How to Stop Worrying and Start Living Part 11

In previous chapters, I have talked about what to do when you are unjustly criticised. But here is another idea: when your anger is rising because you feel you have been unjustly condemned, why not stop and say: "Just a minute. ... I am far from perfect. If Einstein admits he is wrong ninety-nine per cent of the time, maybe I am wrong at least eighty per cent of the time. Maybe I deserve this criticism. If I do, I ought to be thankful for it, and try to profit by it."

Charles Luckman, president of the Pepsodent Company, spends a millions dollars a year putting Bob Hope on the air. He doesn't look at the letters praising the programme, but he insists on seeing the critical letters. He knows he may learn something from them.

The Ford Company is so eager to find out what is wrong with its management and operations that it recently polled the employees and invited them to criticise the company.

I know a former soap salesman who used even to ask for criticism. When he first started out selling soap for Colgate, orders came slowly. He worried about losing his job. Since he knew there was nothing wrong with the soap or the price, he figured that the trouble must be himself. When he failed to make a sale, he would often walk around the block trying to figure out what was wrong. Had he been too vague? Did he lack enthusiasm? Sometimes he would go back to the merchant and say: "I haven't come back here to try to sell you any soap. I have come back to get your advice and your criticism. Won't you please tell me what I did that was wrong when I tried to sell you soap a few minutes ago? You are far more experienced and successful than I am. Please give me your criticism. Be frank. Don't pull your punches."

This att.i.tude won him a lot of friends and priceless advice.

What do you suppose happened to him? Today, he is president of the Colgate-Palmolive-Peet Soap Company-the world's largest makers of soap. His name is E. H. Little. Last year, only fourteen people in America had a larger income than he had: $240,141.

It takes a big man to do what H. P. Howell, Ben Franklin, and E. H. Little did. And now, while n.o.body is looking, why not peep into the mirror and ask yourself whether you belong in that kind of company 1 To keep from worrying about criticism, here is Rule 3: Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticise ourselves. Since we can't hope to be perfect, let's do what E.H. Little did: let's ask for unbiased, helpful, constructive criticism.

Part Six In A Nutsh.e.l.l - How To Keep From Worrying About Criticism

RULE 1: Unjust criticism is often a disguised compliment. It often means that you have aroused jealousy and envy. Remember that no one ever kicks a dead dog.

RULE 2: Do the very best you can; and then put up your old umbrella and keep the rain of criticism from running down the back of your neck.

RULE 3: Let's keep a record of the fool things we have done and criticise ourselves. Since we can't hope to be perfect, let's do what E. H. Little did: let's ask for unbiased, helpful, constructive criticism.

Part Seven - Six Ways To Prevent Fatigue And Worry And Keep Your Energy And Spirits High

Chapter 23: How To Add One Hour A Day To Tour Waking Life.

Why am I writing a chapter on preventing fatigue in a book on preventing worry? That is simple: because fatigue often produces worry, or, at least, it makes you susceptible to worry. Any medical student will tell you that fatigue lowers physical resistance to the common cold and hundreds of other diseases and any psychiatrist will tell you that fatigue also lowers your resistance to the emotions of fear and worry. So preventing fatigue tends to prevent worry.

Did I say "tends to prevent worry"? That is putting it mildly. Dr. Edmund Jacobson goes much further. Dr. Jacob-son has written two books on relaxation: Progressive Relaxation and You Must Relax', and as director of the University of Chicago Laboratory for Clinical Physiology, he has spent years conducting investigations in using relaxation as a method in medical practice. He declares that any nervous or emotional state "fails to exist in the presence of complete relaxation". That is another way of saying: You cannot continue to worry if you relax.

So, to prevent fatigue and worry, the first rule is: Rest often. Rest before you get tired.

Why is that so important? Because fatigue acc.u.mulates with astonis.h.i.+ng rapidity. The United States Army has discovered by repeated tests that even young men-men toughened by years of Army training-can march better, and hold up longer, if they throw down their packs and rest ten minutes out of every hour. So the Army forces them to do just that. Your heart is just as smart as the U.S. Army. Your heart pumps enough blood through your body every day to fill a railway tank car. It exerts enough energy every twenty-four hours to shovel twenty tons of coal on to a platform three feet high. It does this incredible amount of work for fifty, seventy, or maybe ninety years. How can it stand it? Dr. Walter B. Cannon, of the Harvard Medical School, explains it. He says: "Most people have the idea that the heart is working all the time. As a matter of fact, there is a definite rest period after each contraction. When beating at a moderate rate of seventy pulses per minute, the heart is actually working only nine hours out of the twenty-four. In the aggregate its rest periods total a full fifteen hours per day."

