You Still Have Time
A podcast with the goal to motivate and encourage those who share our belief that getting older isn't a time to give up living.
You Still Have Time
Stay Engaged
In this episode of You Still Have Time, we discuss benefits and ways to enjoy this stage of life by keeping active through volunteering, joining clubs, investigating new hobbies and travelling to new places. This conversation became lengthy, so we decided to split it into 2 episodes.
List of Resources
https://www.nia.nih.gov
https://www.bls.gov
https://fortunesociety.org
https://www.aarp.com
Cyn Meyer
https://www.youtube.com/@CynMeyerSecondWindMovement/featured
Volunteer Resources
https://volunteermatch.com
https://Catchafire.org
https://redcross.org
https://habitat.org
Episode Website: https://youstillhavetimepodcast.buzzsprout.com
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Hello and welcome to You Still Have Time. We're your hosts. I'm Hope. And I'm Harold. and we'd like to welcome you to this episode which we're calling Stay
SPEAKER_00:Engaged. And before we go any further, I know that we have said this in the past, but we want to make it clear that we are not experts. We are just two seniors who are walking this path of retirement along with you. And we have uncovered a lot of information in preparation for these episodes.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, and we've learned a lot. We've learned a lot doing this research, not only about how to do podcasting, but also about the topics that we're discussing with you. So let's start. If you enjoy, if you're retired already and you enjoy just sitting around relaxing and having a leisurely life, that's great. But we're talking to those who may be a little bored. You know, you were working for 40 years and you worked 40 hours, 50 hours a week and your time was sort of regimented and now you're retired and this is something you look forward to and you say, oh, what am I going to do now? Well, we have some ideas. And, you know, although there are folks out there who are just relaxing and liking it, for those of you who want to find something to do, we have some ideas. And this
SPEAKER_00:is not only for those who are already retired. It's also for those who are contemplating retirement. I don't want you to shut off the podcast because you're saying, well, already, you know, I don't need this information. This we hope to be able to give you some helpful tips for retirement. Planning for your retirement. For planning for your retirement, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:For planning for your retirement. Because as we've said before in past episodes, so many of us plan up until retirement. We just don't plan after retirement. And there's a lot of time left. You still have a lot of time left after retirement to do things.
SPEAKER_00:So let's start there. digging into some of these things that we can suggest for our audience to help them manage these years. One of the benefits of staying engaged, well, even before I get there, we had to do some research on this one because we didn't know all. We sort of know information, but we don't have the statistics. Right. So hope went into the... Funk and Wagnall's Dictionary, Encyclopedia.
SPEAKER_01:Funk and Wagnall's Encyclopedia?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I thought it was the Encyclopedia Britannica. Oh, okay. Well, we got the one from the, you remember they used to give out to the encyclopedias if you bought food from certain stores?
SPEAKER_01:Okay. All right. All right. Anyway, for those of you who remember what encyclopedias are. Right. Yeah, we did a lot of research on this because, you know, all of our stuff is sort of anecdotal. I mean, stuff that we've experienced or that we've seen from others. But we wanted to make sure that at least what we're Correct. Or somewhat correct. Well, we don't want to pass on... We said we're not experts now. You know, bad information. So, but the first thing we did was to look to see, are there benefits associated with, you know, being active and staying engaged in our later years? And according to the National Institute on Aging, which is part of the National Institute on Health, there are a number of benefits to staying engaged as we age. Did you know that staying engaged makes you less likely to develop certain diseases? And we're talking about dementia, heart disease, and strokes. And I know that we all know somebody that falls into one of those categories. Also, we learned that a longer lifespan is only 25% dependent on genetics.
