Welcome to Retirement Unpacked with Al Smith, owner of Golden Eagle Financial. You want a retirement plan that alleviates your fears about the future, so you know your money will last. As a chartered financial consultant, Al Smith will help you find a balance between the risk and reward of the market and the safety of your retirement income. And now, here’s your host, Al Smith. Welcome to another program of Retirement Unpacked. I want to thank you for tuning in. I’m going to review a few of the things that we’ve been talking about for the last couple of weeks. I know a few weeks ago, we were talking about some of the psychological aspects of saving in general and saving for retirement and so forth. Some of the roadblocks that make it difficult to achieve their goals. Some of the roadblocks to becoming a successful investor and I could continue programs about that for quite some time. And then last week, I spent a little bit of time talking about statistics, a little bit boring, but there are a lot of statistics out there. And many of them indicate that a lot of people who are in retirement are not in the best financial shape. They had hoped that they would be. And a lot of people who have procrastinated or postponed saving for retirement will likely find themselves in a circumstance with a smaller nest egg than they might like in retirement. And that’s according to a lot of statistics. No question about that. And going forward, I’m going to be talking about some other non-financial things that are I would say equally as important in retirement. Before I dive into that, I would encourage any of you who are listening if you want to determine if you’re on track for retirement or if you’ll move successfully through retirement. If you’re already retired. This is my office of call, 303-744-1128. And lately I’ve been busy, but I do have opportunities to sit down and have conversations with you. And we can take a look at where you are now, where you want to be in the future, and what you want your retirement to look like. And if you schedule a meeting with me, I will spend a lot of time listening to you about your goals and how you want to spend your money in retirement, what you plan on doing in your retirement, and these kinds of things. Because they are equally as important as the statements from your fidelity or your child swab or your Edward Jones account. Those are certainly important seeing where you are crunching the numbers, but it’s equally important to get some idea what you want your retirement to look like, how that money will be spent, what kind of things you want to be doing in retirement. And with that in mind, my topic this afternoon, I’m going to be talking about mental acuity in retirement. And I think we can all say unequivocally that as we age beyond age 65, that our mental acuity diminishes. And that’s not exactly rocket science, but humans are hardwired for purpose. And that can be found through education or job or contributing to the well-being of other family members. And the need to be productive and be a member of the community, this is a natural desire that people have as they move into retirement. And so having a sense of fulfillment and belonging used to be shaped in people’s career, but as people make that transition into retirement, that kind of necessity to have a purpose in your life, it’s inextressably linked to sort of like your self-worth. And I don’t mean self-worth in a personal ego context, but I think people have greater joy and fulfillment in retirement if they have found their purpose. And it’s more likely to maintain cognitive acuity if you have found a purpose or way to spend your time, some activities. And that can also slow down negative mental health challenges such as anxiety, depression, things of that nature, which some people in retirement do suffer from those. No question. But a lot of moving parts to this, maintaining mental acuity in retirement. But I think what we need to do is look at it from kind of from 30,000 feet, what kind of things do we need to do to maintain mental acuity in retirement. And it’s becoming such a major thing for people to be thinking about such a major component of our retirement that there is even an industry popping up where people can seek the help of a therapist or something like that and help them determine how they’re doing in retirement, not financially, but how are they doing with everything else. They even have a website called caring.com and so forth. But what’s interesting is according to a poll, 32% of respondents said they wished they had kept working longer in their careers. And in equal number, 32% also admitted they didn’t feel prepared for the regular day-to-day realities of retirement. And after walking away from some stimulating kind of work, new retirees run the risk of expeditated or accelerated cognitive decline. There’s a study in 2017 that tracked several essential cognitive functions of 3,500 participants and they looked at all domains of cognition over time. And what they found is that 38% found that their cognition, their mental acuity declined 38% faster after retirement than before. They don’t necessarily pinpoint any particular day and there could be a whole lot of reasons for this. But I think one of the reasons is they didn’t do well during this transition. And our brain is essentially a use it or lose it kind of an organ, not any different than the rest of our muscles. If someone is hospitalized for a significant period, their muscles will atrophy and just things like walking and doing things like that will become difficult. And the same is true with our brains. We must devise a plan of how they can be exercised as we move into and through retirement. In 2021, the average age of retirement was 62 and another Pew Research indicated that 50% of all adults, over age 55, were out of the labor force due retirement, due to retirement by the end of the third quarter. So a lot of things to think about here. For example, the average person’s mental acuity tends to peak around age 30 according to studies. And from that point forward, most people experience a subtle decline with age, often marked by a difficulty in memory, multiple taskings, overall motor skills and so forth. Early retirement can actually accelerate this downward trajectory, especially for those who found deep meaning in their careers, especially if that career involved a lot