During World War II, Winston Churchill, in his late sixties and early seventies, was able to work sixteen hours a day, year after year, directing the war efforts of the British Empire. A phenomenal record. His secret? He worked in bed each morning until eleven o'clock, reading papers, dictating orders, making telephone calls, and holding important conferences. After lunch he went to bed once more and slept for an hour. In the evening he went to bed once more and slept for two hours before having dinner at eight. He didn't cure fatigue. He didn't have to cure it. He prevented it. Because he rested frequently, he was able to work on, fresh and fit, until long past midnight.

The original John D. Rockefeller made two extraordinary records. He acc.u.mulated the greatest fortune the world had ever seen up to that time and he also lived to be ninety-eight. How did he do it? The chief reason, of course, was because he had inherited a tendency to live long. Another reason was his habit of taking a half-hour nap in his office every noon. He would lie down on his office couch-and not even the President of the United States could get John D. on the phone while he was having his snooze!

In his excellent book. Why Be Tired, Daniel W. Josselyn observes: "Rest is not a matter of doing absolutely nothing. Rest is repair." There is so much repair power in a short period of rest that even a five-minute nap will help to forestall fatigue! Connie Mack, the grand old man of baseball, told me that if he doesn't take an afternoon nap before a game, he is all tuckered out at around the fifth inning. But if he does go to sleep, if for only five minutes, he can last throughout an entire double-header without feeling tired.

When I asked Eleanor Roosevelt how she was able to carry such an exhausting schedule during the twelve years she was in the White House, she said that before meeting a crowd or making a speech, she would often sit in a chair or davenport, close her eyes, and relax for twenty minutes.

I recently interviewed Gene Autry in his dressing-room at Madison Square Garden, where he was the star attraction at the world's champions.h.i.+p rodeo. I noticed an army cot in his dressing-room. "I lie down there every afternoon," Gene Autry said, "and get an hour's nap between performances. When I am making pictures in Hollywood," he continued, "I often relax in a big easy chair and get two or three ten-minute naps a day. They buck me up tremendously."

Edison attributed his enormous energy and endurance to his habit of sleeping whenever he wanted to.

I interviewed Henry Ford shortly before his eightieth birthday. I was surprised to see how fresh and fine he looked. I asked him the secret. He said: "I never stand up when I can sit down; and I never sit down when I can lie down."

Horace Mann, "the father of modern education", did the same thing as he grew older. When he was president of Antioch College, he used to stretch out on a couch while interviewing students.

I persuaded a motion-picture director in Hollywood to try a similar technique. He confessed that it worked miracles. I refer to Jack Chertock, who is now one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's top directors. When he came to see me a few years ago, he was then head of the short-feature department of M-G-M. Worn out and exhausted, he had tried everything: tonics, vitamins, medicine. Nothing helped much. I suggested that he take a vacation every day. How? By stretching out in his office and relaxing while holding conferences with his staff writers.

When I saw him again, two years later, he said: "A miracle has happened. That is what my own physicians call it. I used to sit up in my chair, tense and taut, while discussing ideas for our short features. Now I stretch out on the office couch during these conferences. I feel better than I have felt in twenty years. Work two hours a day longer, yet I rarely get tired."

How does all this apply to you? If you are a stenographer, you can't take naps in the office as Edison did, and as Sam Goldwyn does; and if you are an accountant, you can't stretch out on the couch while discussing a financial statement with the boss. But if you live in a small city and go home for lunch, you may be able to take a ten-minute nap after lunch. That is what General George C. Marshall used to do. He felt he was so busy directing the U.S. Army in wartime that he had to rest at noon. If you are over fifty and feel you are too rushed to do it, then buy immediately all the life insurance you can get. Funerals come high-and suddenly-these days; and the little woman may want to take your insurance money and marry a younger man!

