Category: Tips and Tricks

You might be wondering, what are the benefits of learning a second language at an older age? I researched this question and created this list of benefits of learning a second language when you’re getting older. I’ll also share some tips on how you can easily learn a language when you’re getting older.  

Ready to become a bilingual senior? Let’s learn more! 

If you want to learn a second language using a smartphone application, I recommend using Busuu. Busuu is known as the best language learning application, and it was named the #1 Language Learning Application of 2020. Over 100 million people worldwide use Busuu to learn a second language. So, if you can’t wait, start learning right away with Busuu.

1) Learning a Second Language Helps With Healthy Aging

Things that help with healthy aging are important when you reach an older age. Learning new things helps to keep your mind sharp and fit, and with healthy aging. When learning a new language, when you get older, these benefits are getting even stronger.

According to Dr. Ipsit Vahia, director of geriatric outpatient services for Harvard-affiliated McLean Hospital, learning new things is similar to training your muscles to keep your strength. In this article on Harvard Health Publishing, he mentions that you train your muscles to improve your overall health when you exercise. The same concept applies to our brain; you need to challenge it with exercises to keep it healthy. 

A great brain exercise is learning new things, like learning a new language. If you really want to get the most out of these benefits, you must be getting out of your comfort zone. According to this study, doing some simple exercises like learning a few new words in a different language doesn’t cut it. 

The study examined two groups of older people between the age of 60 and 90 years old. The first group was learning more challenging skills. For the study, they learned digital photography. However, learning a new language also applies as a learning a challenging skill. The second group did only some easy brain exercises, like doing crossword puzzles everyday. 

The group that did the challenging skills showed more improvement in different brain activities like overall memory.

Another research published in the Annals of Neurology in 2014 shows that people who can speak two or more languages may slow down cognitive decline from aging, even when they learned the second or third language at an older age. 

There’s a lot of research available that proves the health benefits of learning a second or even third language. However, being bilingual, meaning that you can speak multiple languages, has a lot more benefits. Let’s look at the other benefits of learning a second language at an older age. 

2) Learning A Second Language Increases Social Interactions

When you’re able to speak multiple languages, it’s easier to connect with people who speak that language as well. For example, when your neighbors can only speak Spanish, and you just learned Spanish, it’s easier to connect with them. It’s also a great way to improve your Spanish! 

Or when you enjoy travel adventures in other countries, it’s easier to connect with locals if you can speak the local language. 

So, you can say that learning a new language helps you to improve your social interactions. If you want to improve your language skills in a particular language, you can connect with native speakers. And when traveling, it’s easier to get around with the locals. Staying socially active is known as one of the most important factors when it comes to healthy aging.

According to this article on Harvard Health Publishing, having many social interactions, or as they say, a rich web of human relationships stimulates your mind and memory loss. If you want to learn more about staying socially active in retirement, I recommend reading my article How Do I Socialize After Retirement?

Having multiple social interactions in the language, you’re learning helps you to learn that specific language easier. I’m bilingual myself. I’m a native Dutch speaker and learned English and Spanish when I was still in college. I learned the basics of both languages at school. However, I truly learned to speak both languages when I had many social interactions in that language for a longer period. For example, when I was still in college, I worked at a summer camp in the US for a few months. We could only speak English together, and after a while, I started my dream were even in English! That’s when I realized I became fluent in English. 

Social interactions both benefit your health and your knowledge of a foreign language. 

3) You Get A Better Cultural Understanding When Being Bilingual

As I mentioned earlier, it’s easier to connect with your Spanish-speaking neighbor when you speak Spanish. Or to connect with local people during traveling when you speak the local language. However, when you’re truly fluent in a language, you’ll get a much better understanding of the culture of a country as well. You don’t even have to travel for it, which is, of course, a great thing to do when you’re retired. But you can easily learn more about a specific country if you understand the language. 

For example, many older people love reading books , and sometimes it’s easier to get a translation into your native language. In my experience, you sometimes miss out on things when you read a translation. Certain jokes or cultural sayings translated in English are different than in, let’s say, Dutch or Spanish. So it’s more fun to read those books in the original language. 

During traveling, when you connect with locals and speak the local language, you can truly have a conversation that’s not limited to ‘who are you, nice to meet you,’ or ‘what a beautiful place.’ 

Having an actual conversation with a local in their native language teaches you so much more about their culture. It’s interesting and refreshing! Another great way of learning new things!

4) You Can Make Use Of Your Large Vocabulary 

Many people say that it’s easier to learn a second language when you’re younger. Yes, younger people can adapt easier and maybe learn more things at once easier. However, when you learn a new language at an older age, you can use your knowledge you gathered over time.

For example, your vocabulary, even when you can only speak one language. When you’re older, you just learned much more words and sayings in that language than younger people. Using this knowledge in a different language helps you to learn these sayings easier. Younger people often start to learn different words. It’s easier to relate to sentences and sayings when you’re older, so you’re able to speak that new language faster. 

5) Use Your Learning Techniques

Another benefit of learning a second language at an older age is knowing which learning techniques work best for you. 

Over the past years, you learned all kinds of new things. Maybe you even completed a specific course not too long ago. Or you developed a new skill or hobby during your retirement. Either way, you know how you learn new things the best. 

Use this knowledge to your benefit. If you learn new things the best by reading, try to start reading a book using translation in that second language. Or maybe you’re learning the best by following a video course, then find a language video course. 

Like I said at the start of this article, Busuu is one of the best language learning applications you can use. When using Busuu, you can learn a language at different skill levels, from beginner to upper-intermediate. If you finished the last level, you’re able to join a more difficult conversation in that language, like discussing important things in life or following the local news. You can learn more about the application Busuu here. 

