After she retired, Lou Stevens lost part of her identity, finding herself with a diminishing social circle and "in a very dark place".
"I had no life other than work," she said.
"I'd been used to going to functions all the time, I knew all the business people.
"What do I do now? I don’t know anyone to ring to say, 'Do you want a coffee?'
"I was a very lonely person. Very lonely."
Like many leaving the workforce, Ms Stevens, from Queensland's Gold Coast, said she was unprepared for retirement, becoming socially isolated and lonely.
While she found a social scene through education, a leading gerontological researcher says the solution to loneliness depends on the individual.
'A reason to get up'
Like Ms Stevens, Matthew Newbould, 84, said when retirement came, he needed a new way to make friends.
"Not everyone wants to go to a shed and use a hammer or a saw," he said.
"There are too many guys [that] have got to be doing something else now, because beer is getting too dear.
"They can't sit around the workers club and have three or four schooners — that's 50 bucks."
Mr Newbould, also Gold Coast-based, joined the University of the Third Age (U3A) — a non-profit organisation that provides informal education courses.
While he "hated school" and dropped out when he was 14, today, in his 80s, Mr Newbould takes history classes and plays cards.
"The big thing that attracted me was the social scene," he said.
Lou Stevens, who joined U3A seven years ago and now helps to run the Southport branch, said it had given her a new social circle.
"It's giving you a reason to get up in the morning," she said.
"I've got to get up because I've got French in the morning. You for coffee afterwards or you might have a wine."
Isolated but not necessarily lonely
Wendy Moyle, a specialist of gerontological nursing at Griffith University, said while groups like U3A worked for some people, social isolation could affect people in different ways.
"Some people don't mind being socially isolated, some people don't mind being lonely, so we need to understand whether people are happy feeling this way," she said.
"Just putting in a formula for everybody won't work.
"It is something we need to think about and act on."
Professor Moyle said many people found themselves feeling socially isolated after retirement but that might not mean they were lonely.
"Loneliness is really the subjective term, it's the way you feel. You can be lonely amongst 100 people," she said.
"Whereas social isolation is that objective feeling, where you are socially isolated from people."
Prepare to 'manage retirement'
Professor Moyle said the health risks of social isolation included higher rates of dementia, while loneliness had been associated with the increased risk of cardiovascular disease, metabolic and neurological disorders, depression and anxiety.
According to the Bureau of Statistics, there were 3.9 million retirees at an average age of 55.4 years in 2019.
"Not everybody looks forward to retirement with great enjoyment if they've got nobody at home, no family or friends around them," she said.
"Retirement can be a time when people feel great loneliness if they're not prepared for it.
"Workplaces also don't help people prepare for that time either.
"Also before people retire [we need to] encourage people to think about how they're going to manage their retirement years."
Professor Moyle said people could prepare for retirement by planning opportunities to connect with other very readily.
She said that could include online groups for people with mobility issues or gender-based groups like Men's Sheds.
"They can feel like they're in company, learn new skills.
"You're more likely to be amongst people, you're less likely to be depressed."
