 yo) has some sort of Alzheimer, and does not have any short memory or facial recognition. Strangely enough she does have very old memories that looks current to her e.g. she warned us that we need to hide from the Germans... second world war trauma I guess, but interesting how it is still in her memory, when she cannot remember what she ate for lunch.
So, for a while like until 5 years ago, my grandma (97yo at the time) was taking care of my aunty (77yo at the time), and was schooling her to make here remember of things. That was weird to witness... My aunty retired in her 60's too, did not exercise more than normal, but was always active maintaining a large house after her 5 kids left home. She worked in a hair salon for about 50 years (started at 16yo). I always wondered if hair products (ammonia, spray, etc.) did not play a role in the current situation.
I have no idea how much exercise can slow down the decline, but there is more than just exercise. Clearly I would put my grandma as a "fighter" spirit person. She was born in an extremely poor family (alcohol issue, ending her as an orphan), in Brest, France which was where the Spanish flu started in Europe, in 1918 (she was one year old). She is a tough cookie, in a frail body. She is short and always been kinda skinny, probably the result of malnutrition in her early years. But yet, here she is a century later. To be fair, she is a bit tired to be around, and see everyone around her either die or getting some sort of Alzheimer. Now she is friend with her kids friends, since all of her generation friends are not there anymore. It is kinda cute to see her talking to my dad's childhood friends who are in their 70's or 80's now, recalling some mischiefs that happened 60 or 70 years ago.
My grandmother had Alzheimer. Before the major decline she would remember things from her kindergarten, recite songs and things that even she was surprised she remembered.
I've always benchmarked post-retiring cognitive abilities and professional continuity with Noam Chomsky. He is my hero in that aspect too. If I can continue to do what I do now at his age, I'm ready for the off.
According to the study, it sounds like the cause is not early retirement, but a decrease in the amount of social and mental activities.
Those two things don't have to go hand in hand. Personally, I'm looking forward to retirement because it will afford me more time to engage in social and mental activities.
Is there a reason you believe that the causality should be reversed? The article suggests they did tests post retirement and observed the rate of decline.
Someone with health declining over a long period will retire and withdraw from everything, and then later on be tested to find that their health has been declining I think you will find that most retired people are dead, just by virtue of the fact that all dead people retire!
The study talks of rate of subsequent cognitive decline post retirement. There's no fixed state, which once reached, people start retiring. I think the study does control for reverse causality. It is not a correlational study.
To me the problem is that entire generations have tied their worth/sense of self into what they do from 9-5. The idea of stopping that is so anathema to them that they just can't handle it.
It's really sad to not be able to enjoy downtime in my opinion.
that most people base their identity on their work;
when people stop working, losing their identity, they experience faster cognitive decline.
It's not clear to me what your frame of reference is for the second premise, though. How does having or losing identity maintain or diminish cognitive decline?
EDIT: Two downvotes but no one is providing a source or some educational material to help me understand the science behind the premise. Let's be constructive here and try to educate each other. Thank you!
Not surprising. I took a couple of years out to raise my kids, and I am having a hard time feeling as intelligent and proactive as I did before the break.
I haven't read the whole study but it seems like it's pure correlation, is missing some controls, and has suspect conclusions.
They claim
> We find large and significant negative effects of the provision of pension benefits on cognitive functioning among the elderly.
That's correlation. They're claiming that giving people money reduces cognitive function which is ridiculous. Eliminating cognitive activities and meaning could reduce cognitive function, giving people pensions would not.
They didn't seem to have any controls for post retirement activity. All they controlled for was age, gender, and other medical conditions.
I suppose this applies to people who think of "retirement" as being sedentary and not challenging your brain. We need a word for what people in my social group who no longer have to collect a paycheck do, which is embark on things that either teach a new skill, have low probability of payback, or are intellectually challenging for the fun of it.
It isn't "work" in that you don't have to put in time at someone else's business and sign over all your work product to them, but it isn't casual leisure either.
I've had a similar experience just from going on a 2 week beach holiday. Getting back to work was really hard, I remember staring at the screen full of code that I wrote without any idea of what it all meant. It took some real effort and breaking things down into tiny steps to get back into it.