6) Learning A Second Language Improves Decision-Making Skills

Sometimes it’s not easy to decide on a specific topic. Life choices, financial decisions, or other things that can influence your happiness are often decided based on facts and personal feelings. However, researchers from the University of Chicago found that if you’re bilingual, you’re able to think through a specific problem or choice in your non-native language. This allows you to create a whole different point of view on a topic. 

In fact, when you’re fluent in a second language, you can even consider cultural points of view or discuss them with someone from that country. 

According to the study, people who make decisions in a foreign language are more likely to focus on the potential outcome of that decisions instead. When making a decision in our native language, we tend to focus more on potential losses and problems instead of the benefits.

7) Learning A Second Language Keeps You Busy

Staying busy at an older age or when you’re retired is important for your health and feeling of happiness. Have you ever heard of the world’s Blue Zones? 

The Blue Zones are specific areas in the world where people get much older than average. These areas even have the most centenarians, people who healthily reach the age of 100+. They all have a similar lifestyle, and one of the most important facts is that they stay busy and active until old age. 

So, instead of doing nothing all the time, it is important to create goals and stay busy when you get older. Learning a second language at an older age keeps you busy, and as we discussed in this article, it has many other health benefits.  

If you truly want to challenge yourself, why stop after learning a second language? When you’re using the application Busuu, you can easily start a new language course in a different tongue if you finished your first course. This way, you can become fluent in more languages and truly become bilingual! 

8) Learning A Second Language Improves Your Native Tongue

When learning a second language, you’re also learning many new words, sayings, and the grammar of that specific language. Learning all these new things also improves your native tongue because you need to translate it into your first language to process it. 

9) Learning A Second Language Improves Listening

Learning a second language also helps if you want to become a better listener. When listening to someone in a foreign language, you truly need to pay attention to understanding its meaning. 

Knowing the meaning of words is different than understanding them in a conversation. When having a conversation, you need to understand nuances, accents, cultural jokes, etcetera. Listening with attention automatically improves your listening skills. 

10) Learning A Second Language Keeps You Modern

With globalization in mind and the great chance that you’re traveling much more when you get older or are retired, you want to join the modern-day society. When you’re traveling to Europe, you’ll get a much better understanding of the countries’ cultural aspects if you can speak multiple European languages. 

According to this article on Busuu, Spanish, French, and Portuguese are all in the top-10 most spoken languages worldwide. 

Best Language Learning Application For Learning A Language (At An Older Age)

With all these benefits of learning a second language at an older age in mind, you probably wonder which application is best for learning that second or maybe third language. 

I already mentioned a few times the application Busuu. This application is the easiest to use and best to become truly fluent in a second language because it gives you the possibility to have real conversations, speech recognition, and native speaker models. When following a Spanish, French, German, or English course, you can take a certified test to measure your progress. The language courses on Busuu have a McGraw-Hill Education certification. 

The easy interface and possibility to take these different tests make Busuu stand out from other language learning applications like Babbel or Duolingo. Busuu has even named the #1 language learning application of 2020, has a high customer review on both Google PlayStore and the Apple Appstore.

As a Busuu student, you get access to the Busuu community, which allows you to get to know other students. It also helps you to stay motivated if learning that second language is getting a bit difficult at a certain point. You can share your progress and goals with other students. A great benefit of this community is that you can also speak with other students in the language you’re trying to learn, which is not only fun but also speeds up the process of language learning! Learn more about Busuu here.

Having a hobby makes your time in retirement a lot more fun. It’s a great way to destress and enjoy the moment while learning new things. When you’re looking for a new hobby at home, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve listed the 10 best hobbies for seniors at home in this article. So let’s get started.

Just a heads up, this post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Purchases you make through these links may earn us a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

1) Cooking

You can consider cooking as a daily chore in retirement, but you can also make it your new hobby. You need to eat, so why not make the process of preparing a meal a fun experience? You can try out new recipes, bake your own cake and cookies, introduce new ingredients to your meals, remake an old family recipe, etc. You can even explore new cultures and travel to other places in the world all through their cuisine. But where can you learn all these things?

I’ve got the best tip for you: MasterClass. A streaming platform just as easy to use as Netflix, but where you can follow different cooking classes from the world’s best chefs. You don’t need to be an experienced cook to follow classes from Gordon Ramsey to Thomas Keller, Gabriela Cámara, and so many more. With Masterclass, you can learn how to cook Mexican, Italian, French, Japanese, Texas-Style BBQ dishes, and upgrade your cooking skills even if you’re already an experienced cook yourself. And the best part is: with a membership, you’ll have access to all cooking classes (and all the other classes on Masterclass).

2) Gardening

Being outdoors with your hands in the soil is a very healthy hobby to have as a senior. So whether you have a small or big garden at home, do a little gardening each day and you’ll experience many benefits. Because gardening is great for your mental and physical health. It reduces stress, builds stronger muscles, boosts your creativity and your overall mood. And that is why gardening is such a popular hobby amongst seniors.

You can plant flowers to create beautiful scenery, start a vegetable garden or grow a couple of herbs that you can use for your cooking. There are so much many things you can learn within gardening and the man to teach you all about it is Ron Finley. He has an online Gardening Class on MasterClass where he teaches how to create a garden in any home, how to grow your own food, the best time to plant, how to keep houseplants alive, and a lot more. Curious? Check out more information about his Gardening Class here.

3) Writing

A reason for seniors to take up writing as a hobby is to have a legacy for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. It’s great to have something to pass on to younger generations.

When you like this hobby idea but are hesitant to start writing because you don’t have any experience or maybe never took a writing class. I’m here to tell you that there are many advantages to start writing at a later stage in life: plenty of time to write, there are no distractions such as a full-time job or kids running around the house, and as a senior, you have a lot of history and life experience to draw from.

