The New Rule of Retirement: Retirees…You Can NEVER Retire.

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If you are looking at leaving your job for full retirement or downsizing your current job and easing into retirement, you’ve probably been through the counseling of your HR department and/or with your financial advisor. You are getting yourself financially ready.

But are you healthily ready? Is your health ready for this change, specifically your brain?

ARE YOU HEALTHILY READY FOR RETIREMENT?

In the Gulf Coast Alzheimer’s/Dementia support group I co-founded, my 5 year involvement showed that 60% percent of the attendees had a spouse fall victim to Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia within 3 to 6 months of retiring from their job.

As we are facing retirement and the extension of the rest of our lives, the number one fear in the world seeps in. And that is…

Well, statistics say that for the majority of us, our number one fear is public speaking. We all know that is absolutely NOT true. Nearly all of us can get up and tell a story or speak to a group if we have to. To be honest, we are afraid of losing our mind. Even if we lose our hearing and our sight, we still have our mind and can function and appreciate life. Losing our brain function…that is another story.

We all know why we must take care of our brain, to keep our mind fully functioning, keep it alert, to continue to make proper decisions and judgment calls, to manage our lives. Those are the technical, logistical reasons. The real reasons to take care of our brains, I think we all agree, are to continue to enjoy our lives, to enjoy our spouse and other family members and close friends, most importantly, to continue to love and be a part of the lives our children and grandchildren.

So yes, we know why we must keep a healthy brain, but knowing the how to do it…there, it gets a little tricky.

If a plant does not get water, it dwindles and dies. To make it grow, produce flowers or fruit, it’s good to add a little fertilizer. It is the same with our brain. We’ve got to feed it.  When we need to spruce up our energy and help our performance, we can consume a different type of fertilizer, a vitamin or supplement. Bottom line: We’ve got to take care of our brain. We just cannot let it sit on top of our shoulders and be. Our brain needs nurturing. And we fail to do that.

Most of us think of our brain like we think of our spleen. And that’s just it, we don’t think of our spleen. (The spleen by the way is an organ in our gut associated with our immune system that helps clean our blood, store white blood cells and help fight bacterial infections.)

MOST OF US THINK OF OUR BRAIN LIKE WE THINK OF OUR SLEEN, WE DON’T.

We think of our aching joints, our big hips, our beer bellies, our aching back, our stomach growling or even heartburn. At night when we can’t sleep, during the afternoon when we cannot stop yawning, when we keep forgetting names as well as how to balance our check book, when we lose our way home from church or the grocery, we don’t think of our brain, we just slap the air and say, “It’s hell getting old”. Regardless of the issue, it’s our brain calling out, “woe, woe, woe, I need some help”.

IT’S OUR BRAIN CALLING OUT, “WOE, WOE, WOK, I NEED SOME HELP”.

(Suffering from brain drain? Read my booklet, for free, 9 Signs You’re Experiencing Brian Drain and How to Keep Your Brain Fully Charged, here.)

How can we help our brain when it is calling out? There are many ways but the first and most important way is to acknowledge this precious organ and give it the respect it deserves.

Yes, our hair will turn grey, our skin will wrinkle but our mind and body do not have to shrivel up and be vacuumed away by dementia which can slowly percolate in our brain.

So the number one job, in our lives but especially when we retire is… we have to take care of and nurture our brain.

Here’s to your good brain health!

PS: Want more ways to care for your brain? Be a member of my Brain Health Revolution where I will send you a couple of times a month new info, quick tips, check lists and more on how to power up your brain and keep it fully charged. Join by grabbing my new booklet, 9 Signs You’re Experiencing Brian Drain and How to Keep Your Brain Fully Charged, here.

The purpose of this information is to convey knowledge. It is not intended to diagnose, treat or cure your condition or to be a substitute for advice from your main healthcare professional. Sincerely, I wish you and yours the very best in brain health.

www.JanetRichPittman.com