Join a social group after retirement for longevity
Joining social groups such as book clubs or church groups after retirement is linked to a longer life, a new study has claimed.
The more groups an individual belongs to in the first few years after they stop working, the lower is their risk of death, the findings show.
Researchers from University of Queensland in Australia tracked the health of 424 people for six years after they had retired. The results showed that individuals whose quality of life was good before retirement were more likely to score highly on quality of life assessment after retirement.But membership of social groups was also associated with quality of life. Compared with those still working, every group membership lost after retirement was associated with around a 10% drop in quality of life score six years later.
Researchers separately assessed whether changes in physical activity levels affected risk of death and compared this with the magnitude of the effect of social group membership. They found that if a person exercised vigorously once a week before retirement, and kept up this frequency afterwards, their chance of dying over the next six years was 3 %.
