It is official: Working is bad for your health

This may come as no great surprise to many of you, but giving up work is apparently good for your health.

Scientists studied data on more than 10,000 households to conclude that when you retire, you have more time to exercise and sleep, and are less stressed as a result.

Dr Peter Eibich and his colleagues at Oxford University, due to publish their findings in the Journal of Health Economics next month, said people who retired got on average 40 minutes extra sleep a day, were ten per cent more likely to take regular exercise and visited the doctor less frequently, even when allowing for age-related medical problems and those who retired early due to poor health.

Here comes the bad news: independent reviews of the pension age in the UK are expected to mean people in their early 20s today will wait until they are 70 to get their pension. If life expectancy and mortality rates continue, by the mid-2070s people will be waiting until they're 77.

Yay?

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