Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1963-09-20
By HOWARD WHITMAN

first recipe for relaxation. 81
recommend, that the average
individual break the tension Of
his regular work at least once a
week, (" suggests DR.. William
RawIs, Of New York. And he
doesn't mean just taking a long
afternoons snOoze. He means
tying into something with vigor.
personally, | drive a bull
iozer," DR.. Rawls told me. II
have a nursery out In the coun-
try, and / find my relaxation in
hing earth around. The
beauty of it is that the bulldozer
doesn't talk back!'
Many people with fraye d
nerves complain that they are
tired all the time. A man Of %,
suffering from this complaint,
went to a psychiatric clinic for
help. He got this advice: when
you're tired, go to work."
Strangers Not at all, for the
ease work-up on this man
showed clearly that his fatigue
was not physical at all : but
emotional. He was tired OF
fighting his nerves.
The man had a wood lot back
Of his house which he had want
ed to clear for years. Now he
did it on doctors orders. Every
time he was attacked by over
whelming fatigue, he shouldered
his ak and went out and cut
down a few trees. ut was like
magic" he later r e m ark e d.
every time ! got working and
sweating my tiredness evapo-
rated"
Accept the Inevitable
Cooperate with the inevita-
BILE. That's the second recipe for
relaxation. There are some
things in your life you can do
something about, others which
you can't. Work on the former,
live with the latter. What else?
The ancient Chiese had a
saying: ''The legs of the stork
are long; the legs Of the duck
are short. You cannot make the
legs Of the stork short or the
legs Of the duck long"
The inevitable is going to
have its way no matter what. 1t
is so much more relaxing to CO.
operate than to stew about it.
Often we say, when faced
with a problem, "Let me sleep
on it." This is fine, so long as
we put the problem aside, get a
restfuI nights sleep, and then
return to solve the problem with
q clear mind in the morning.
Unfortunately, when we say,
"Let me sleep on it," what we
often do is lose sleep over it.
This makes us less able to
solve the problem than we were
the night before.
Write a letter. This Is sure
fire recipe for relaxation. But
not just any letter; the letter
you write must be one which
gives something of yourself to
somebody else. You see, we are
out to break what Psychiatrist
Maurice Greenhill calls, 'the
psychic straitjacket."
At a psychiatric hospital I
visited, a young man patient
was given a punching bag to hit
every afternoon between 8 and 4
O'Clock. He was also given a
piece Of chalk.
At his Doctors suggestion, he
used the chalk to mark the ini-
tials of people he didn't like on
the punching bag before he
pounded the daylights out Of it.
This is known as getting the
aggreSsions out" Much Of our
recreation is a mild form Of the
same, even though we may not
be so specific with the chalk.
We hit the golf balls, swat base
balls, kick footballs, and send
bowling balls into mighty COLI
sion with innocent wooden pins.
Active Recreation
"Fine," remarks DR.. Herbert
Pollock, Of New York Universe
ty Post Graduate Medical
School. Zone Of the prime pur-
poses Of recreation is to convert
our excess hostility into enjoy
able games" Prior to World
War II, the late Cordell Hull fire.
quently played croquet. But the
former Secretary of State got
extra satisfaction by naming
the croquet balls Hitler or Mus
solini. What fun it was to give
them a good wallop!
Recreation, then, is another
recipe for relaxation. Prefera-
bly,, 1t should be active recrea-
ton, so that the emotional pres
sures are vented, the tensions
drained off.
1.-THE sedentary life for a per-
son with tensions is destruc-
tive" comments DR.. Jerome
Tobias, Of New York Medical
College. Tremendous energies
are aroused by stress and anx-
iety. If there is no outlet for
them, they may turn destruc-
lively inward. 1t can be life
saving to transform these en-
ergies to physical activity,
Get away from 1t all. Or, as
DR.. Pollock put it, "Insulate
yourself from stimuli" The
modern world is at us from so
many directions SO much Of the
time that all Of us need this re-
cipe for relaxation now and
then. In effect, we have to take
the phone off the hook.
AnVFRTgrNfENT