MAKING CHANGE

There are two types of pain:  1) imposed suffering – acts of flood, fire, famine – that comes from outside our psyche; and 2) elected suffering – a sense of rejection, shame, guilt, loneliness – that we inflict upon ourselves.  Imposed suffering protects from the elected kind. The despair of the concentration camp crowds out the loneliness of a dateless prom night.

            The patient with cancer illustrates both kinds of suffering. First there is the imposed suffering cancer induces, the pain and sickness the illness renders. The second type of suffering – the elected kind—comes from our own feelings about the cancer.

            Patient and surgeon read from a different book. The surgeon removes the tumor, but fails to relieve the sense of vulnerability the patient feels from the inflicted cancer.

WHY PEOPLE CHANGE

            The Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans experienced calamitous flooding from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The storm surge came from the east via flooded Saint Bernard Parish and from the west through two large breaches in the Industrial Canal flood protection system, creating violent currents that smashed homes and tore them from their foundations. The storm became the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history. At least 1,836 people lost their lives in Hurricane Katrina and many more thousands were rendered homeless.

            A College Station resident commiserated with one of the Hurricane evacuees temporarily housed in a local church:

            “That must have been the most terrible thing that ever happened to you. You lost your home. You lost your clothes and all of possessions. You have no money. You can’t get in touch with your relatives. Your friends have been displaced. What a tragedy. How will you ever recover?”

            The evacuee replied:

            “Surely that storm was a terrible thing. I was scared and pretty well knew I was going to die. Then a boat came and they took us to the Superdome, and it was like the devil himself had come down and was torturing us. We were all crowded together and squashed-up. People were yelling and crying. It was hot and dirty. And we all got thirsty and hungry. It smelled bad and it seemed there was no hope for any of us. But somehow, we got rescued and took care of. And now here I am in this nice church. We have food. And water. And air conditioning. And good people are helping us and looking after us.

            Yes, that Hurricane was a horrible thing and I never want to go through nothing like that again. But, you know, that Hurricane—no matter all the bad things that happened—was the best thing that ever happened to me and I am thankful for it.

            I’m not discounting the bad things that happened to so many people and all the dead people and people who never will find their families, but for me that hurricane was good. If it hadn’t been for Katrina, I would have been trapped in the lower ninth ward for life. Before the hurricane, I had nowhere to go. I had no idea how to go. I had no money to go. I was just there and that was my life. But the big wind came and blew me to a better way of looking at things. And now I have a new life, a new start on life. I’ve got possibilities. Yes, thank God for Hurricane Katrina. I’ve got hope.”

THE TRAGIC FAILURE TO CHANGE

            Some people have difficulty changing because they are caught in financial or geographical traps. Let us consider those people, however, who have every opportunity to change, but, nonetheless, continue to engage in self-defeating behavior despite ongoing negative consequences:

Ø    Smoking, obesity, and alcohol abuse can lead to chronic illnesses and premature death. Despite ominous health warnings that are more certain than storm alerts from the National Hurricane Center, surveys by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that very few people are willing to stop their self-destructive unhealthy habits.

Ø    20% of American adults smoke

Ø    More than 30% of Americans are overweight

Ø    15% of Americans are binge drinkers

Ø    People are often noncompliant to medical treatments

Ø    50-65% of Americans fail to follow their doctors’ treatment recommendations

Ø    10% of hospital admissions among older adults result from failure to follow doctors’ directions

Ø    Almost one-third of patients visiting a physician fail to get their prescriptions filled

Ø    A Case Western Reserve University survey showed that 54% of glaucoma patients failed to use their eye drops as directed even though these patients knew they would go blind unless they complied with their doctors’ instructions.

Ø    70% of patients receiving treatment at a community mental health center dropped out of treatment before the third visit.

Ø    Most serious attempts to maintain behavior change are unsuccessful. A University of Scranton study found that only 19% of those who had made a significant change in a problem behavior maintained the change when surveyed two years later.

Ø    People continue to engage in patterns of behavior—anger, violence, nagging, dependency, and jealousy—that are destructive to their relationships and their well being.

