Retirement can help you sleep easier, particularly if you retire early with generous pension payments.

Researchers at the Univeristy of Turku in Finland studied 14,714 people who had retired from the French national gas and electric company; 79% were men and only 4% retired due to health reasons.

Their average retirement age was 55.

The research, published in the journal Sleep, followed the workers for seven years before they retired and seven years afterwards to examine what effect retirement had on sleep patterns.

It found that 23% of people reported sleep disturbances seven years before they retired, rising slowly to 25% one year before retirement.

But a year after retirement this number dropped back sharply to 18%, before rising again to 21% after seven years in retirement.

Men, managers, people who worked the night shift and people in the most demanding jobs all saw significant improvements in sleep after retiring.

Overall, retirement made people 26% less likely to report sleep problems but for those who had suffered from mental fatigue or depression during their working years the improvement was 45%.

But Dr Jussi Vahtera, who headed the study, said that the results wouldn’t apply to everyone as the workers studied had generous pensions and retired early.

“In countries and positions where there is no proper pension level to guarantee financial security beyond working age, however, retirement may be followed by severe stress disturbing sleep even more than before retirement.”