“For cognition among the elderly, it looks like the negative effect on social engagement far outweighed the positive effect of the program on nutrition and sleep”
As a telecommuter, I wonder if I can slow my cognitive decline by retiring? I will need to avoid falling into the old solitary habits. And wear pants.
I can't help but wonder if all the well intentioned advise here by 20-40 yearolds to their grandparents about how to live their retirement to them sounds the same as a 16yo advicing those here on middle age life decisions.
My personal anecdotes are many but most of the elderly that I knew to be highly active, sociable and of sound mind were people who did stuff that was engaging and social. The only real limiting factor for the elderly that I knew well was when they had health problems (falls, stroke, heart attack, etc.) that they didn't recover from due to age.
I would suggest that if you see retirement in your future then getting a long lasting hobby (gardening, wood working, etc), a simple side job or even volunteering (hospitals need volunteers for so many things) to make retirement a period where your mind/body is used.
The title is kind of misleading, in fact the article's second last paragraph ends with: "Or alternatively, the kinds of things that matter and determine better health might simply be very different than the kinds of things that matter for better cognition among the elderly. Social engagement and connectedness may simply be the single most powerful factors for cognitive performance in old age."
Point being: if you're wealthy enough you should care more about spending time with the people you love than how long it takes you to solve a Sudoku.
Not if you have hobbies that require mental exercise and effort. Go try out a bunch of stuff, stick to a few of them, see yourself improve, rinse and repeat.
Retirement leads to boredom maybe and thus unhealthy eating habits.
The hippocampus seems to be affected by too much insulin and sugar.
This said, people in elderly homes in Germany are getting carb-loaded. Low fat, high carb meals and apple juice
a lot of them take medications against high cholesterol.
they are suffering from all the sugar related illnesses
what's the brain made of? Fat and cholesterol...
The child in me wonders if something like video games (i.e. StarCraft II/DotA/LoL/Card games, something with strategy and thinking) would be a way to fight this onset of cognitive decline in retired folks.
It would be interesting to see a study of retired folks from the millennial generation, providing they play much more games than older generations.
My view is that games help you become better at playing games. A while ago a lot of people said that doing crossword puzzles was a good way to keep your mind sharp but it's not really the case. The elderly who did a lot s puzzles just got good at doing puzzles.
I would like to think I might experience a cognitive acceleration when I retire. No more bullshit occupying my mind. No need to meditate to stop thinking about such-and-such shitty interaction at work. Hoping to get my mind back so I can do things more creative than whatever is in the JIRA.
I think this is not just limited to cognitive decline but I heard cases where people start suddenly contracting all kinds of diseases upon retirement. Goes on to show the both mental and physical exercise is key to our long term survival.
This study has a different definition of "early retirement" than I do. I don't think the conclusions are applicable to FIRE people planning to retire in their thirties.
Whether retirement was voluntary or forced, the health of the person at retirement time and social/vocational continuity could be bigger factors than the act of retirement itself.
I plan to study and play chess and go once I retire. I also want to contribute to OSS. I think if you engage in truly intellectually challenging activities daily then you will be lucid for your entire life. The brain needs stimulation like a muscle in order to retain its ability over time.
I'll anti-anecdote that. I've just started working a steady office job again after a 15 year "break" (mostly non-office work; raising kids) and existential dread is eating me. I had a couple of months interim and despite being dirt-poor in that time (no income practically) had no dread at all; too little time to get existential!
2. It may be that it's the change in routine and identity is what's dread-inducing, more than the "work" (traditional/office/wage-labour) vs. "not work" distinction.
The act of retiring to do nothing is so foreign to me.
I take long sabbaticals from employment so I can actually work on harder problems and unfamiliar domains I'd struggle to do professionally if I could even get hired at all to do for money. That and spend more time on my physical fitness while still being able to sleep enough and study other things.
Retirement where people just shut down is no different than a scheduled form of burnout.
While there are certainly degenerative diseases, "use it, or lose it" also holds true for the brain. And whether it's TV or Facebook, junk food is junk food.
The mind is no different than the body. In fact, the mind is probably more sensitive to neglect.