SPEAKER_00:So that means that 75% is dependent upon you. Right. That's in your control. So just because your great grandmother and your grandmother and your mother lived to be 100, you can't bank on that. No, and
SPEAKER_01:nor do you have to worry about, you know, if your parents died earlier on or people in your family develop certain conditions. That's not Your path, you know, that there's something that you can do about that. That's not necessarily your path. So just keep that hopeful thought in your head. People who stay engaged are generally happier and less depressed. Yeah, because they're doing something. I mean, if you're just sitting around twiddling your thumbs, that's got to be depressing. And how do you make yourself happy there? Do you just watch old TV shows or something?
SPEAKER_00:I don't know. That gets tiring after a while. I
SPEAKER_01:think so.
SPEAKER_00:They're more resilient and better able to cope with difficult situations.
SPEAKER_01:And we all have to cope with difficult situations at any age. But instead of... and I'm thinking this, this is my opinion, instead of facing a situation and panicking, I think as we age, we become more resilient because we've experienced more and we've had to handle situations in the past. So I think many of us have developed skills on how to handle those kinds of situations. But Also staying engaged and staying active and staying creative and all of those things helps with that resiliency.
SPEAKER_00:And lastly, well, not lastly, but one of the, I think this is a big feature of staying engaged. It can improve your thinking abilities now. Yeah, because
SPEAKER_01:we've learned in our research, the brain's neuroplasticity That's not a word that I've ever used before, I will tell you. That your brain and its ability to learn new things is lifelong. It doesn't stop at a certain age. That means we are built to learn for as long as we live. So don't give that away.
SPEAKER_00:Right. One of the other things we learned is that staying engaged can maintain your cognitive health. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:Because as we were listening to a YouTube podcast. I think her, I don't know what her name is. She's some sort of doctor. But we'll find out and include it in the show notes. But I do know the name of the podcast. Okay. I do know the name of the podcast, which is Second Wind. And I thought that was interesting. And she deals primarily with older adults and people in retirement. So check that out if you have the time. A lot of interesting topics there. Some stuff that, you know, just beyond us. But we want to share some of the things that we learned from her.
SPEAKER_00:So the other ways, so most of the things that we talked about are very general about the benefits of staying engaged. So there are a number of different ways to stay engaged. Some of you have decided that you want to continue working.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, and I found it said that a person who works just one year beyond normal retirement age, What was the statistic I shared with you that, oh, they had a it lowered your mortality rate. So but we're all going to die. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just I guess it just means that you're not going to die as quickly.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Maybe that's the case.
SPEAKER_00:So so for those who plan or want to stay working. There's value in that also, because we certainly know people, I think we all know people who are in their 70s and even 80s who are still working. But you want to make that time valuable.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I think if you're working because you are fearful of what life is, after working means, life and retirement means, that's not a good reason to stay working, especially if you're working at a job that you don't enjoy or that's adding stress to your life. If you're working at something that you truly love and it's a joy to get up to go to work every day and you like the people that you work with and you're happy with and productive at the work that you're doing, bravo. I think that's wonderful. That means obviously that You found what it was for you in life, something that many of us never find, but you still have time to find it. And that's what we're
SPEAKER_00:talking about here. Right. And some of the things that we talk about is you might want to start a new career. Absolutely. There may be something that you always wanted to do, but life got in the way. Well, this might be a great time to start. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:You know, we'll talk about some other things later on in this episode. But, you know, there are are people I'll give myself as an example. When I was a little girl, I was one of those people who would watch the Oscars and I would take my hairbrush in the mirror. I would give my acceptance speech and I always wanted to act. Now, I'm not saying that I have a career as an actor, but I always wanted to do that. And as I got older, my son said to me... He was taking a class, and he said, you know, you're always talking about acting. Maybe you should take some acting lessons. And so I think I was 50 or 51 when I started taking acting lessons. And for years, I did nothing with it until I retired. And then I said... I've been taking these acting lessons for like seven, eight years or whatever, and I haven't done anything with it. So I decided to audition for the first time. And lo and behold, I actually got that role. It was never produced, but it gave me the confidence to move on. And I'm still out there, you know, doing some acting here and there. I'm not a big star and never will be, but I've done, you know, like local theater and all of that. It's fun. And it's fulfilled me. Something that was on my mind for all of my life, pretty much.