of mental activity and planning and things of that nature. So a lot of moving parts here. And what they have found in some of the research that researchers have done with respect to the mental client and retirement is that people who define themselves by their jobs and have fewer interests outside of work often struggle in retirement more than others. So it’s incredibly important for people to find meaningful ways to feel important. And rather than just doing something that feels important, I think what I’ve talked about many other shows is finding your purpose in retirement. I think that will not only create some socialization if you found a way to volunteer, but it will keep your brain active and so forth. And there’s a lot of factors that people need to pay attention to to see if our own cognition is declining. Do you find, or if you know someone who is retired and they’ve been retired and they’re aging, do you find there’s repetitive questioning or odd behavior or forgetfulness of recent events have there been difficulties with balance, personality changes, decline in planning and organizational abilities, changing in diet or eating habits, changing changes in hygiene increased apathy, changes in language abilities, including comprehension. And so forth. So some of the things that people need to do as they make that transition into retirement is find some activities that provide joy, play, exercise, get involved with some groups, eat more healthy food, get involved with social networks. And by that I don’t mean sitting in front of the computer screen for hours and hours, but while you’re on the computer find out about activities that other seniors are doing. A client of mine is a sweet lady well into her 80s and she plays bridge every week and I don’t know how many years she’s been doing this, but I don’t play bridge right now, but I did when I was a college age and it’s not like an easy card game. It’s nothing taking away from poker or anything like that, but it’s a very cerebral card game. You have to kind of remember which cards have been played and there’s a lot of strategy involved and so forth. One study revealed that 64% of people who replied to a survey found a new hobby over trying to something new in retirement which is very helpful especially with maintaining strong cognition and so forth. These kinds of things are great for improving mood, increased socialization and thinking of some positive things that are going on. Think about pickleball. I do activities and so forth, I don’t play pickleball, but a ton of other people do. I know people on our church are always talking about their recent times they’ve played. You see courts opening up. I know places where people work out with silver sneakers and so forth will have a gymnasium and they’ll have it reserved for pickleball. So there’s a lot of socialization as well as exercise that is coming as a result of pickle ball. We have more things to talk about after the break because maintaining mental locuity, maintaining your cognition, keeping your brain sharp as you age is kind of like anything else that needs to be worked at and the main thing that can be helpful is what I’ll be talking about after the break. [Music] Every day that you don’t have golden eagle financial managing your retirement, you’re losing money. As you move closer to retirement, Al Smith of golden eagle financial can help you make up for lost time and ensure that your resources are performing well. Now is the time to reevaluate your flex spending account, life insurance, savings plan, or anything else that you’re doing. As you prepare to retire on your terms, compound interest as you say for retirement is exponential. Every day you wait will cost you money. So you need to contact Al Smith of golden eagle financial today to create your customized solution by going to the advertiser’s page at kalzradio.com. Investment advisory services offer through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, a registered investment advisor. B.C.M. and golden eagle financial limited are independent of each other, insurance products and services are not offered through B.C.M. but are offered in sold through individually license and appointed agents. [Music] Welcome back to retirement unpacked and I will often be making reference to some people I know who have stayed very sharp in retirement. My mother was retired for many years and during that entire time she kept physically active and when my father was living they would take walks about a mile a day which isn’t terribly long but for people well into their 80s that’s a healthy walk no question. When she got older after that she had a ping pong table in the garage and to keep her balance and so forth she would place her right hand on the ping pong table and in a clockwise direction walk around that table many times and that kept her active. Her mind was sharp until she passed at age 96 of pancreatic cancer but right up to that time I know she would get frustrated if she would forget things because most of the time she was pretty sharp. She would do the New York Times crossword she told me that the Monday and Tuesday issues of the New York Times the crossword is a bit easier. I do some crosswords but the ones I do are not that difficult because I don’t want to get 10 or 20 percent through and realize I don’t know the answers to any of the other clues but the point being is doing things that keep your mind mentally active will make cognitive decline less likely. Things that challenge you puzzles, crossword puzzles when you drive places take a different route each time you go and when you do the exact same things over and over in a routine that puts your mind in almost the subconscious mode and to give you an example how many times have you driven somewhere you park the car you get out and you go into the store whatever it is and you can’t remember if you lock the car and the reason for that is your mind goes into automatic mode and you click the fob and by the time you get into the store or the building or wherever it is you’re going you can’t recall if you lock the car not as a suggestion to make certain that you’ll recall that you lock the car. The same time you click the fob and you hear the horn beep take your other hand raise your fist up in the air you do something ridiculous like that and it will create a memory and so you’ll know clearly when you get into