Retirement is a major life event characterized by removal of work-related stressors and changes in health behaviours. The association between retirement and changes in blood pressure (BP), and particularly in ambulatory BP, has been scarcely studied. We aimed to examine changes in ambulatory BP during retirement transition.

Two hundred and fifty ageing workers (mean age 63.2 years, 84% women) from the Finnish Retirement and Aging study participated in annual office BP measurements and 114 (mean age 63.1, 90% women) of them underwent annual ambulatory BP measurements before and after retirement. On average, the participants provided data on ambulatory BP at 2.7 (range 2–4) measurements. We used generalized linear models to examine BP changes at retirement.

Most marked changes in BP during the follow-up were observed for asleep SBP, which decreased before retirement, increased during retirement transition and plateaued after retirement (before retirement vs. retirement transition P = 0.07 and after retirement vs. retirement transition P = 0.02). Awake SBP and 24-h SBP declined with most apparent decrease before retirement (before retirement vs. retirement transition P = 0.07 and P = 0.07). Awake DBP and 24-h DBP showed relatively consistent decline throughout the follow-up with no differences between the time periods. SBP and DBP dipping reduced before and during retirement transition, but not after retirement. Among shift workers, asleep BP increased and BP dipping decreased more than in regular day workers.

Retirement was found to associate with beneficial changes in awake BP but unfavourable changes in asleep BP, especially in shift workers.