After I stopped working, I noticed another change in my behavior.
Worktime was Snacktime
When I was working, in addition to bringing my lunch, I would also take several snacks with me every day. I had long given up junk food. My snacks consisted mainly of fruit or vegetables or nuts.
So during mid-morning, I would eat one snack. Lunchtime was lunch time. After lunch I would eat another snack. Mid-afternoon I ate a third snack. All during the day I drank (non-caffeine) tea, sometimes more than one cup a day.
But, Retirement!
But when I stopped working, I found myself no longer snacking. I have fruit during the day, but nowadays I usually stick to meal time for food.
It was only then that I realized that working had pushed me into anxiety eating. In the office, I would ponder what to do next, using eating to cover over any discomfort I had with work. Distress about deadlines, abrasive co-workers, expectations about deliverables, distractions of all kinds… even just trying to look busy was anxiety-inducing. Everything added up to me wanting to not be in the emotional space I was in. So to relieve that anxiousness, I would eat.
Being retired means many of the diversions that office life provided no longer are present. So I snack less. A lot less.
And I don’t need to look busy for anyone. Not myself, not my wife.
Of course, having much more free time now means I have the freedom to eat more and more often if I should choose. But my body seems not to desire as much edible discretionary distractions.
So retirement cured my anxiety eating. That’s just one of many effects of retirement.
How has retirement affected your behaviors? Let me know here: Contact page.
The illustrations of a White Macaw and a Golden Pheasant are polychrome woodblock prints and are Meiji era copies (ca. 1900) of original designs (ca. 1771) by Itō Jakuchū (1716–1800), a Japanese painter of the mid-Edo period.
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