And it’s never too late to take a writing class if you want to be better and learn more. And with a Membership to Masterclass you get access to fantastic writing classes from the world’s best writers: Judy Blume, Dan Brown, Billy Collins, James Patterson, Margaret Atwood, Shonda Rhimes, Walter Mosley, and many more. They are all there to teach you every aspect of writing from storytelling, writing fiction, poems, screenwriting, songwriting, etc. All from the comforts of your home and learning at your own pace, time, and device.

4) Reading

Reading is an excellent hobby for seniors because keeping your brain occupied and stimulated improves your memory and helps to prevent dementia according to many studies. And as a senior, you have more time to enjoy a good book, because there are no distractions to finish a couple of extra chapters.

Perhaps you have a stack of unread books you didn’t have the patience and time to read, or when you like to do more reading in retirement you can consider getting a Kindle e-reader. You’ll have access to millions of book titles that are waiting for you.

5) Music

Music has the enormous power to move us emotionally. Music can make you feel happy or sad and it can help you reminisce about loving memories in the past. But it also has health benefits. Whether you listen or play music it’s a great brain exercise. Music can improve your memory, reduce stress, and lower blood pressure. And it keeps your heart healthy through released endorphins in the brain that improves heart health. Therefore a great hobby for a senior, right?

You can get a vintage record player to listen to old records. Go on Spotify and create a playlist with all your favorite songs to listen to at home. You can learn to play a new musical instrument, write a song or try to perfect your pitch. Perhaps you have the courage even to upload a couple of videos of you singing or playing an instrument.

On MasterClass you can follow so many awesome music classes from the world’s greatest. For example, Alicia Keys teaches Songwriting, Tom Morello teaches Electric Guitar, Itzhak Perlman teaches Violin, Reba McEntire teaches Country Music and the list goes on. From learning how to play ukulele, drums and percussion to singing lessons. A Membership to MasterClass gives you acces to all music classes, but also all the othe classes on the platform from cooking, gardening, writing to science, art and business.

6) Arts & Crafts

Get creative with arts and crafts. Working with your hand and creating a piece of art gives you a fulfilling and satisfying feeling. It gives you a sense of meaning that most technologies cannot. You can invite friends over to do new fun art and crafts project every week. So what are great arts and crafts hobbies?

• Painting
• Crocheting
• Woodworking
• Scrapbooking
• Jewelry making
• Diamond painting
• Knitting
• Mosaic

7) Birdwatching

You can connect more with nature through the hobby of birdwatching. You can hang up a bird feeder in your garden, window, or balcony and see the birds fly in and out. And the best part is you can be as involved as you want to be. You can start by feeding birds, identifying your backyard birds, and see how they interact with each other, and even keeping a bird-watching log journal. Birds are all around us so it’s a year-round and inexpensive hobby.

8) Genealogy

If you’re curious about your past and want to know more about your ancestors, you can have genealogy as a hobby. You can research and build a family tree and perhaps write a family history book to pass on to your children en grandchildren. It’s what a lot of seniors love to do.

My Heritage DNA Kit can give you a head start. You discover relatives who share DNA segments, inherited from the same common ancestor. And it can help you find answers about your past and create a family tree in a thorough way.

9) Volunteering

Doing volunteer work is one of the most popular hobbies in retirement. Helping others makes you feel good and gives meaning to your life. It makes you feel fulfilled and that is why so many retirees love to volunteer. It keeps you busy in all ways; socially, mentally, and physically. But you might wonder, can you do volunteer work from home?

Yes, you can. There are all sorts of virtual volunteer opportunities out there. You can search through hundreds of volunteer jobs you can do from home at VolunteerMatch.

10) Games

Do you love to play games? Then your hobby can be all sorts of fun games. Get yourself a Puzzle Book and spent hours on Crosswords, Sudoku, Cryptograms, Word Searches, etc. You can solve a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle, do a brain teaser or play video games. The possibilities are endless.

Recommended Articles

The following articles are interesting for you to read as well:

• How Do I Meet Senior Singles?
• How Do You Stay Fit After Retirement? | 16 Essential Tips
• How Do I Meet People After 60? | 20 Tips

You want to make your retired parents happy, but you don’t know what to do or where to start. Perhaps they’re struggling with loneliness, depression, or they’re bored out our their mind. And that is why you might wonder how do you make retired parents happy?

You make your retired parents happy by reducing their stress about health and money, helping them discover new hobbies and activities, and making sure they have plenty of social interactions with other people and animals. Also, a positive daily routine and dose of fresh air help to keep people happy in general. And when your retired parents struggling at home you can help out with household activities and maintenance.

These are just the tip of the iceberg. I’ve listed 10 helpful ideas in this article to make your retired parents happy. So continue reading.

Just a heads up, this post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Purchases you make through these links may earn us a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

1) Lower Their Bills

The number 1 stress source in retirement is finance. Do I have saved enough money for my retirement? Can I pay the (medical) bills later on? These are questions a lot of retirees ask themselves and stress over in retirement. And perhaps your parents do too. Well, stressing over money gets in the way of feeling happy.

So the first thing you can do for your parents is to lower their bills and take a little bit of that stress away. And by that, I don’t mean you have to pay their bills, but you can help them lower their bills so they have more room to breathe and to feel happy. And there is an easy way to do it: Billshark.

According to Billshark, 80% of people in America overpay on their monthly bills. So they created a service where they get you the best rates on monthly bills, and you don’t have to do anything. They deal with the providers and unwanted auto-renewed services. Which saves you a lot of time and stress too.

Savings are guaranteed and you can see how much you can save on your parents’ bills with their free savings calculator. Their service is backed by Shark Tank-star Mark Cuban and gets 4.9 out of 5 from the thousands of google reviews. Interested in what it can do for your parent’s bills? Use their calculator and see what you can save.

2) Apply Them For Fun Classes

You instantly feel happier when you have something fun to do in retirement, right? Now, before you go searching for fun things to do in retirement, I’ve got a great tip for you: MasterClass. It’s one spot with over 100 different fun online classes from the world’s best.

