What It’s Like to Retire from a High-Stress Career
When you retire from a stressful job, you might think that it’s going to feel like a release. You finally get to stop and exhale after years of going at top speed for far too long each day. In fact, stress is one of the top reasons that people retire. That makes sense when you think about it. High-stress jobs are emotionally, mentally, and physically demanding. You go through a lot in your job, and it challenges you to constantly find another gear to keep going. After working in such a job for many years, it’s natural to want to retire just so you can relax.
In many cases, retirement is exactly like that. It’s a chance to exhale and focus on your new life.
However, a lot of people who retire for this reason then find retirement itself to be stressful. In fact, retirement is listed as the 10th most stressful life event, according to the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory. This is one of the things that shocks many new retirees. While retirement is certainly different from the working world, it doesn’t mean all the stress melts away immediately.
Retirement Can Be Stressful
You might be thinking “How can retirement be stressful?”, but it actually can be. One reason it’s stressful is because there’s a lack of structure. At your job, you probably knew was you were expected to do every day. Even if you got to pick the way you did it, there were goals that you needed to achieve and milestones that you knew you needed to hit. This structured your life.
In retirement, it’s all up to you. Yes, at first, sleeping in late, lounging around the house, and traveling wherever you’d like can be enjoyable. Eventually, however, you settle into a new life, and this life doesn’t have as many expectations. So, how do you structure it?
That question often creates expectations. You likely have a picture in your mind of what the “perfect” retirement looks like. Living up to this ideal can be incredibly stressful, especially when it’s entirely on you to make it happen. To a lot of people, it can feel like leaving one high-stress job for another.
Who Are You in Retirement?
Another factor that many people who retire from high-stress careers may not realize until they’re done working is how much of their identity was wrapped up in their job. There’s a good chance that your high-stress role was a point of pride in your life. You were a lawyer or a doctor or a nurse or a CEO and that made you feel good about yourself. It’s also how you identified. When someone you didn’t know asked you to tell them about yourself, it’s probably one of the things you led with.
Now that you’re retired, that titles goes away with your working life. That’s hard for a lot of people and there’s a natural adjustment period that happens in retirement.
A Lack of Goals
This ties in to how you identify with your job. For years, it was probably easy to set goals for yourself, because they were often tied to your work. You wanted to get a bonus or a promotion or learn a new skill, for example. This is especially true for high-stress careers, since one of the reasons you were probably working so hard for so long was to achieve more.
Now that your working days are over, it can be tough to set goals and that can leave you feeling stagnant or bored. When this happens, everything can start to feel the same. You no longer know what to do. A lot of people who retire find themselves wondering “Is this it?” or “What’s the point?” and that makes sense.
All the days may start to feel the same and you might think that there’s nothing left to achieve. These facts are why, unfortunately, a lot of people find themselves dealing with depression in retirement.
Some people even feel guilty about “doing nothing” in retirement. They see this time off as a valuable opportunity and want to make the most of it. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with seeing things that way, but you also don’t need to feel guilty if you have a period of lounging time, where you have no goals and nothing to do. Your body needs these times to recharge.
You May Miss the Stress
Yes, it sounds weird, especially if you retired specifically to get away from a busy lifestyle, but it happens to a lot of people. After spending years in a fast-moving or frequently-changing environment where your decisions have massive consequences, your body and your mind might be used to the stress. Stepping away from it can be tough.
Stressful situations trigger a lot of hormones your body. When you’re stressed, your adrenaline increases and your body produces more cortisol, which is a hormone that manages your response to stressful situations.
If you’ve had a high-stress career, your body and your brain can be used to this elevated situation. When things calm down and your brain realizes this, it will produce less adrenaline and cortisol. That’s technically good for your health, but your body and your brain might miss the stress hormones, at least for a while.
Think about someone who has to rush out of a dangerous situation. Once they escape the danger, there’s a good chance they’ll sit down and need a moment to compose themselves. They need to recover from the stress. Since you’ve been living a stressful lifestyle for a long time, you’ll also need a while to recover from the stress.
It’s not uncommon for people who retire from high stress jobs to need some time to adjust to their new lifestyle.
What You Can Do About It
You don’t need to just deal with the negative fallout of retiring from a stressful job. There’s a lot that you can do to make things better.
The first is to find a new passion. In many high-stress jobs, your job isn’t just what you do for a living, it’s something that matters to you. It’s a part of who you are. In retirement, you can find something new that matter just as much, if not more.
This might mean getting involved in hobbies or spending time with your grandchildren or volunteering or learning something new. There are so many ways that you can spend your time and so many passions that you can throw yourself into.
When you find your passion, it solves a lot of your other problems as well. It gives you something to identify with, it helps structure your days, and it provides more meaning.
That’s another thing that many people don’t tell you about retirement: it can be more rewarding and stimulating than having a career. If you plan it right, have a positive mentality, and fill your days with things you truly enjoy, you can have an amazing time in retirement. Also, it’s important to know that many aspects of retirement will be slower than your high-stress job. That’s how it’s supposed to be. If you retire and things don’t immediately feel great, give yourself some time. This is a major lifestyle change, and your brain and body need time to adapt to things being different. Give yourself some grace and realize that, much like you didn’t immediately jump into a successful career, it can take some time to build a successful retirement.
