Health span – the missing piece in retirement planning

I HAVE been writing and speaking about retirement planning for the past 27 years. In the initial years of my career, the topics all related to how to accumulate enough wealth to retire.

As my clients became older, I realised that helping them withdraw in retirement had grown more complex, so my firm began to research the subject. In the past decade or so, my work on retirement has moved in that direction – but it was still just about money.

In 2010, I had an epiphany that gave me the conviction that money is just an enabler – it is sufficient to have enough. So, I encouraged people that it is more important to make life decisions first, before arranging our financial affairs to support these life decisions. In the last 12 months, I discovered that ikigai decisions are actually life decisions, so I started helping my clients to discover their ikigai (not based on the erroneous four-circle Venn diagram). According to the Japanese, ikigai is what you will wake up each morning for. It is about living a daily life that is of worth.

But then, knowing our ikigai and having the wealth to realise them are useless without good health.

To be healthier is to be cognitively sharp, physically fit and emotionally strong. Unfortunately, as we age, these three areas naturally decline due to the increased risk of cardiovascular diseases (such as a heart attack or stroke), cancer, neurodegenerative diseases (such as Alzheimer’s disease) and metabolic diseases (such as diabetes).

These four “horsemen” of chronic diseases can rob us of a good life and a good retirement. We cannot prevent our biological age from going up, but we can delay the onset of these illnesses. The objective is to allow us to have ikigai-kan (feelings of ikigai) for many healthy years before – and especially – in retirement. But if we are stricken with diseases and our health started to regress, it would last for a very short period before we die. Health researchers defined this as good health span – the amount of time a person is in good health – as a fraction of a total lifespan.

I started my journey of improving my health span by going through a targeted health screening designed by my doctor after he listened to my medical, family history, as well as my objectives. Besides the standard screening for aspects such as lipids, liver profile and glucose test, I have also done hormone and endocrine tests, prostate cancer screen, a vitamin study, and a test for helicobacter pylori bacteria.

I also checked for special lipids such as Apolipoprotein B and Lipoprotein (a) that are bigger risk factors for heart diseases than cholesterol. I have also done CT scans on my lungs, pelvis and stomach, as well as CT angiogram of my heart, and completed a number of gastro/colonoscopies over the years. Based on the results, my doctor and I worked out a comprehensive health improvement plan.

These are the five areas that I am working on:

• Exercise. One’s exercise regime should be based on what one still wants to physically do in retirement. For me, up until the last decade of my life (and I obviously do not know when that will be), I hope to still be able to hike in the forest, go camping, run, cycle, and if I have grandchildren, carry them and play with them. I also hope to be able to do grocery shopping and cook. To do that, I put in place an exercise regime which requires me to run three times a week at about 60 to 70 per cent of my maximum heart rate, as well as do interval cardio training once a week. I also try to go to the gym three times a week for strength training. I attended a personal trainer course to learn how to use the weights correctly.
• Nutrition. From scientific evidence, a large part of health depends on what we eat. So, I calculated the number of calories I need for daily maintenance, and planned my diet according to where my calories should come from. Most of my calories are to come from proteins rather than carbohydrates. I also cut down on sugar because sugar is a key contributor to many chronic diseases. I use an app to track what I eat each day.
• Sleep. There is enough evidence that sleep quality contributes to our overall health and well-being. I try my best to sleep at least seven to eight hours each night.
• Emotional health. This measures a person’s ability to manage their emotions, cope with life’s challenges and maintain a sense of well-being. While my work can be stressful at times, I am grateful that because I enjoy my work, the stress is manageable. Having other areas of ikigai also help with my emotional well-being, and I am a work-in-progress in having yutori or mind space in my daily life. 
• Medicines and supplements. I used to have very bad low-density lipids (LDL) and nothing I tried worked. My doctor decided to start me on cholesterol-lowering statins, which have successfully brought it down to a very low level. To make sure I am not affected by any side effects, my liver profile is regularly checked. I also take some other supplements that are useful, based on my medical history.

There are obviously many other ways to becoming healthier than what I can write. Depending on your health situation and personal convictions, some of you may prefer alternative medicines/supplements such as TCM (traditional Chinese medicine), herb-based supplements or exercises such as yoga, Pilates, qigong or the practice of mindfulness. Whatever you believe in, just like in investing, I encourage you to make sure that they are evidence-based and what you put in place is something you can adhere to for the long term. I believe this approach gives the highest probability of success.

Also, health screening can be expensive, even though you don’t have to do all the health tests every year. Some of you may choose to engage personal trainers in retirement and nutritionists to plan your meals. All these cost money, and you ought to plan for them financially.

A successful retirement is one in which you have the wealth to improve your health span and to enable your ikigai. All these require you to intentionally think about, plan for, and act on them.

I am a planner at heart and I run a practice that excels at it. Yet, I know that while man can propose, God can dispose. We can plan as much as we want, but our lives are in God’s hands. But to use that as an excuse to not plan is being unwise.

The writer is CEO of Providend, South-east Asia’s first fee-only comprehensive wealth advisory firm