Cedars-Sinai Experts: Key to Healthy Retirement Is Staying Socially, Mentally, Physically Active
When Carrie Elam wakes up at 6 a.m., she begins her day with leg exercises in bed before stepping outside to meditate in her expansive backyard perched above Baldwin Hills. From there, she can see across Los Angeles—from Century City to Downtown—as she quietly gives thanks for another day.
Elam, 91, has been retired for 23 years from her job at United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770.
And she is thriving, says Elam’s physician, Sonja Rosen, MD, chief of Geriatric Medicine at Cedars-Sinai, because Elam is doing retirement the right way.
“Carrie’s doing many of the things we encourage our patients to do as they age— keeping herself physically healthy and having a full social calendar,” Rosen said.
Statistics from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show nearly 20% of today’s workforce are 65 or older, up from 10% in the mid-1980s. And many older adults stay in the workforce for health—not financial—reasons. One analysis suggests that retiring earlier is associated with higher mortality, finding an 11% reduction in risk of death for each additional year of work.
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