A membership to MasterClass gives your parents access to amazing classes such as Ron Finley teaches Gardening, Gordon Ramsay teaches Cooking, Serena Williams teaches Tennis, Ron Howard teaches Directing. And so many more. They can learn something new from world-leading experts in their field from the comforts of their own home at any place, anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

From cooking classes from the world’s best chefs, acting classes from famous actors, to science and business classes from experts in their field. The video streaming platform Masterclass is designed for any skill level and is very easy to use. Do your parents know how to use Netflix? Well, Masterclass is just as easy. Curious? Find out more about Masterclass here.

Also keep learning new things is so important for us humans. It nourishes our minds and gives us a feeling of accomplishment which is a great confidence booster. And Masterclass is a great platform for your parents to find something fun to do while learning new skills. I’ve gifted my parents a membership to Masterclass last Christmas and they absolutely love it.

3) Socialize More

The key to more happiness in retirement is socializing. When you stop working and retire you lose a lot of daily social interactions you got from your job. But we humans need social interactions to stay healthy and happy. This scientific study proves that loneliness has a worse impact on your health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, being obese, and high blood pressure!

Therefore in retirement, it’s important to seek new ways to socialize. So, if you want your retired parents to be happy you need to encourage them to socialize more. It reduces stress, anxiety, and the chances of getting depression. And has the opposite effect: feeling happy and more positive about life.

You can spend more time with your retired parents but you can also support them to seek other ways to be social in retirement. I share a couple ideas below.

Social Activity Ideas For Retired Parents

• Organize A Sunday Family Brunch
• Regular video call with friends and family
• Host A Game-Night
• Join a club
• Apply for a (parttime) job
• Go on a family trip
• Babysit grandchildren
• Be a coach

4) Discover New Hobbies

Most retirees who are thinking about their retirement are looking forward to spending time on their favorite hobby. But not everyone has a retirement hobby from the get-go. They need to actively rediscover what they like in retirement.

If that’s applicable for your parent’s situation you can help them out to find a retirement hobby because once they have something fun to do they’ll instantly be happier. But where to start?

A way to discover a retirement hobby is actually rediscovering an old hobby. What did your parents like to do when they were a child? Chances are they still love to do it today, but perhaps in a different form. But the best way to discover what you like and don’t like is to try out all sorts of stuff.

MasterClass

And that is where the platform Masterclass is great at. With a Membership to Masterclass, you get access to all the classes as I mentioned earlier in this article. Your parents can try out all sorts of hobbies with Masterclass and learn awesome things on the way to their new favorite hobby.

They can get creative with the many art and music classes, put their brain to work with the many educational and science classes, and follow business classes if they’ve always had the dream to start a business. And with the many cooking classes (Italian, Mexican, French, BBQ, Japanese, etc) on Masterclass they can work with their hands which also has an extra benefit. Doing manual labor boosts your happiness.

Doing physical “work,” e.g., gardening, cooking, is a way for your parents to stay happy in retirement. Because working with your hands leads to greater job satisfaction and gives life more meaning. You are living in the moment and are connected with your environment which makes you forget about time and worries. It’s a quick way to feel better about yourself.

5) Give A Gratitude Journal

Harvard Medical School did research on positive psychology. And the research showed that practicing gratitude can increase happiness.

Actively being grateful forces you to do positive thinking and that leads to more positive emotions, improves health, and also builds better and strong relationships. Gratefulness helps you to appreciate the status of your life now and takes you away from your focus on the past or future. Because when we live or think about the future or past we can’t feel happiness.

Keeping a gratitude journal is a great way to practice gratitude. And if there is nothing you can do about your parent’s finances, health or other life circumstances to making them happy, giving a gratitude journal is an excellent idea. You give them a tool to be more happy with they already have.

This 5-minute gratitude journal is a best-selling item on Amazon. It promotes itself with “A happier you with 5 minutes a day”. This journal is filled with inspiring quotes, daily affirmations, and coaches your parents to work on prioritizing their day, 3 amazing things, and self-reflection.

6) Help Reduce Their Stress

If you’re stressed out, you can’t feel happy. It’s that simple. But it’s not that simple to not feel stressed out. As we all know too well. So sometimes you need some help to get out of your head and forget about your worries.

Are your parents stressed about something? Perhaps you can talk to them and see if there are solutions to their problems that you can help them out with. Maybe they haven’t talked to you about it, because they don’t want you to worry or for other reasons. But getting into that conversation where they share their worries and problems will help your parents feel heard. Sharing doesn’t make the problem go away but it feels much lighter, as if the problem is cut in half.

Also, maybe you have a solution for their problem they didn’t even think about. So getting into a converstation about it is a good start, but there are also other ways to reduce stress.

Mindfulness

One of the best ways to reduce stress is to practice mindfulness. Being mindful is focusing on the present moment and being aware of thoughts and feelings, without interpretation or judgment. It’s a skill that can help your parents to reduce stress and feel calmer whatever life throws at them in retirement.

There are all sorts of mindfulness practices but the most common one is meditation. It’s sitting or lying down comfortably while focusing on the breath. As thoughts and feelings arise, you try not to engage but softly put your attention back to breathing. It gives you a sense of calm and peace that you can carry out through the rest of the day. And if you meditate regularly you become better at managing stress. Plus it benefits your overall emotional well-being as well.

Well, now that we established what meditation is and what it can do for you. You might wonder, how can I introduce this to my parents? Well, as I mentioned earlier in this article Masterclass has so many awesome classes that are great for your parents to continue learning, explore hobbies and have something fun to do. And Masterclass also has a class about Mindfulness and Meditation. Taught by Jon Kabat-Zinn. All the more reason to gift your parents a Membership to Masterclass. He teaches the fundamentals of mindfulness and shares guided meditations and how to handle stress better.