If you can't take a nap at noon, you can at least try to lie down for an hour before the evening meal. It is cheaper than a highball; and, over a long stretch, it is 5,467 times more effective. If you can sleep for an hour around five, six, or seven o'clock, you can add one hour a day to your waking life. Why? How? Because an hour's nap before the evening meal plus six hours' sleep at night-a total of seven hours-will do you more good than eight hours of unbroken sleep.

A physical worker can do more work if he takes more time out for rest. Frederick Taylor demonstrated that while working as a scientific management engineer with the Bethlehem Steel Company. He observed that labouring men were loading approximately 12 1/2 tons of pig-iron per man each day on freight cars and that they were exhausted at noon. He made a scientific study of all the fatigue factors involved, and declared that these men should be loading not 12 1/2 tons of pig-iron per day, but forty-seven tons per day! He figured that they ought to do almost four times as much as they were doing, and not be exhausted. But prove it!

Taylor selected a Mr. Schmidt who was required to work by the stop-watch. Schmidt was told by the man who stood over him with a watch: "Now pick up a 'pig' and walk. ... Now sit down and rest. ... Now walk. ... Now rest."

What happened? Schmidt carried forty-seven tons of pig-iron each day while the other men carried only 12 1/2 tons per man. And he practically never failed to work at this pace during the three years that Frederick Taylor was at Bethlehem. Schmidt was able to do this because he rested before he got tired. He worked approximately 26 minutes out of the hour and rested 34 minutes. He rested more than he worked-yet he did almost four times as much work as the others! Is this mere hearsay? No, you can read the record yourself in Principles of Scientific Management by Frederick Winslow Taylor.

Let me repeat: do what the Army does-take frequent rests. Do what your heart does-rest before you get tired, and you will add one hour a day to your waking life.

Chapter 24: What Makes You Tired-and What You Can Do About It

Here is an astounding and significant fact: Mental work alone can't make you tired. Sounds absurd. But a few years ago, scientists tried to find out how long the human brain could labour without reaching "a diminished capacity for work", the scientific definition of fatigue. To the amazement of these scientists, they discovered that blood pa.s.sing through the brain, when it is active, shows no fatigue at all! If you took blood from the veins of a day labourer while he was working, you would find it full of "fatigue toxins" and fatigue products. But if you took a drop of blood from the brain of an Albert Einstein, it would show no fatigue toxins whatever at the end of the day.

So far as the brain is concerned, it can work "as well and as swiftly at the end of eight or even twelve hours of effort as at the beginning". The brain is utterly tireless. ... So what makes you tired?

Psychiatrists declare that most of our fatigue derives from our mental and emotional att.i.tudes. One of England's most distinguished psychiatrists, J.A. Hadfield, says in his book The Psychology of Power: "the greater part of the fatigue from which we suffer is of mental origin; in fact exhaustion of purely physical origin is rare."

One of America's most distinguished psychiatrists, Dr. A.A. Brill, goes even further. He declares: "One hundred per cent of the fatigue of the sedentary worker in good health is due to psychological factors, by which we mean emotional factors."

What kinds of emotional factors tire the sedentary (or sitting) worker? Joy? Contentment? No! Never! Boredom, resentment, a feeling of not being appreciated, a feeling of futility, hurry, anxiety, worry-those are the emotional factors that exhaust the sitting worker, make him susceptible to colds, reduce his output, and send him home with a nervous headache. Yes, we get tired because our emotions produce nervous tensions in the body.

The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company pointed that out in a leaflet on fatigue: "Hard work by itself," says this great life-insurance company, "seldom causes fatigue which cannot be cured by a good sleep or rest. ... Worry, tenseness, and emotional upsets are three of the biggest causes of fatigue. Often they are to blame when physical or mental work seems to be the cause. ... Remember that a tense muscle is a working muscle. Ease up! Save energy for important duties."

Stop now, right where you are, and give yourself a check-up. As you read these lines, are you scowling at the book? Do you feel a strain between the eyes? Are you sitting relaxed in your chair? Or are you hunching up your shoulders? Are the muscles of your face tense? Unless your entire body is as limp and relaxed as an old rag doll, you are at this very moment producing nervous tensions and muscular tensions. You are producing nervous tensions and nervous fatigue!

