I see a young client, let’s call her Maria, who suffers from nearly every anxiety disorder listed in the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – the bible for mental health professionals). Maria has panic disorder, social phobia, agoraphobia, specific phobia, generalized anxiety disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic-stress disorder.
As part of her treatment plan, she and I are studying The Anxiety & Phobia Workbook. (New Harbinger Publications, Inc.) This popular workbook, which has over one million copies in print, is on its 5th edition. The author, Dr. Edmund J. Bourne, lays out detailed descriptions and provides step-by-step help for sufferers of every anxiety disorder.
It was just a few weeks before Christmas, when I was reviewing chapter 4 with Maria. The topic was relaxation. I read a section out loud in session, and as I was reading, I got more and more excited about the possibilities that this chapter had a vein of gold that I hadn’t realized was there. Here were relaxation tips that would help, not just in the next few weeks of the traditional holiday stress, but also, all year long. Here is an excerpt from p. 89 of the 3rd edition:
Downtime and Time Management
This chapter on relaxation would not be complete without discussion of the concepts of down time and time management. In fact, fully appreciating and implementing these ideas in your life is the most important thing you can do if you would like to achieve a more relaxed lifestyle. . .
Downtime is exactly what it sounds like—time outfrom work or other responsibilities to give yourself an opportunity to rest and replenish your energy. Without periods of down time, any stress you experience while dealing with work or other responsibilities tends to become cumulative. It keeps building without any remission. You may tend to keep pushing yourself until finally you drop from exhaustion or experience an aggravation of your anxiety or phobia. Sleep at night doesn’t really count as downtime. If you go to bed feeing stressed, you may sleep for eight hours and still wake up feeling tense, tired, and stressed. Downtime needs to be scheduled apart from sleep during the day. Its primary purpose is simply to allow a break in the stress cycle—to prevent stress you’re experiencing from becoming cumulative. I recommend to my clients that they give themselves the following periods of downtime:
1 hour per day
1 day per week
1 week of out of every 12-16 weeks
Dr. Bourne goes on to say that if you don’t have four weeks of paid vacation per year, then take time off without pay. And he tells us that during downtime, you must disengage from any task that you consider to be work – not even answering the phone unless it’s someone you would enjoy hearing from.
He closes this section by describing the three types of downtime: rest time, recreation time, and relationship time. In rest time, a counterpoint to our ‘production is everything’ contemporary society, he says, you put aside all activities. In recreation time, you only do non-work things that replenish your energy; like cooking, hiking, movies, reading, gardening, fishing, etc. In relationship time, you put aside your own needs, and make time to be with another person or several people.
In summarizing, he shares with the reader that proper downtime is the antidote for workaholism – or “an addictive disorder in which work is the only thing that gives you a sense of inner fulfillment and self-worth.” And it leads to chronic stress, burnout, and serious illness.
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A few days later, I shared this info with several friends and my husband on a conference call we were having for a volunteer project. One of my friends is a college professor, the other, a middle school guidance counselor, and my husband the CFO at the family business.
To a person, they all agreed – they did not come near meeting these recommendations.
OK, so new goal for 2014: More downtime. Less workaholism.
And I’m going to get started with this, just as soon as I get just a couple of projects out the door . . .
Sanity now!