REASONS FOR LACK OF CHANGE

            EMOTIONAL AMBIVALENCE. A woman complained vociferously about her husband who controlled her. He wouldn’t let her out of the house alone. He wouldn’t let her drive a car. He wouldn’t let her visit friends. When asked why she didn’t leave her husband, the woman replied, “I love him so much.” When the woman was seen two years later. She had the same complaints about her husband. She remained married.

            CIRCULAR EXCUSES. Common explanations for lack of change become circular arguments. People may blame their resistance to change on stubbornness, an addictive personality, or self-destructiveness. An explanation for refusing to improve a situation may go this way, “Because my situation is hopeless, I can’t change.” The behavior is then used to support the explanation, “I can’t change because my situation is hopeless.”

            REBELLION. Telling someone to change often exacerbates the situation. A highly directive approach causes a person to adamantly resist change. One study showed that the more alcoholics were directed to change the more they drank.

            INERTIA. Systems resist change. Physicists call this resistance to change “inertia.” The first law of motion indicates that people, like objects, tend to keep on moving if they are moving and remain standing still if they are still.

            BLAMING. It is easier to make excuses for our problems than it is to assume responsibility for our own behavior. The statement “If she didn’t nag me so much, I wouldn’t drink,” is an example of blaming others.

            LEARNED HELPLESSNESS. Put an animal in a cage. Apply a mild electrical shock all over the floor of the cage. When the animal discovers that escape is impossible, the animal lies down and passively in the corner of the cage and accepts the shock. Then the electrical shock is applied only to the corner where the animal is lying. The other areas of the cage are shock free. The animal continues to stay in the corner. Humans that are constantly exposed to conditions from which there appear to be no escape will eventually give-up and surrender to the situation.

TWO REASONS PEOPLE CHANGE

1.     Pleasure—realizing that new behavior patterns will produce more pleasure than maladaptive behavior patterns brings change. Believing that we can have a better life engenders different approaches. The power to visualize a successful outcome gives the courage to try new ways of doing things.

2.     Pain—understanding that maladaptive behavior causes intolerable distress stimulates an alternative lifestyle. Drastic environmental consequences may be required before inertia can be overcome. Imprisonment, financial ruin, homelessness, or the treat of death may be necessary before transformation occurs. Allowing a person to suffer may be the best way to generate change.

BENEFITS OF CHANGE

            We, as individuals, feel helpless in a sea of social turmoil where a single life raft offers little expectation for smooth sailing. A harmonious bulwark of social, cultural and spiritual safeguards provide the safest harbor from violent storms. A safe culture would provide:

1.     Children raised by two parents.

2.     A society that discourages a sense of entitlement.

3.     Recognition of individual uniqueness unassociated with power, beauty, and wealth.

4.     A spiritual foundation that offers love, joy, peace, kindness, and generosity.

5.     A culture that encourages and offers a work opportunity for each adult to provide sustenance for themselves and their families.

6.     A society that expects everyone to assume responsibility for his or her own behavior.

7.     More negotiation, less litigation.

8.     A society that recognizes that some people are more talented than others and at the same time a society that appreciates the less talented as much as the gifted.

9.     Respect, concern and the best of care for the mentally

10.  Entertainment that lifts the spirit and lightens the heart, rather than entertainment that celebrates violence and social deviance.

11.  Communities and small groups that regularly meet together to encourage one another and to stimulate loving friendship and good works.

12.   Cultivation of empathy and respect for others.      

 

Psychopharmacology Update August 2004

August, 2004           PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY UPDATE    Volume 4 Number 4

Diagnosis and Treatment of Bipolar Disorder

In 1976 Dunner and colleagues proposed two categories of bipolar disorder (manic-depressive illness). These categories were named bipolar I and bipolar II.

Diagnosis of Bipolar I Disorder:

Bipolar I disorder is characterized by depressive episodes alternating with manic episodes.  A manic episode is associated with grandiose psychotic features and danger to the self and, perhaps, to others. The severity of the symptoms usually demands that the patient be hospitalized for treatment.

