Try to keep your leisure activities distinct and separate from the kind of work you do at the office. Activities that contrast sharply with your work are broadening, relaxing and conducive to building resistance to anxieties. Read books on subjects that are far afield from your profession. If your job is primarily mental, make certain that some of your leisure is spent in physical exercise. Don't overdo it; find a sport that is right for your physical abilities and age.
Spectator sports and entertainments have their place, but don't limit your leisure time to merely sitting and watching others. Try a hobby of some kind-especially a creative one. The joy and stimulation you receive will be worth the extra effort.
Larger corporations require periodic physical check-ups, and there has been enough emphasis on the need for medical examinations that one need only remind you here of its importance.
The problem of mental health is much more complicated, and it has been largely ignored until recently. If a businessman finds that his job and social responsibilities, especially his sex life, add up to too much frustration, he might be wise to seek the specialized professional help of a psychiatrist.
The signs of serious trouble appear when you begin to feel that you cannot cope and when the energy needed is gone.
You may find that your worries nag you constantly, that you have unexplainable hostility toward others and that you fall into deep depressions. Maybe all of these symptoms are ac companied by excessive drinking or eating.
Your work will begin to be affected by the strange sense of boredom you have, and worst of all an inability to make firm, sensible decisions. You may consider dramatic solutions to these problems: changing careers, changing wives, fleeing to an island retreat. Often they may only be additional symp toms, not solutions.
The trouble is that the men that find themselves in this situation are ambitious, hard-driving and independent. They don't want to seek help if they can avoid it.
If you study your symptoms and decide to consult a psychiatrist, don't think that you will inevitably have years of treatment. The initial check-up session may be enough to give you the necessary self-understanding. Most often, a series of hour-long treatments lasting from three months to six will be recommended. If you approach your problem with an open mind, the time needed for therapy can be shorter than most people realize. It is unlikely that complete psychoanalysis will be required.
Open-mindedness is most important, of course, especially concerning such subjects as sexual relations. One of the strongest fears of men in executive status is the problem of "slowing down" sexually. The decline in the sex drive and activity is not inevitable according to the experts. It is common, but it is more an indication of a general decline in physical health, brought on by too little exercise, too much sedentary living and over-eating-not by age. Mental and emotional strain also tends to slow the sex drive, and the only cure is to learn how to relax and to make more time for complete leisure. If the emotional problems are not acute, this changing of a way of life may bring a solution in a few weeks.
Experts on Leisure Time and Health
An executive who works twelve months in the year does not work more than six months. It is the man who works ten or eleven months and does something else for one or two months who works twelve months. - Daniel Guggenheim
People who cannot find time for recreation are obliged sooner or later to find time for illness. - John Wanamaker
The need to grow up emotionally is vital for each of us. To be emotional is a part of the life of all of us. Often it's the part of us that makes us do foolish things and occasion ally it makes us do fine things, but in any event emotional maturity is related directly to good mental health.
I have selected seven potential yardsticks for measuring your emotional maturity although there are more. . . .
- Deal Constructively with Reality. . . .
- Have the Capacity to Change. . . .
- Be Free of Tension and Anxiety Symptoms. . . .
- Find More Satisfaction from Giving Than Getting. . . .
- Relate to People. . . .
- Control Your Hostile Impulses. . . .
- Love. - Dr. William C. Menninger
So next time you feel close to tears, let 'em come. You'll be better off for it. After all, why be a tough guy with a mixed-up inside when it's just as easy to be a little less tough with a well-adjusted inside? - Ralph E. Prouty
Remember these six basic rules for maintenance of your energy machine:
(1) Eat intelligently; know your true food needs.
(2) Get as much enjoyable exercise as your health budget permits.
(3) Establish a constructive relationship with a doc tor you like and trust,
(4) Keep on educating and improving yourself.
(5) Maintain a youthful interest in new things.
(6) Set up golden goals that lend excitement to any -even the most menial-task. - Robert Collier Page
The man who will neither play nor do business unless everything is just to his liking and notions, retards rather than contributes to progress. - Henry L. Doherty
One of the two ways in which free time can be used is play-and by "play" I mean recreation, amusement, diversion, pastime, and roughly, all ways of killing time. The other use of free or spare time I should like to denominate roughly for the moment... in leisure activities... Such things as thinking or learning, reading or writing, conversation or correspondence, love and acts of friendship, political activity, domestic activity, artistic and aesthetic activity. - Mortimer J. Adler
Don't let yourself say or even think "I am busy," "I haven't time," "I am tired." That makes you feel busier or more rushed or more tired than you actually are. - William B. Given, Jr.
It is not uncommon for the presidents and vice-presidents of our corporations to make practically a whole way of life out of their work, while it is fairly common among those in lower management positions to be geared to a forty- or forty-five-hour week and to engage in completely different and separate activities outside the office. - Charles A. Nelson
Business is for people-not people for business. Yet far too often business becomes snakes and ladders. The result is the Rat Race. It pulverizes people, breaks their spirit and atrophies their abilities. It is also inefficient, unprofitable and-mercifully-unnecessary. - Eric Webster