SPEAKER_00:One of the other side benefits of maybe continue working or starting a new job that you really like, you could earn some extra income. We all know Social Security and our savings, it's a finite number. So it's always helpful to have a couple extra dollars coming in, maybe to help you, you know. buy little treats or the extra Haagen-Dazs or whatever. Oh no, you're not supposed to do that, right?
SPEAKER_01:Whatever. That was a reference to me because I bought Haagen-Dazs, thanks to my sister. I bought Haagen-Dazs because she told me it was on sale and ate it all. But anyway, do you still have time to lose weight after Haagen-Dazs?
SPEAKER_00:So one of the other, so something else that we can do to stay engaged is volunteering. We saw a statistic on the same podcast that 24% of seniors are currently volunteering. And this was from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Some of the things that we know from our own experience where you can volunteer, if you're a member of a church, a synagogue, or a mosque, they are always looking for volunteers. There's
SPEAKER_01:nothing... Nothing that you do that you can't find a way to volunteer there. And for some, you might have some special skills that are so valuable to organizations. And it makes you feel even more useful sometimes. if that's what you call, you know, that you are taking stuff that you take for granted, knowledge that you've accumulated over your lifetime and knowledge that you have on certain interests. And now you have the opportunity to share that knowledge with another group of people, passing it on so it doesn't go with you. It's a wonderful thing to do.
SPEAKER_00:I have a friend who volunteers at a hospital and basically all he does does is there are a lot of patients there who don't have much in terms of visitors, and he'll just go to the rooms and talk to them. I mean, he likes to talk anyway, so this was a perfect volunteer opportunity for him. So there are, I'm sure you've heard of places where they need to have babies. What is that?
SPEAKER_01:Hospitals who, I saw the story on one of the morning shows where this elderly gentleman, I don't know how he got started doing it, but he would just go into the NICU, you know, for babies who are in intensive care and hold the babies because, you know, their parents can't be there all the time. A family member can't be. And he would just go and And he talked about the joy that it brought him and how he became connected to some of the families. And if that's something that you want to do, that's a very, I guess, personal, I don't know what word you would use to call it, but that's something where you are directly connected. impacting you know another life directly by by being in contact with them and and there are contact volunteer opportunities like that and like being i'm trying to think of other kinds of volunteering oh a friend of ours volunteers for the fortune society now the fortune society is a group that you know helps people who have been in prison and what she does is teach them interview skills. She does like, you know, interviews, mock interviews with them to help them learn how to get through an interview if they're going to interview for a job. And she also volunteers to teach young people reading. And that's another way to directly, you know, be in direct contact with people that you're volunteering. So
SPEAKER_00:let's say that you have a desire to volunteer, but you don't know where to get started. There are a lot of organizations that will help you, that will actually match you, match your skills with a volunteer opportunity. I'll give you just a quick list. Volunteermatch.com, Catchafire.
SPEAKER_01:Could you talk about Catchafire just a bit? Because I know you read a little bit about
SPEAKER_00:it. Basically, you go online, you put in where you're located, what your interests are. And also you specify, I guess, how much time you're willing to commit. How often do you, is it daily? Basically, how much time are you able to commit? And they'll try to match what you want and where you're located to organizations that need your type of experience or whatever you're able to provide. Okay. There's dosomething.org and Volunteer Match. Did I say Volunteer Match already? Yeah, I think that's the first one you said. So these are organizations or these are websites. I shouldn't say organizations. These are websites that you can go and find organizations that need volunteers and match your skills and your availability needs. Right.
