Platinum Magazine, May 2005
John R. Cook, Ph.D.
Registered Psychologist

Congratulations! You have successfully navigated all the bumps and unexpected curves along the road of life leading to mid life and beyond. You have taken your physical and cognitive changes in stride, have not been deterred by the loss of travel companions who have fallen along the way, and now look forward, with eager anticipation, to riding off into the sunset. What else could possibly get in the way of a satisfying and rewarding retirement?

The answer lies in the baggage you have been carrying with you. Watch for suitcases labelled "work-related stress". These suitcases accumulate upsetting events over our entire working lives, and if we are not careful, can be carried with us into retirement, and opened there. Normally, the rapid pace of work life and our ability to meaningfully identify with our jobs protects us from this toxic baggage. The more leisurely pace of retirement living lulls us into dropping our defences, and gives us time alone with our thoughts. With our defences down, the stress can worsen, and even take centre stage.

Each of us has our own safe lifetime stress quota, much like the safe radiation exposure limits for technicians working with nuclear energy. Like these technicians, the consequences of disregarding these limits can be deadly. The depletion of physical and mental resources that results can lead to systemic illness such as heart attacks, strokes and cancer. Unlike those technicians, we are not fortunate enough to carry badges that monitor our stress levels. If we did, we might be surprised to find some people working in high-risk occupations such as the military, para-military (fire, police) and emergency services regularly exceed their safe, lifetime quotas well before retirement.

How do you know if you are a victim of work-related stress, so you can do something about it before you retire? In general, you know you have a problem when you aren't performing up to your usual standards at work, in school or in social relationships. You either "numb out" and become emotionally unresponsive or overreact and "bite people's heads off" for the smallest things. Even the simplest tasks start to feel overwhelming, and you notice yourself feeling strung out, tense and on edge much of the time. You don't get the usual amount of pleasure and enjoyment from doing things.

What can be done about work-related stress before you retire, or in the early stages of retirement? The first step to doing something about stress in our lives is to recognize the problem by taking an inventory of our mental, physical and behavioural stress symptoms (refer to the questions below). The next step is to identify the sources of stress in our lives. Sometimes these sources take the form of challenges in our external world. Other times they arise in the form of internally generated worries or preoccupations. Last, choose among three basic strategies for dealing with these sources: altering, avoiding, or accepting. More about these strategies in the next issue.

Stress Symptom Checklist