Why do we produce these unnecessary tensions in doing mental work? Josselyn says: "I find that the chief obstacle ... is the almost universal belief that hard work requires a feeling of effort, else it is not well done." So we scowl when we concentrate. We hunch up our shoulders. We call on our muscles to make the motion of effort, which in no way a.s.sists our brain in its work.

Here is an astonis.h.i.+ng and tragic truth: millions of people who wouldn't dream of wasting dollars go right on wasting and squandering their energy with the recklessness of seven drunken sailors in Singapore.

What is the answer to this nervous fatigue? Relax! Relax! Relax! Learn to relax while you are doing your work!

Easy? No. You will probably have to reverse the habits of a lifetime. But it is worth the effort, for it may revolutionise your life! William James said, in his essay "The Gospel of Relaxation": "The American over-tension and jerkiness and breathlessness and intensity and agony of expression ... are bad habits, nothing more or less." Tension is a habit. Relaxing is a habit. And bad habits can be broken, good habits formed.

How do you relax? Do you start with your mind, or do you start with your nerves? You don't start with either. You always begin to relax with your muscles!

Let's give it a try. To show how it is done, suppose we start with your eyes. Read this paragraph through, and when you've reached the end, lean back, close your eyes, and say to your eyes silently: "Let go. Let go. Stop straining, stop frowning. Let go. Let go." Repeat that over and over very slowly for a minute ....

Didn't you notice that after a few seconds the muscles of the eyes began to obey? Didn't you feel as though some hand had wiped away the tension? Well, incredible as it seems, you have sampled in that one minute the whole key and secret to the art of relaxing. You can do the same thing with the jaw, with the muscles of the face, with the neck, with the shoulders, the whole of the body. But the most important organ of all is the eye. Dr. Edmund Jacobson of the University of Chicago has gone so far as to say that if you can completely relax the muscles of the eyes, you can forget all your troubles! The reason the eyes are so important in relieving nervous tension is that they burn up one-fourth of all the nervous energies consumed by the body. That is also why so many people with perfectly sound vision suffer from "eyestrain". They are tensing the eyes.

Vicki Baum, the famous novelist, says that when she was a child, she met an old man who taught her one of the most important lessons she ever learned. She had fallen down and cut her knees and hurt her wrist. The old man picked her up; he had once been a circus clown; and, as he brushed her off, he said: "The reason you injured yourself was because you don't know how to relax. You have to pretend you are as limp as a sock, as an old crumpled sock. Come, I'll show you how to do it."

That old man taught Vicki Baum and the other children how to fall, how to do flip-flops, and how to turn somersaults. And always he insisted: "Think of yourself as an old crumpled sock. Then you've got to relax!"

You can relax in odd moments, almost anywhere you are. Only don't make an effort to relax. Relaxation is the absence of all tension and effort. Think ease and relaxation. Begin by thinking relaxation of the muscles of your eyes and your face, saying over and over: "Let go ... let go ... let go and relax." Feel the energy flowing out of your facial muscles to the centre of your body. Think of yourself as free from tension as a baby.

That is what Galli-Curci, the great soprano, used to do. Helen Jepson told me that she used to see Galli-Curci before a performance, sitting in a chair with all her muscles relaxed and her lower jaw so limp it actually sagged. An excellent practice-it kept her from becoming too nervous before her stage entrance; it prevented fatigue.

Here are five suggestions that will help you learn to relax: 1. Read one of the best books ever written on this subject: Release from Nervous Tension, by Dr. David Harold Fink.

2. Relax in odd moments. Let your body go limp like an old sock. I keep an old, maroon-coloured sock on my desk as I work-keep it there as a reminder of how limp I ought to be. If you haven't got a sock, a cat will do. Did you ever pick up a kitten sleeping in the suns.h.i.+ne? If so, both ends sagged like a wet newspaper. Even the yogis in India say that if you want to master the art of relaxation, study the cat. I never saw a tired cat, a cat with a nervous breakdown, or a cat suffering from insomnia, worry, or stomach ulcers. You will probably avoid these disasters if you learn to relax as the cat does.

3. Work, as much as possible, in a comfortable position. Remember that tensions in the body produce aching shoulders and nervous fatigue.