7) Redecorate Their Home

Your parents are at home more often in retirement. Therefore it’s important that their house gives them a happy feeling. You feel more comfortable and at peace when you live in a peaceful environment.

So a great way to make your parents happy is to make their home a happy place. This can mean help cleaning up (regularly) because a clean house gives a clear mind. You can organize their closet with storage bags. And help them to declutter, because less stuff also means less stress. You can organize a garage sale to sell stuff they don’t use anymore. This creates a great opportunity for them to earn some extra money but also meet new people.

Or you can go a bit further and redecorate a room or a couple of rooms in your parent’s house. You can start with a couple of new accesories to add some new color and have a different look and feel to it. Or you can take it to the next level and paint the walls and order new furniture for a whole new fresh start in retirement.

8) Sign Up For Volunteer Work

One of the best ways to feel better about yourself is to help others. You feel fulfilled when you spend your time in a meaningful way. It’s the main reason why retirees love to do volunteer work. It not only makes you feel happy, but it also keeps you busy in different ways; socially, mentally, and physically.

When your parents struggle with what to do in retirement and feel useless, then you can give the suggestion to sign them up for volunteer work. Spending time in a different environment gives them inspiration and fresh energy. Also interacting with a younger generation keeps your parents young at heart.

If they’re a bit hesitant you can help them find the best volunteer job for them. Besides their local community center or church, you can check out: National Community Service, Habitat For Humanity, or Volunteer Match.

9) Give A Self-Care Gift

Anyone will feel better after a warm bath, listening to their favorite music, or reading a good book. Practicing self-care reduces stress and anxiety. Enough me-time is crucial for mental health. And that’s why a self-care gift can be a good way to make your retired parents happy.

You can imagine that after working hard for many years or always taking care of others you forget to take care of yourself a bit. It wasn’t a priority, so now in retirement, you can remind them that it’s time to be selfish in a good way. A gift is a sign of support and encouragement to not forget about me-time. And do the small things that make them happy on an everyday basis.

It’s very personal which gift is best for your parents, because everyone’s interests are different. But to give you some inspiration below are a couple of great self-care fifts for your parents.

Self-care Gift Ideas For Your Mom

• Spa Gift Basket
• Mental Wealth Gift Box

Self-care Gift Ideas For Your Dad

• Kindle E-reader for Unlimited Reading
• Artisan Coffee Gift Box

10) Disconnect From Internet And TV

According to the Time Use Survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) seniors at 55 and older spend around 4,5 hours per day watching TV. Plus they didn’t even count the many hours scrolling down the internet. That is a lot of hours wasted on a passive activity that doesn’t make you truly happy. Am I right?

Now we all enjoy binge-watching Netflix from time to time. But doing it every day doesn’t make you feel better. It doesn’t keep you energized to make the most out of your retirement. Also, watching the news can make you feel depressed, and scrolling through Facebook and other social media only makes you think that the grass is always greener somewhere else. And ”Comparison is the thief of joy.” – Theodore Roosevelt.

If this is a pattern you see with your retired parents you can try to get them away from the internet and TV for a day or more. Disconnecting from social media and unplugging helps to focus on the important things in life. It allows to be more present and happiness can only be felt in the present moment.

Now before you throughout their TV you can consider going camping together for a couple of days and turning off your phones. Or make it a challenge of “how long can you go without your phone or TV”. It can open their eyes when they’ve experienced what it’s like to not spend as much time on aimless activities and what it is to enjoy the simpler things in life. Showing the way and making them aware of their behavior can contribute to their overall happiness in retirement.

Recommended Articles

We share much more helpful content on this website. You might find it interesting to read some of our articles on how your parents can get the most out of their retirement. I recommend reading the following articles;

• How Can I Keep My Retired Parents Busy
• How To Celebrate Your Parents’ Retirement

When you’re a senior and single, you probably wonder, How Do I Meet Senior Singles? I created this helpful guide so that you learn where you can meet other senior singles. 

You meet senior singles by using an online dating site like Eharmony. You get access to a platform where you can easily meet other like-minded seniors. It’s an accessible way of communication, where you get in contact with other senior singles on your own terms. After meeting online via chat or video calls, you can decide if you want to meet each other in person. 

Meeting other singles is becoming more challenging when you’re getting older. I did some research and selected the best online dating platform for seniors. At the end of the article, I’ll share some places where you can go to meet other people. Ready to meet senior singles? Let’s find out more! 

Meet Senior Singles Online – Eharmony

The best platform for meeting other senior singles is the dating platform Eharmony. Eharmony was established in 2000, so this year they’re celebrating 21 years of connecting people and helping them to find love. 

Eharmony is known as the #1 trusted dating app. They have a high-quality dating pool of real people who are all genuinely looking to find love or companionship. According to their website, and their user data, Eharmony says that every 14 minutes, someone finds love on their platform.

Eharmony is different than other online dating sites or applications. Because let’s face it, you can find a ton of dating sites online, and they all promise that you’ll easily meet other senior singles. However, there aren’t all focused on finding the best connection for you. Some of these dating sites are even known for creating fake profiles where you are in contact with a chatbot (chat robot). 

When using Eharmony, you know that you’ll contact real people who share the same interests. Eharmony even has a section of their platform completely dedicated to seniors. Because senior dating, meeting other senior singles, is different than dating for younger people. Most seniors are more interested in finding companionship first in a new relationship. Love is often getting in the second place.

So meeting senior singles is a different game. Let’s learn more about the application process of Eharmony and how this platform can easily help you find other senior singles. 

Eharmony Application Process – Compatibility Quiz

Using Eharmony is straightforward. You can create your account on the website or use the smartphone app, available on all popular devices like iPhone and Android. 