SPEAKER_01:And a prime example of that is SCORE. SCORE, I forget what the acronym stands for, but it's through, I believe through the Small Business Administration. And so if you have owned your own business or maybe you taught something, you were a professor and you taught something in school business related, or you just have experience in business, they'll match you up with someone, a fledgling entrepreneur, someone who's trying to start a business, someone who is in the throes of building a business and they'll match you with them and you can sort of mentor them through the process to help ensure their
SPEAKER_00:success. Some of the other ones that we... Oh, AARP. I hope that everyone... Because I think when AARP, you're eligible after age 50. Right. So I'm assuming that everyone here that's in our audience is probably 50 or older. If you're not, as soon as you turn 50, you should join AARP because they have resources available. both online. They have a newspaper that we actually get regularly. And a magazine. And a magazine. And they have information that is so very helpful for seniors.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I mean, I know that the joke is, you know, when you turn 50 and you get a notice from AARP that you're eligible, people are like, oh, I'm not old. No, you may not be old yet, but AARP is putting you on notice that you're heading that way. But don't deny yourself the opportunity to become part of the AARP family and all of the information because it's going to be helpful to you. I promise you. And if it doesn't help you, it can probably help someone else in your family. So don't laugh at the AARP notice. It doesn't cost that much to subscribe each year. I also wanted to mention when we were talking about opportunities to volunteer, for those of you who know about organizations in your communities, you can serve on their boards. Organizations are always looking for board members. I will tell you that, honestly. And libraries. Libraries are an excellent place to volunteer. I know our local Library has something you can volunteer to help people learn English. So, you know, folks who want to improve their English language skills are always looking for someone to speak to and speak with, which is the right preposition.
SPEAKER_00:You want to talk about the, like, Red Cross?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yes, the Red Cross. Now, we all know what the Red Cross does. Every time there's a disaster, you know, FEMA may get there, but the Red Cross is always there, and those are volunteers that So if that's to your liking, whatever it is that you're interested in, whatever it is that you always wanted to do, volunteering is a great way to learn more about it. And you're benefiting yourself, you're benefiting your community, you're benefiting your country. There are just so many, there's nothing... negative about volunteering that I can think of. How about you, Harold?
SPEAKER_00:It's great. It's so fulfilling. Last on our list, but certainly not the least, Habitat for Humanity. I think we all have images of Rosalyn and Jimmy Carter. building homes into their 90s. Absolutely. And
SPEAKER_01:Harold and I did this a couple of times. Correct. It was a few years ago, but it's, you know, you're out there and, you know, you may not know anyone else. You know, this is one of the benefits of volunteering. Yes, you're doing great for your community and for other people, but you're also staying engaged with other people. And we haven't really talked about that a lot. That's something that That's part of the reason that staying engaged elongates your life because you have an opportunity not to be isolated. You have an opportunity to make new friends.
SPEAKER_00:And, you know, that's one of the big issues for seniors because as our community starts to dwindle, as our friends pass on, as we've left the job, those job associations no longer exist, we become very isolated. And some of us develop problems that are directly associated with that isolation. So we need to get out of the house. We need to participate. We need to be with others. And not only people our age, but younger people. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01:So you expand your friendship horizon. You know, when we're working, we're working with people of all ages. But after work, sometimes we don't have a lot of opportunities if we don't have children of our own, children and grandchildren who kind of keep us up on everything. Volunteering is an excellent way of expanding that group relationship. And you might make new friends and they may become, you know, very important people in your life. So I don't think we can say enough about the opportunity to volunteer because it just has so many benefits for you and for everyone involved. We found so much information on the subject of staying engaged that we decided to break this episode into two parts. So we're going to end part one here and we hope that you found something of value in what you've heard today.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks for joining us today. Remember, you can follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can also email us with any suggestions or comments that you may have. We have a new email address. It's youstillhavetimepodcasts at gmail.com. And something else, we have a SpeakPike link. SpeakPipe will allow you to leave an up to 90-second voicemail message. So just go down into the show notes and you'll see the link. Hit on the link and leave us a voicemail message.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's all for today. We hope that you'll come back for part two. And though we've run out of time here, remember, you still have time. Bye-bye. Bye.
