Do retirees need a Sabbath?
If Sabbath is a matter of religious faith for you, then of course the answer is yes. But what about everyone else?
It seems kind of funny to think about a day of rest – a day to refrain from work – for those of us no longer working a full-time job.
But unless your retirement is mostly vacation travel (I wish!), you likely still have some sort of weekly routine that involves chores, errands, responsibilities, and medical appointments. And for those of us who are obsessively online, days can include way too much time staring at a computer, tablet, or phone screen.
I was pleasantly surprised last weekend how great it felt over the holiday to take a break for awhile – especially from social media, email, and doom scrolling. I sat outside on our patio. Read a book. Took walks. Watched creatures flying through or scampering in the yard.
I’m retired! What do I need a break from!
It turns out there’s still stress in life without work, even if one big stressor is gone. That’s especially true once you’re older and more people close to you face health challenges. Being online also can ramp up our stress hormones, even if that’s a choice. Stepping away from all that, if just for a few hours, is still a treat.
“Our culture invariably supposes that action and accomplishment are better than rest, that doing something – anything – is better than doing nothing,” Wayne Muller wrote in his book Sabbath. “Because we do not rest, we lose our way. We miss the compass points that would show us where to go. . . . We miss the quiet that would give us wisdom. We miss the joy and love born of effortless delight.”
I read that book years ago when I was overwhelmed by my job, and it was obvious that regular quiet time and rest were critical for my mental health. I experimented with different ways of observing a Sabbath, especially staying offline. It was almost always hard at the start. I felt a constant itch to peak at my email, look online to see what news I was missing.
After a few hours, though, I’d finally detach and unwind. And when it was time to rejoin my real world and catch up, I almost never found anything so interesting or important that I wished I’d seen it sooner.
Almost a year into retirement, I’m still trying to discover the amount of activity and commitments that feel right for this stage of my life. Believe me, I know what a privilege it is to have that choice! But whatever my schedule ends up during a given week, I think it’s also time to make sure there are still breaks in doing.
It can be very hard to protect Sabbath rest when you work 40+ hours a week. There’s so little time left to fit in everything else you need and want to do. When I struggled with that while working, I’d try to remind myself that people managed it for thousands of years – and still do, even in this era of expectations that you’re always available and online.
Now that I’m retired, I have no excuse for not resuming a weekly Sabbath except habits. Well, habits and cravings for the adrenaline and dopamine that come from time on the Internet.
I think it’s time to start shutting off my electronic devices again at least part of one day every week.
“Everything works again if you unplug it for a few minutes,” author Anne Lamott told WTOP. “Including you.”
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