When you sign up for Eharmony, you first need to fill in what kind of contact you are looking for and then fill in your profile. After that, you need to make sure you have some time because you need to fill in the compatibility quiz. A questionnaire where you answer all kinds of questions about what type of relationship you’re looking for. This questionnaire or quiz takes around half an hour to complete. It might seem like a long time, but it’s one of the most important steps to make sure you’ll have a great start on the platform. 

This questionnaire is Eharmony’s natural barrier to ensure only genuine people interested in finding truly meaningful relationships will sign up for the platform.

With the compatibility quiz of Eharmony, you’ll answer questions that identify your values, habits, and interests. You’re completing your Eharmony profile which is the foundation for your dating journey on the platform. Doing this thoroughly helps you to find other senior singles more easily.  

According to their website, there are four essential tips for completing the compatibility quiz;

• Take Your Time so you can answer the questions thoughtfully.
• Be Honest and trust your instincts.
• Take A Break if you feel that you need to. You can easily save your answers and pick up where you left.
• Retaking the quiz is not recommended because, according to Eharmony, your first honest answers will not be significantly different than the initial results. 

When you answer the questions, make sure to use complete sentences and fill in your profile like you would to see other profiles. With that in mind, it’s becoming easier to answer the question, complete your profile, and take the first step in meeting other senior singles. 

Meet Senior Singles – Connecting With Your Match

If you finished your profile and started your subscription on Eharmony, you’ll automatically receive matches that fit your profile. The great thing about the system is that these matches also will receive your profile. 

So, it’s time to connect! The most important thing is that you genuinely try to create a connection. Online dating and getting to know people online are similar to in real life. The most significant difference is that you aren’t in the same room with each other. 

Start talking, act as you normally would in real life, and probably are good to go! The Eharmony application allows basically three types of communication with your matches; 

• Icebreakers, a short message to break the ice. Like in real life, when you say to someone in a bar, ‘Hi, can I buy you a drink?’
• Questions that easily get to know your match by using five questions of a unique list of 57 questions, known as the guided communication process. It’s an easy way of getting to know each other. 
• Sending a direct message using Eharmony Mail allows you to use your own creativity and connect with your match. 

When there’s a real connection with one of your matches in the Eharmony application, you can both decide to meet up in real life. Maybe you just find your new love! 

Online Dating: The Easiest Way To Meet Senior Singles

You might ask yourself, why can’t I go to a bar to meet other senior singles? Well, you actually can. I tell you later more about other places where you can meet senior singles. However, when looking at the Time Use Survey of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), we learn that seniors spend most of their time at home. 

As you can see in the chart above, seniors at 55 and older spend around 4,5 hours per day watching TV. Only half an hour per day they use their time for socializing and communicating. So changes you meet senior singles using an online dating app like Eharmony are much bigger than when you go to a good old café. 

Eharmony mentions that their members in the age category of 50 or higher are the fastest-growing group using their application. This fact is also mentioned in several studies that show that older adults are becoming the largest group that using online dating applications to meet other senior singles.  

It’s easier to meet other senior singles online because seniors spend most of their time at home. 

Places To Meet Senior Singles

Of course, you can still go the old-fashioned way and meet senior singles offline. Maybe in a bar, at the community center, or at a party. There are still plenty of places left where you can meet senior singles. 

However, it might be a good idea to look at the BLS Time Use Survey data again. If you know where and how senior singles spend their time offline, you can figure out where to go and increase your chances of meeting senior singles. 

We already know that seniors spend most of their time watching TV. There’s another chart where we can look more in detail at the different activities of seniors. 

As you can see in the chart above, leisure and sports activities still count for the biggest time spent a day. But this includes watching TV. Other activities like religious and civic activities, caring for others, and purchasing goods and services are good for a good chunk of their time spent. 

Knowing this, we can conclude that the following places are also great places to meet senior singles. 

Local Church or Community Center

Seniors, on average, spent half an hour a day on religious, civic, and organizational activities. This is around 3.5 hours a week! 

So there you have it. If you can figure out if there are specific activities in your local community center or church for seniors during the day or during the week, make sure to join these activities. It increases your chance of meeting senior singles. 

Often local community centers or churches organize specific activities for seniors. Activities vary from game days, talking groups, or religious events. It would be best if you did your research, and then it will be easy for you to meet other seniors. 

Doing Volunteer Work

Did you know that many seniors and retirees are doing volunteer work? They choose to do volunteer work to stay connected with their community and to meet other people. So they can stay socially active. 

When you do volunteer work, you’ll meet many other people in different age categories. Often volunteer work evolves around community centers. So when you become active in your local community center, you can both start as a volunteer and meet senior singles while helping out in your community. 

If you want to read more about volunteer work for seniors and retirees, I recommend reading my article Why Do Retirees Volunteer.

Senior Travel Buddy

When you would like to find a travel buddy to go traveling together you can use the online platform Senior Travel Buddy to find your match. It’s a website that will help you find the right person for your next trip. The cost of accommodation will be shared and you have found yourself a new senior friend. The website is the winner of Entrepreneur of the Year 2018 from the American Society of Travel Advisors. You can start searching for free and when you found your travel buddy you can start chatting to get to know each other.

Senior Club

A senior club or senior citizens club is a great place to meet senior singles. You can google “senior club near me” to see what senior clubs are around in your area. These clubs organize all kinds of activities for seniors which you can check out. And when you’ve found a club with an activity you like to do you’ll meet like-minded seniors with the same interests as you very easily.

Local Sports Club

Sport and Leisure activities are good for the most time spent during the day. Again, most of the time is watching TV when it comes to this older age group. However, many seniors are still active when it comes to sport. 

So it’s time to find out where the local seniors go for their weekly sports activities. Swimming is an activity that’s very popular among older adults, so you might want to check out your local swimming pool. Or maybe the local fitness center. 

Some sports centers offer specific classes for seniors. You can ask at the local sports center about these classes and join a senior sports class—another great way of meeting other senior singles. 