4. Check yourself four or five times a day, and say to yourself: "Am I making my work harder than it actually is? Am I using muscles that have nothing to do with the work I am doing?" This will help you form the habit of relaxing, and as Dr. David Harold Fink says: "Among those who know psychology best, it is habits two to one."

5. Test yourself again at the end of the day, by asking yourself: "Just how tired am I? If I am tired, it is not because of the mental work I have done but because of the way I have done it." "I measure my accomplishments," says Daniel W. Josselyn, "not by how tired I am at the end of the day, but how tired I am not." He says: "When I feel particularly tired at the end of the day, or when irritability proves that my nerves are tired, I know beyond question that it has been an inefficient day both as to quant.i.ty and quality." If every business man would learn that same lesson, the death rate from "hypertension" diseases would drop overnight. And we would stop filling up our sanatoriums and asylums with men who have been broken by fatigue and worry.

Chapter 25: How The Housewife Can Avoid Fatigue-and Keep Looking Young

One day last autumn, my a.s.sociate flew up to Boston to attend a session of one of the most unusual medical cla.s.ses in the world. Medical? Well, yes, it meets once a week at the Boston Dispensary, and the patients who attend it get regular and thorough medical examinations before they are admitted. But actually this cla.s.s is a psychological clinic. Although it is officially called the Cla.s.s in Applied Psychology (formerly the Thought Control Cla.s.s-a name suggested by the first member), its real purpose is to deal with people who are ill from worry. And many of these patients are emotionally disturbed housewives.

How did such a cla.s.s for worriers get started? Well, in 1930, Dr. Joseph H. Pratt-who, by the way, had been a pupil of Sir William Osier-observed that many of the outpatients who came to the Boston Dispensary apparently had nothing wrong with them at all physically; yet they had practically all the symptoms that flesh is heir to. One woman's hands were so crippled with "arthritis" that she had lost all use of them. Another was in agony with all the excruciating symptoms of "cancer of the stomach". Others had backaches, headaches, were chronically tired, or had vague aches and pains. They actually felt these pains. But the most exhaustive medical examinations showed that nothing whatever was wrong with these women-in the physical sense. Many old-fas.h.i.+oned doctors would have said it was all imagination-"all in the mind".

But Dr. Pratt realised that it was no use to tell these patients to "go home and forget it". He knew that most of these women didn't want to be sick; if it was so easy to forget their ailments, they would do so themselves. So what could be done?

He opened his cla.s.s-to a chorus of doubts from the medical doubters on the sidelines. And the cla.s.s worked wonders! In the eighteen years that have pa.s.sed since it started, thousands of patients have been "cured" by attending it. Some of the patients have been coming for years-as religious in their attendance as though going to church. My a.s.sistant talked to a woman who had hardly missed a session in more than nine years. She said that when she first went to the clinic, she was thoroughly convinced she had a floating kidney and some kind of heart ailment. She was so worried and tense that she occasionally lost her eyesight and had spells of blindness. Yet today she is confident and cheerful and in excellent health. She looked only about forty, yet she held one of her grandchildren asleep in her lap. "I used to worry so much about my family troubles," she said, "that I wished I could die. But I learned at this clinic the futility of worrying. I learned to stop it. And I can honestly say now that my life is serene."

Dr. Rose Hilferding, the medical adviser of the cla.s.s, said that she thought one of the best remedies for lightening worry is "talking your troubles over with someone you trust. We call it catharsis," she said. "When patients come here, they can talk their troubles over at length, until they get them off their minds. Brooding over worries alone, and keeping them to oneself, causes great nervous tension. We all have to share our troubles. We have to share worry. We have to feel there is someone in the world who is willing to listen and able to understand."

My a.s.sistant witnessed the great relief that came to one woman from talking out her worries. She had domestic worries, and when she first began to talk, she was like a wound-up spring. Then gradually, as she kept on talking, she began to calm down. At the end of the interview, she was actually smiling. Had the problem been solved? No, it wasn't that easy. What caused the change was talking to someone, getting a little advice and a little human sympathy. What had really worked the change was the tremendous healing value that lies in-words!

