More Sleep, Less Exercise in Retirement

"Transition to retirement is shown to affect sleep, sedentary time and physical activity, but no previous studies have examined how retirement changes the distribution of time spent daily in these movement behaviours."

"Manual workers' daytime hours were more sedentary after retirement compared to work-days before retirement."

"Thus, physical activity at work may have been partly replaced with sedentary activities like watching TV after retirement."

"Non-manual workers seemed to replace some sedentary time with sleep, which may benefit health for those with inadequate sleep before retirement."

Finnish researchers, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity

NCO

 

Some insight has been gathered into trends in activity in older adults with studies monitoring lifestyle habits of recent retires. It is well enough known that a sedentary lifestyle helps to degrade health in the long term, particularly as people age. As well known is that physical activity on a regular basis can have the effect of delaying some physical and mental decline in conjunction with aging. As well as boosting health, mood, energy levels and social engagement.

A new finding, linking work-occupation with physical activity behaviours in retirement is quite interesting. Where people engaged in manual labour employment have a tendency to become, on retirement, more sedentary while those whose workplace tended to be an office environment, become more active during the retirement years. Researchers of the newly published study in the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity evaluated lifestyle habits of 551 public-sector employees.

The study participants' average age was 63. With the use of a wrist-worn accelerometer, during the first year of retirement, subjects' movement habits were recorded 24 hours daily, for a week both before and following their last day at work, about a year apart. Data was then divided by occupation and gender. Nurses' aides, cooks, cleaners and maintenance workers were included as manual workers for the purpose of the study. While teachers, physicians, registered nurses and technicians were classified as non-manual workers.

 

The study recorded the proportion of time in a day spent on sleep, on light physical activity, on moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and on sedentary activities; then tallied the results of the data collected by the accelerometers.

Women, who represented 86 percent of the study subjects were spending eight hours nightly before retirement, 11 hours in sedentary pursuits, four hours performing light physical activity and 50 minutes in moderate-to-vigorous activity on a daily basis. Men, on the other hand, logged 16 minutes less sleep, 60 minutes of more sedentary time, and 46 minutes of less light activity than women. Both, on the other hand, logged a similar number of minutes on moderate-to-vigorous daily activity.

Manual workers logged less sedentary time and more physical activity than desk-bound counterparts before retirement in a pattern reflecting both men and women. The first year of retirement saw this group in reversal. Non-manual workers' lifestyle habits took a different turn, where sleep improved and time being sedentary diminished, while an increase in physical activity was seen, attributable to fewer hours spend behind a desk.

The greatest change in post-retirement daily lifestyle habits was seen in women with manual occupation backgrounds, who slept 45 minutes longer and spent 64 fewer minutes in light physical activity and 17 minutes less in moderate-to-vigorous activity; seeing sedentary time increase by 36 minutes. Retired from manual occupations, men experienced a lesser increase in sleep and sedentary activities in opposition to physical activity. 

Both types of workers saw a decrease in moderate-to-vigorous activity up to 17 inutes daily. Interpreted by the researchers in relation to a change in commuting habits; no bus or train to catch and no clock to punch -- seeing retirees sleep a bit longer, enjoying a slower and less active start to their days. The gathered data indicated for a large subset of the population, retirement results in a more sedentary lifestyle with a larger drop in moderate-to-vigorous activity than in light activity, both of which changes could result in negative consequences on health.