How to improve your or your relatives’ wellbeing when it’s time to retire?

🧩Find a hobby!

There were multiple studies focused on specific activities and/or specific countries and since one by one they proved that hobbies are especially beneficial for older adults, some countries have been promoting leisure activities as part of their policies. The list of benefits would usually include social support, reduced loneliness, ability to relax and stimulate cognitive activity, train sensory skills, improve creativity and many other perks important for health and wellbeing.

To see how these studies and findings corelate between countries, a group of scientists has gathered data from 16 countries and 93,263 respondents to compare the results and look for more interrelations between hobby engagement and mental health across countries. The received data were part of national longitudinal studies of aging, mental and physical health of old adults.

Technical details

Affiliation(s): University College London (UK); National Center for Geriatrics and Gerontology, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Chiba University (Japan); Université libre Bruxelles (Belgium)
Year of publication: 2023
Type of paper: Research article

Link to the full paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02506-1