Top 15 Fulfilling Hobbies To Pursue As You Age

Photo by Sven Mieke on Unsplash

Experiencing your golden years can be rewarding – but it can also be a tad bit dull. Without having to haul yourself out of bed every morning for your 9 to 5, and with the physical limitations that sometimes come with old age, old day-to-day routines can fall away. You have a ton of free time that you’re meant to enjoy, as you’ve crossed the proverbial finish line – you’ve worked your way to a stable, secure retirement.

But how are you meant to fill those days? How can you live every one of them to the fullest, while sustaining a sense of purpose and joy?

If you’ve found yourself living with loneliness, depression, or a lack of purpose post-retirement, this article is for you. Let’s talk you through a wide range of fulfilling hobbies that you can adopt to maintain a healthy, high-quality lifestyle throughout your golden years.

Why Are Hobbies So Important?

Before we dive into our list, you’re probably wondering: why are we recommending adopting a hobby? Some have the mindset that hobbies are little more than diversions – in reality, hobbies are a crucial component of maintaining a fulfilling lifestyle, especially for those in retirement.

Hobbies serve a variety of functions for retirees, including:

• Helping maintain your physical health: Hobbies that challenge the mind are likely to improve cognitive function and maintain brain health, while hobbies that push the body are likely to improve coordination, blood flow, as well as overall physical and mental health.
• Providing support for loneliness and depression: Older adults are, in general, at higher risk for experiencing feelings of isolation and loneliness than their younger counterparts. Hobbies that encourage socialization and community-building have a positive impact on symptoms of depression, and encourage older adults to stay connected.
• Facilitating a strong sense of purpose: As discussed before, retirement leaves you with a lot of free time; time that you may not know what to do with. But hobbies imbue that time with a sense of purpose, allowing you to pour creative energy into them and receive an outcome that fulfills you.

Hobbies are important in every stage of our lives – but they become most crucial when we have the fewest constraints on our time. Whether the hobby you choose is more relaxing in nature or constructive, choosing the hobby that suits you best can really improve your overall quality of life.

Invest in Your Own Relaxation

If you find yourself longing for either spiritual connection or internal peace, the best place to start might be with a relaxing hobby that helps you connect with the world around you. These hobbies often double as healthy lifestyle adjustments, either encouraging you to exercise or to spend some much-needed time outdoors.

While there are a wide array of hobbies that could fit this description, some of the most fulfilling ones for older adults are:

1. Gardening – Spend your time outdoors nurturing and maintaining a slice of nature that’s all your own.
2. Yoga – Reduce your overall stress with exercises designed to improve cardiovascular function, increase your balance and flexibility, and help you find inner peace.
3. Hiking – Become the Bear Grylls you want to see in the world, traveling hitherto unmapped areas around your state on foot.
4. Journaling – Chronicle your innermost thoughts, experiences, and dreams. Engage in some creative writing as well, if the fancy takes you!
5. Painting – Put your effort into handcrafting a work of art all your own. Whether it ends up amongst your family’s most treasured possessions or in a gallery, you’ll find this a unique, fulfilling way to express yourself.
6. Scrapbooking – Summon up the memories of old and bookmark them for posterity with this common, low-effort, high-impact hobby.
7. Puzzling – Are you someone who likes brainteasers? Whether you go with ye olde 1400-piece jigsaw puzzle, weekly sudoku, or try and crack the Cambridge Labyrinth cube, you’ll find plenty to poke at your mind with puzzling.

While some of these hobbies involve the outdoors, you’ll no doubt notice that they revolve around you – your self-care, and your connection to the world around you. If one of them looks interesting, but you have no idea where to start, don’t be afraid to get academic with it and do some research – remember, you’re never too old to learn something new.

Pick up a Lucrative, Hands-On Hobby

For some, the most fulfilling hobbies are those that get their hands dirty – hobbies that encourage them to buckle down, learn a new skill from scratch, and even turn an idle pastime into a lucrative venture. Take car-flipping, for example; some older adults may find the process of purchasing used cars at reduced prices, hand-renovating them, and selling them for a profit compelling, especially when considering the relief of financial pressure such a venture produces.

Flipping cars isn’t for everybody, though; putting aside the capital required to make that initial investment, for some, it may be too hands-on. That, and if you don’t browse listings carefully, you’re likely to invest in an absolute lemon.

However, it’s not the only option; if this concept has you hooked, try any of these potentially lucrative hobbies:

1. Hands-on craft-making
2. Home brewing
3. Furniture restoration
4. Photography
5. Beekeeping
6. Home restoration
7. Woodworking
8. Sewing

After learning the skill set required for any of these hobbies, you can then either work part-time as a contractor or take the finished products to local craft fairs. Regardless of how much you make, you’ll be bringing a product you’re proud of into the world – and let’s be honest, you’re likely to make a decent chunk of change along the way.

We hope this guide was of some help to you, and that you find the hobby that leaves you feeling fulfilled throughout your golden years.