So stop trying so hard, says Jeanne Murrone, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Center for Mental Health, a clinic affiliated with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority in Charlotte, North Carolina. Go for a walk, do a crossword puzzle or some other leisure activity. The miraculous thing about leisure is it not only can keep you youthful, it may also give you a creative edge over your more intense co-workers. It's like making bread. You can put all the ingredients together, but unless you put it aside for awhile and allow the dough to rise and rest, it's not going to be very good bread.
Leisure serves much the same purpose.
If you leave some space in your life for leisure, you may find yourself being more productive and creative. Most of us actually have more free time than we think. How we spend it is the problem, experts say. On average, women have about 41 hours of free time a week when they're not working, doing household chores or sleeping, says William Danner of Leisure Trends, a Glastonbury, Connecticut, company that analyzes how Americans use their time. If you want to spend your prime doing better things, experts recommend the following approach.