When you picture your retirement, what do you see? Do you picture warm sandy beaches? Finally getting to work on all those creative projects you’ve been dreaming of? Picnics with grand kids? Diving into high impact volunteer work? Strolling through exotic bazaars in faraway places with close friends?

According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute’s (EBRI) 2018 Retirement Confidence Survey, 2 out of 3 Americans feel at least somewhat confident in their ability to live comfortably in retirement - and that confidence has crept upwards from the previous year. While it is positive that most workers are optimistic about their chances of having a comfortable retirement, the study also points out that retirees are most likely to say their health care costs are higher than what they expected when they first retired, which is cause for concern.

Good health is a superpower

At a glance planning for retirement may look like a financial wealth issue, but the EBRI study also uncovers a link between confidence and health:

“Six in ten workers who are confident in retirement overall are in excellent or good health; among those not confident about retirement, only 28% report such good health.”

So, while financial wealth is undeniably an important factor when it comes to retirement, having good health is the golden ticket: not only does good health per se yield a better quality of life, it also lowers financial burden, and increases confidence. We believe that, on aggregate across the broader population, the impact of better health and wellbeing is disproportionate to the amount of effort and cost required up front. The math on the benefits of staying healthy compared to the cost of staying healthy boils down to 1+1=3.

So why doesn’t everyone do it? Because life is such that day to day we face endless pressure from the external world and the predictable consequence is that we neglect to take care of ourselves. This effect, known as temporal discounting, is a cognitive bias that we all wrestle with. We know we should do something today for the sake of ourselves in the future, but that knowledge does not translate to action.

Can technology help?

If you are committed to the pathway of self-driven, individualised, preventative healthcare, then the goal of Intrepid Wellbeing is to help you achieve your goals more easily and effectively. Unlike solutions that are driven by medical practitioners, Intrepid Wellbeing starts with you, the individual, who places a high value on the health and wellbeing of yourself and your loved ones.

There are two things you can do right now.

Stay in touch

There are three ways to do this:

• Join the Intrepid Wellbeing mailing list so you won’t miss our updates.
• Follow Intrepid Pillbox on Facebook.
• You can also contact us directly if you have any queries or feedback, we’d love to hear from you!

Get Intrepid Pillbox

Intrepid Pillbox is designed to make it easier for you to plan and stick to your dietary supplements regimen. With features like barcode scanning and a travel planner, the aim is to empower you to achieve positive outcomes on your own, without necessarily requiring intervention from wellbeing practitioners.

The app is free and no log-in is required to use it (not even an email address). It’s only availble for iPhone at the moment (Android users we will get to you as soon as we can - sign up on our mailing list to find out when our Android app is ready). We’ve made the app as painless as possible to start using right away, so don’t delay, download the app, or find out more.

Why the focus on FamilyHealth?

One of the key areas of content we focus on is what we call Family Health. This is a core area of focus because it serves as a disruption in many people’s lives. Disruptuon can be good because it leads to change, and when people are receptive to change, there’s an opportunity to deliver positive interventions.

Let’s break it down: people are mostly creatures of habit, especially when it comes to habits like taking supplements. Becoming pregnant is a life experience that changes everything, makes people review their health habits, and motivates them to change for the better. So when they’re looking for prenatal supplements may be the ideal time to introduce other positive changes, like introducing them to a supplements reminder app. That’s why we have a content focus on FamilyHealth, but we will expand to include more themes in the near future.