Shopping Center

Yes, that’s right! Grocery shopping or buying goods and services is good for almost one hour a day! 

So it’s time to find out when other seniors go to the shopping mall or supermarket. Make sure to go there as well at the same time, and you might bump into your new love while doing groceries! That would be a romantic story, wouldn’t it?!

Visit a Bar or Restaurant

Yes, I also recommend that you can go the old-fashioned way to meet senior singles. It’s still possible to meet someone else at a bar, restaurant or club. You just need to know where to go. According to the Time Use Survey of BLS, the activity eating & drinking counts for 1.5 hours a day of the daily time spent. This time is including going for dinner or drinks outdoors. 

So, just like with sports or community activities, you need to find out where other senior singles go for dinner or drinks. If you know which place they hang out, you can also go there—good chance you’ll meet someone interesting. 

I don’t mention specific places because I want to point you in a direction to meet senior singles. Specific places like bars, restaurants, sports clubs, community centers all vary per city or village. Thus it depends where you live. However, the activities and average time spent are more or less the same throughout the United States. 

What Seniors Look For In A Relationship

When you’re getting older, your perspective on what you look for in life and relationships change. According to this article on Psychology Today, seniors focus more on creating happy moments in their lives. At the age of thirty to fifty, young people are more focused on creating new life goals and planning for their future. 

The article mentions that it looks like that when we get older, our perspective and focus change to being more in the present moment en creating positive experiences. It sounds like something everyone is looking for. However, when we get older, these positive experiences focus on peacefulness and serenity or calmness than excitement and joy. More senior people find more happiness in the little things in life, according to Psychology Today. 

Many people say seniors can’t experience strong love, mainly because their sexual desire and physical ability are declining with age. The funny thing is that this idea is entirely wrong. Seniors still have their desires, and it’s often that older couples experience stronger love than couples at a young age. Probably because when we’re younger, we often focus on many different things in life. Many younger people in today’s society aren’t capable of living the present moment and can’t focus on what truly matters in their life. This knowledge often comes when we age and take time to reflect on our lives. 

Your retired parents struggle with staying busy and you would like to help them out. And that is why you are wondering How Do I Keep My Retired Parents Busy?

You keep your retired parents busy by helping them discover new hobbies and find enjoyable physical, mental, and social activities. This combination will not only help your parents to stay busy, but it also contributes to a happy and healthy retirement. And when they’ve found something they’re passionate about, they will stay motivated to keep busy effortlessly.

In this article, I’ve listed simple 12 ways to keep your retired parents busy. Let’s dig in!

Just a heads up, this post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Purchases you make through these links may earn us a small commission, at no extra cost to you.

1) Apply For Classes

You want your parents to thrive in retirement. It’s what they worked hard for all their lives and what they deserve. And the key to a successful retirement is to keep learning new things because learning new things keeps the mind engaged and the body active. Which contributes to a healthy and happier life in retirement.

One of the best ways for your parents to stay busy in retirement is to apply them for classes. And before you freak out and ask yourself to what kind of classes do I need to apply them for? No worries you just have to apply them for one: Masterclass.

MasterClass

It’s a streaming platform that makes it possible for anyone to watch or listen to hundreds of video lessons taught by the most successful and famous teachers in the world.

Masterclass has over 100 different classes available in all sorts of categories: from arts, science to business and cooking. From Ron Finley teaches Gardening, Gordon Ramsay teaches Cooking, Alicia Keys teaches Songwriting to Kelly Wearstler teaches Interior Designing and so many more. Your parents get access to all of them when you sign up for an Annual Membership.

Your parents can learn from the world’s best at their own pace, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. If they know how to use Netflix, then you don’t need to worry. Masterclass is just as easy to use. Curious?

2) Motivate To Exercise

Exercising is as we all know the most important thing for healthy aging. Also, after being physically active you have more energy for whatever comes next that day.

When you can get your parents to exercise in the morning you instantly help them to be busier during the rest of the day. A morning work-out routine will give them a boost in energy and self-esteem and they’ll continue to have this mindset the rest of the day and stay busy. But what kind of exercises are good for your retired parents?

The CDC’s advice for 65+-year-olds is to do at least 150 minutes of exercise per week. This means 20-25 minutes of exercising per day, which sounds easy to do, right? They can go for a walk every morning, or leave the car behind and go grocery shopping with their bicycle. You can gift them outdoor hiking shoes as a sign of support and motivation to exercise more.

There all sorts of creative ways to do physical exercises every day without even noticing it. But if you want to encourage them in something more I’ve got a couple of tips for you below.

Rebounding

A great safe and simple exercise for your retired parents is rebounding. Is nothing more and nothing less than jumping up and down on a mini-trampoline with a safety bar for extra support. It’s has become extremely popular amongst retirees, because it’s a great low-impact form of workout and it is fun too. The rebounder below comes with a workout routine.

The USA #1 Voted Indoor Exercise Mini Trampoline For Adults

On-Demand Fitness App

You can download the no.1 Fitness App Aaptiv for your parents. They’ll get access to more than 1000 different audio and video workouts and get the guidance of a certified expert trainer on demand. From Yoga to Total Body Training there’s a class for every interest and fitness level. You can start a free trial for 7 days for your parents here.

3) Find A Hobby

Having something fun to do makes your retirement much more enjoyable. But it’s sometimes hard to know what you like to do when you’ve been focused on your career the last couple of decades. All your time and energy have been on achieving the life goal: retirement. And now that you’re parents are retired they perhaps don’t know what they enjoy anymore. They forgot.

And you can help them out rediscovering their interests and likes and dislikes. A great way for them to explore all sorts of activities and see what they like and don’t like at the comforts of their own home is with a Membership to Masterclass, as I mentioned earlier in this article. With access to all sorts of classes on this streaming platform, they can experience what interests they have and rediscover old hobbies, and learn about new ones along the way.