Psycho-a.n.a.lysis is based, to some extent, on this healing power of words. Ever since the days of Freud, a.n.a.lysts have known that a patient could find relief from his inner anxieties if he could talk, just talk. Why is this so? Maybe because by talking, we gain a little better insight into our troubles, get a better perspective. No one knows the whole answer. But all of us know that "spitting it out" or "getting it off our chests" bring almost instant relief.

So the next time we have an emotional problem, why don't we look around for someone to talk to? I don't mean, of course, to go around making pests of ourselves by whining and complaining to everyone in sight. Let's decide on someone we can trust, and make an appointment. Maybe a relative, a doctor, a lawyer, a minister, or priest. Then say to that person: "I want your advice. I have a problem, and I wish you would listen while I put it in words. You may be able to advise me. You may see angles to this thing that I can't see myself. But even if you can't, you will help me tremendously if you will just sit and listen while I talk it out."

However, if you honestly feel that there is no one you can talk to, then let me tell you about the Save-a-Life League- it has no connection with the Boston Dispensary. The Save-a-Life League is one of the most unusual leagues in the world. It was originally formed to save possible suicides. But as the years went on, it expanded its scope to give spiritual counsel to those who are unhappy and in emotional need. I talked for some time to Miss Lona B. Bonnell, who interviews people who come for advice to the Save-a-Life League. She told me that she would be glad to answer letters from readers of this book. If you write to the Save-a-Life League, 505 Fifth Avenue, New York City, your letter and your troubles will be held in strictest confidence. Frankly, I would advise you to go to someone you can talk to in person if you can, for that will give you greater relief. But if that is out of the question, then why not write to this league?

Talking things out, then, is one of the principle therapies used at the Boston Dispensary Cla.s.s. But here are some other ideas we picked up at the cla.s.s-things you, as a housewife, can do in your home.

1. Keep a notebook or sc.r.a.pbook 'for "inspirational" reading. Into this book you can paste all the poems, or short prayers, or quotations, which appeal to you personally and give you a lift. Then, when a rainy afternoon sends your spirits plunging down, perhaps you can find a recipe in this book for dispelling the gloom. Many patients at the Dispensary have kept such notebooks for years. They say it is a spiritual "shot in the arm".

2. Don't dwell too long on the shortcomings of others! Sure, your husband has faults! If he had been a saint, he never would have married you. Right? One woman at the cla.s.s who found herself developing into a scolding, nagging, and haggard-faced wife, was brought up short with the question: "What would you do if your husband died?" She was so shocked by the idea that she immediately sat down and drew up a list of all her husband's good points. She made quite a list. Why don't you try the same thing the next time you feel you married a tight-fisted tyrant? Maybe you'll find, after reading his virtues, that he's a man you'd like to meet!

3. Get interested in your neighbours! Develop a friendly, healthy interest in the people who share the life on your street. One ailing woman who felt herself so "exclusive" that she hadn't any friends, was told to try to make up a story about the next person she met. She began, in the street-car, to weave backgrounds and settings for the people she saw. She tried to imagine what their lives had been like. First thing you know, she was talking to people everywhere-and today she is happy, alert, and a charming human being cured of her "pains".

4. Make up a schedule for tomorrow's work before you go to bed tonight. The cla.s.s found that many wives feel driven and hara.s.sed by the unending round of housework and things they must do. They never got their work finished. They were chased by the clock. To cure this sense of hurry, and worry, the suggestion was made that they draw up a schedule each night for the following day. What happened? More work accomplished; much less fatigue; a feeling of pride and achievement; and time left over to rest and to "primp". (Every woman ought to take some time out in the course of the day to primp and look pretty. My own guess is that when a woman knows she looks pretty, she has little use for "nerves".) 5. Finally-avoid tension and fatigue. Relax! Relax! Nothing will make you look old sooner than tension and fatigue. Nothing will work such havoc with your freshness and looks! My a.s.sistant sat for an hour in the Boston Thought Control Cla.s.s, while Professor Paul E. Johnson, the director, went over many of the principles we have already discussed in the previous chapter-the rules for relaxing. At the end of ten minutes of these relaxing exercises, which my a.s.sistant did with the others, she was almost asleep sitting upright in her chair! Why is such stress laid on this physical relaxing? Because the clinic knows-as other doctors know-that if you're going to get the worry-kinks out of people, they've got to relax!