that building that you lock the car you won’t have to go back all the way out to the car realize that it’s locked just that your mind didn’t create a memory because it was part of a routine. In some recent research they learned that about 50% of people are doing things for fitness such as going to the gym walking or yoga about 46% or gardening 43% are doing puzzles 40% are doing crafts 30% traveling about one third of people are doing outdoor activities like hiking, fishing, bike riding 20% or gaming 22% are volunteering people are doing games in sports tennis swimming pickleball so people are doing some things to maintain cognition but there are also certain problems that rare their ugly heads one of those is isolation in other countries almost half of people who are well into retirement live with other family members and example I visited my son at one time and my son lives in Canada and he lived in a suburb of Toronto called Brampton he lived in a home and he lived in half the home the other half was the owner lived there this was before he had any children and I went for a jog in the neighborhood where he lived and I noticed a whole lot of the homes had four or five cars out front and the reason for that a lot of the folks who lived there were in Indian and they’re used to having much larger family units where they live and only 6% of Americans we have the lowest percentage on the planet earth only 6% live in a circumstance with other family members 6% of seniors whereas in other parts of the world it’s much closer to 50% and so that reduces the socialization it makes things more difficult for older people getting to doctor appointments and a lot of things like that last thing I’m talking about as far as maintaining mental acuity is exercise which is probably one of the most important things you can do to keep your mind sharp and that’s in addition to having a good diet and there’s a lot of research that has been done about that some research that has been done the results of almost been surprising there were some researchers that you know check medical records and what they did is they had some results that they had a control group that didn’t do any exercise and another group that did some moderate exercise and what they found is that men and women who entered middle age were kind of out of shape but once they were in this program their improvement was substantial and the people doing the research they expected some effect on brain health from having added physical fitness to the research but you know they were you know actually amazed the effect was larger than they had anticipated a book I encourage all of you to read is a book called Spark. Spark is written by John Rati MD and basically it talks about the revolutionary new science of exercise and the brain. Now only about one chapter of this has to do with brains in aging people but the research and some of the things they learned from this there’s a school district in Illinois where they required the entire student body to do vigorous aerobic exercise every morning and the student body when they did these tests that all other high school kids all over the world do what they discovered is that they were sixth among all these high school districts all over the world in math and they were first in science and the only thing they did differently is they did vigorous aerobic exercise every morning but to you know to put things in contact most people who are 75 years old many many suffer from hypertension two thirds are overweight and about 20 percent have you know type two diabetes you know some other things you know these not only short in your lifespan but they reduce the ability for you to think clearly depending on the other hand lowers your blood pressure it increases circulation to the brain lifting weights prevents osteoporosis a lot of really really good things are tremendously helpful as far as the diet omega-3 really helps mental acuity and it strengthens your bones people who are obese are twice as likely to suffer from dementia and people with heart disease are far greater to develop Alzheimer’s diabetes for example that provides a 60 percent higher risk for developing dementia so there’s an enormous amount of data out there that indicates that exercise can very strongly delay our lack of mental acuity and the gentleman who wrote the book in addition to bringing forth a lot of research that indicates mental acuity can be maintained with exercise they have even learned that new neurons and new synapses can grow in the event people are doing vigorous exercise and they’re recommending both aerobic and you know weight bearing exercise the weight bearing exercises are important because they keep your bones strong they make falls less likely they help help with balance and so forth but what’s incredibly interesting is the more I read about this the more there’s positive effects from exercise and that’s especially true when people are older and in addition if people choose exercise with where there’s some socialization involved for example if you Google running events they have 5k races which are not that brutal that takes about you know 40 45 minutes if you’re old and slow you know like myself but there are hundreds of people if not thousands who participate in these events of there’s a lot of socialization as well as some fitness that’s involved with this so if you want to keep your brain active longer I highly encourage you to exercise and if you want to make certain that your retirement is on track what you’re doing for retirement is on track you have my office are called 303 744 1128 we’ll sit down and have a conversation and as I say we’ll make sure you’re on track if you’re not we’ll make some adjustments so your retirement will be all that you want it to be God bless you thank you for listening and let’s continue to pray for our friends in Israel. Thank you for listening to retirement unpacked with your host Al Smith of Golden Eagle Financial set up a free consultation with Al today at klsiradiow.com/money find your purpose in retirement with Golden Eagle Financial. Investment Advisory Services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC a registered investment advisor. Vcm and Golden Eagle Financial Limited are independent of each other insurance products and services are not offered through Bcm but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents.