10/16/2012 7:00 PM ET

By Ashlea Ebeling, Forbes.com

Successful retirees know how to adjust to life after work, a new book maintains. The process starts with the right attitude and good planning.

In retirement, you must be reborn or face withering away. That's the premise of the new book "The Retirement Maze," which explores tactics to help retirees on the path to a new and improved retirement. It looks at who would benefit from taking a "bridge" job and why it's important to build non-work-related friendships before retirement. It also recommends that retirees have more sex. Seriously.

"When you retire, you're going through a major life change; you have to reorient yourself to figure out who you are," says co-author Dr. Louis Primavera, 68, a psychologist and former marriage counselor and now dean of the School of Health Sciences at Touro College. Co-author Rob Pascale, who retired at age 51 after 31 years in corporate market research, floundered at various ventures, including importing produce, before returning to social science and working on the book.

It's not a typical "rah-rah book that tells you how great retirement is" (Primavera's words) or a personal finance book, but instead a book about how folks adjust to retirement overall, for better or worse.

The authors reviewed existing retirement literature, surveyed 1,500 retirees and 400 pre-retirees online, did in-depth in-person interviews and reflected on their own experiences. Their conclusion? You have a better chance of success if you're mentally ready to leave the workforce and have a well-thought-out retirement plan.

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Avoid a depressing retirement