Yes, you, as a housewife, have got to relax! You have one great advantage-you can lie down whenever you want to, and you can lie on the floor! Strangely enough, a good hard floor is better to relax on than an inner-spring bed. It gives more resistance. It is good for the spine.

All right, then, here are some exercises you can do in your home. Try them for a week-and see what you do for your looks and disposition!

a. Lie flat on the floor whenever you feel tired. Stretch as tall as you can. Roll around if you want to. Do it twice a day.

6. Close your eyes. You might try saying, as Professor Johnson recommended, something like this: ' 'The sun is s.h.i.+ning overhead. The sky is blue and sparkling. Nature is calm and in control of the world-and I, as nature's child, am in tune with the Universe." Or-better still-pray!

c. If you cannot lie down, because the roast is in the oven and you can't spare the time, then you can achieve almost the same effect sitting down in a chair. A hard, upright chair is the best for relaxing. Sit upright in the chair like a seated Egyptian statue, and let your hands rest, palms down, on the tops of your thighs.

d. Now, slowly tense the toes-then let them relax. Tense the muscles in your legs-and let them relax. Do this slowly upward, with all the muscles of your body, until you get to the neck. Then let your head roll around heavily, as though it were a football. Keep saying to your muscles (as in the previous chapter): "Let go ... let go ..."

e. Quiet your nerves with slow, steady breathing. Breathe from deep down. The yogis of India were right: rhythmical breathing is one of the best methods ever discovered for soothing the nerves.

f. Think of the wrinkles and frowns in your face, and smooth them all out. Loosen up the worry-creases you feel between your brows, and at the sides of your mouth. Do this twice a day, and maybe you won't have to go to a beauty parlour to get a ma.s.sage. Maybe the lines will disappear from the inside out!

Chapter 26: Four Good Working Habits That Will Help Prevent Fatigue And Worry

Good Working Habit No. 1: Clear Your Desk of All Papers Except Those Relating to the Immediate Problem at Hand.

Roland L. Williams, President of Chicago and North-western Railway, says: "A person with his desk piled high with papers on various matters will find his work much easier and more accurate if he clears that desk of all but the immediate problem on hand. I call this good housekeeping, and it is the number-one step towards efficiency."

If you visit the Library of Congress in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C., you will find five words painted on the ceiling-five words written by the poet Pope: "Order is Heaven's first law."

Order ought to be the first law of business, too. But is it? No, the average business man's desk is cluttered up with papers that he hasn't looked at for weeks. In fact, the publisher of a New Orleans newspaper once told me that his secretary cleared up one of his desks and found a typewriter that had been missing for two years!

The mere sight of a desk littered with unanswered mail and reports and memos is enough to breed confusion, tension, and worries. It is much worse than that. The constant reminder of "a million things to do and no time to do them" can worry you not only into tension and fatigue, but it can also worry you into high blood pressure, heart trouble, and stomach ulcers.

Dr. John H. Stokes, professor, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, read a paper before the National Convention of the American Medical a.s.sociation-a paper ent.i.tled "Functional Neuroses as Complications of Organic Disease". In that paper, Dr. Stokes listed eleven conditions under the t.i.tle: "What to Look for in the Patient's State of Mind". Here is the first item on that list: "The sense of must or obligation; the unending stretch of things ahead that simply have to be done."

But how can such an elementary procedure as clearing your desk and making decisions help you avoid this high pressure, this sense of must, this sense of an "unending stretch of things ahead that simply have to be done"? Dr. William L. Sadler, the famous psychiatrist, tells of a patient who, by using this simple device, avoided a nervous breakdown. The man was an executive in a big Chicago firm. When he came to Dr. Sadler's office, he was tense, nervous, worried. He knew he was heading for a tailspin, but he couldn't quit work. He had to have help.

"While this man was telling me his story," Dr. Sadler says, "my telephone rang. It was the hospital calling; and, instead of deferring the matter, I took time right then to come to a decision. I always settle questions, if possible, right on the spot. I had no sooner hung up than the phone rang again. Again an urgent matter, which I took time to discuss. The third interruption came when a colleague of mine came to my office for advice on a patient who was critically ill. When I had finished with him, I turned to my caller and began to apologise for keeping him waiting. But he had brightened up. He had a completely different look on his face."