Cratejoy

Also, another way to help them stay busy in retirement is getting a monthly subscription box from Cratejoy. They have all sorts of fun boxes that can help your parents stay busy in retirement. Check out the Craftsman Crate with every month new hands-on projects to learn new skills here.

4) Build A Family Tree

Now that they have more time to reflect many retirees love to get more answers from their past. And want to know more about the family history. A lot of retiree like to build a family tree, or create a family history book to pass on to the next generation as a gift.

Building a family tree is a lot of work but you can help your parents out by gifting them a My Heritage DNA Kit. It gives them the chance to discover relatives who share DNA segments, inherited from the same common ancestor. It will help them out find answers about their past and create their family tree in a more thorough way.

5) Encourage To Socialize

Social interactions are extremely important for our health and happiness. Did you know that loneliness has the same impact on your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day?

That’s why it’s important to stay socially active in retirement. But when you retire you lose your daily routines, a purpose, and your daily social interactions from work. Actively seeking new social interactions is key to finding happiness in retirement. And for you all the more reason to encourage your parents to socialize in retirement.

Socializing for your parents can be face-timing a friend, going over for tea at their next-door neighbor, or babysitting their grandchildren. There all sorts of ways in which you can help out your parents to be more social. If they don’t know how to use video calling you can learn them. Or you can invite them over for lunch or dinner more often. Or if they’re looking for a buddy to travel with you can find their match on Seniortravelbuddy.

Do you have a single retired parent? Then you can check out eHarmony. The leading dating site for seniors who are looking for a serious relationship. You can test it out for free and see if you can find their perfect match.

6) Find A Club

A great way to keep your parents busy is to find a club. This can be a seniors club at their local community center, a sports club, or another club that shares the same interest as your parents. This can be a cooking club, book club, art club, church club, or gardening club.

An there is an easy way to find local communities of people with the same interest. You can check out is the website Meetup. It’s a platform where you can find and build new local communities. You can use it to meet new people, learn new things, and find support with like-minded people.

7) Motivate To Volunteer

A lot of retirees love to do volunteer work because it has many benefits. It gives them a new purpose in life. Helping others makes you instantly feel better about yourself and it makes you feel happy and fulfilled.

A new environment also gives inspiration, fresh energy, and interacting with the younger generation keeps your parents young at heart. With volunteer work, they can stay active in every way: socially, mentally, and physically. Which is the key to finding happiness in retirement.

But what are great volunteer jobs and where to find them? Below I’ve listed a couple of volunteer jobs and organizations. Together you can check out which jobs fit your parent’s schedule, skills, and interests best.

• Foster Grand Parent: National Community Service
• Senior Companion: National Community Service
• Build Houses: Habitat For Humanity
• Deliver Meals: Your local soup kitchen or Meals On Wheels
• Disaster Relief: Red Cross
• Different Volunteer Jobs: Volunteer Match or Volunteer
• Your local community center

8) Inspire To Travel

If your ask anyone what do you want to do in retirement. It’s probably traveling. And if that is something your parents dreamed of doing to you can support them and motivate them to travel. You can search for amazing deals online together, help rent an RV or give them a nice travel gift as a sign of support and motivation to follow their dreams.

I understand that it’s not possible for everyone to travel to other states or countries due to obvious financial reasons, but there is so much to explore within the area. Your parents can be a tourist of their own town. They can do all the touristic stuff in the area, visit local events or go on a photographic walking tour. And they can get all sorts of senior discounts. Some museums even have free admission days for seniors.

9) Stimulate Reading

Reading is the best therapy. According to the World Literacy Foundation, readings bring you in a meditative state of mind with the same health benefits such as better sleep, higher self-esteem, lower stress levels, and lower rates of depression versus non-readers.

To keep your parents busy you can give them a Kindle Ereader where they have access to thousands of books and audiobooks. They can travel to other worlds without leaving their own house. It’s the cheapest travel gift out there. And with unlimited reading, they for sure will be busy for the next couple of years in retirement. They can take this pocket-size device anywhere they go.

10) Visit Local Senior Center

According to Aarp, over 1 million older adults participate in senior center activities. So, you can visit your parent’s local senior center to see what kind of activities they offer and see if there is a great match. Via search engine on Aarp, you can find a local community center near you.

11) Encourage The Outdoors

Nature is a magical thing. We all know that everything feels lighter and more clear after a walk in nature or a dive in the ocean.

If you want to keep your parents busy in retirement it’s best to encourage them to go outside, because being indoors all the time makes you feel depressed.

Even if it’s a daily brisk walk in the morning. Those couple of minutes of physical exercise and fresh air every day can have a massive impact on your parent’s physical and mental health. Being in nature reduces stress, boosts the immune system, and improves your mood.

12) Create A Bucket List Together

When you retire you lose a lot of things: daily routines, a purpose, social interactions, and a goal to strive for. Now, we’ve tackled most of these things in this article, the last one is another important one: setting goals.

Your parents achieved many goals in their life: graduating, getting married, having kids, job promotion, and retirement. Now that their last one is accomplished they can feel aimless and unfulfilled in retirement when they miss having a goal.

But goals are so important in life. It gives you a reason to get up in the morning, you have a direction in life and it helps you move life forward. Without a goal, you can feel useless and unsatisfied.

If this is something that sounds familiar with your parents there is a great way to help your parents set new goals in retirement. And that is by creating a bucket list. It’s a list of all things they want to do in life before they kick the bucket.

And by creating a bucket list together they can get inspired to get busy with activities in retirement. It can help them get a new perspective on life and a motivation to get up in the morning with a fresh and positive mindset.

If you want to know how to create a bucket list and want some inspiration for your parents retirement bucket list you can read my article: 430 Ideas For Your Retirement Bucket List.