Diagnosis of Bipolar II Disorder

Bipolar II disorder is characterized by depressive episodes alternating with hypomanic episodes. There exists some confusion regarding the term "hypomania" (below mania). A hypomanic episode is unassociated with psychotic features. Instead, a hypomanic episode is characterized by a 4-day (or more) period of persistently elevated, expansive, or irritable mood. The symptoms of hypomania can be characterized by the acronym DIGFAST:

• D = Distractibility
• I   = Insomnia
• G = Grandiosity
• F = Flight of ideas
• A = Activity in unexplained burst of energy
• S = Speech that is fast, pressured, hyperverbal or interrupting
• T = Thoughtlessness that leads of risk taking behavior such as inappropriate sexual liaisons, spending more money than suitable or driving fast/recklessly.

Distinguishing between Recurrent Unipolar Depression and Bipolar II Depression

Because bipolar II patients often demonstrate several episodes of depression before an initial hypomanic episode, patients with bipolar II depression may be falsely diagnosed as having recurrent unipolar depression. When compared to unipolar depressed patients, bipolar II depressed patients are more likely to have the following characteristics:

1.     Family history of mania,  bipolar illness or substance abuse

2.     Earlier age of onset of depression (adolescence or early 20s)

3.     A higher number of depressive episodes 

4.     Mood swings

5.     Non-response or agitation on antidepressants

Rapid Cycling

Rapid cycling, defined as the presence of 4 or more mood swings in a year, is much more prevalent in bipolar II patients than bipolar I patients. Brief, frequent episodes of depression are highly suggestive of rapid cycling bipolar II disorder. Antidepressants can exacerbate rapid cycling. Antidepressants can also precipitate a manic crisis in depressed patients that have undiagnosed bipolar illness.

Treatment

Depakote possesses antimanic effects, but more moderate antidepressant effects.

Lamictal is effective in the treatment of depression in bipolar disorder. 

Lamictal + Depakote may be required in combination to stabilize rapid cycling.

Lithium functions poorly in rapid cycling patients; and because the therapeutic dose of lithium is close to the toxic dose, lithium treatment must be used with caution, if at all.  

Hitch Hiking to Seattle

I didn’t want to leave the orphanage, but if I had to go I thought I would go in style. I packed my suitcase. I also packed my trunk and I had a duffle bag full of clothes. Father Martin a tall, thin man with an Adam’s apple bigger than his neck drove me to the Highway 59 intersection with Timber, the busiest street in Ruskin. I stuck out my thumb and turned the suitcase with the sign

SEATTLE OR BUST

            I was nervous and somewhat embarrassed as cars whisked by. After about 10 minutes, I was about to think I would never get picked up. I laugh when I write this because later I would wait 10 hours and remain determined to stand out on the highway until I got a ride.

            A car pulled up. I remember President John F. Kennedy’s words: “We stand today on the edge of a new frontier—the frontier of the 1960s, a frontier of unknown opportunities and perils, a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats.” During the election of 1960, my friend Joe Clarke whose father was Chief Operating Officer of the Ample Paper Mill was for Nixon. I later learned the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Republicans favored business. They were for low taxes and small government. The Democrats were for the little man; high taxes on the rich, and making hard workers pay the way for ner-do-wells. I supported Kennedy for President because he was handsome and vigorous appearing. Joe Clarke talked about ideology. I didn’t know what to say except I liked Kennedy. I didn’t want to say that I liked him because he looked more Presidential and didn’t sweat on television so I just said, “I like Kennedy the best.”

An Important Birthday

On April 13, 1970 Wende Lynn Walker was born in Galveston, Texas.  Her birth caused shock waves reaching toward the moon.

Apollo 13, with astronauts James Lovell Jr., John Swigert Jr. and Fred Haise Jr. aboard, was on its way to the moon to perform the third lunar landing in a planned series of seven when, about 56 hours into the mission, an oxygen tank blew up, knocking out the command module’s electricity, light and water supply. “Hey, Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” Lovell told mission control, adding that some kind of gas was escaping outside the spacecraft. It was oxygen, and the mission quickly shifted from landing on the moon to getting the astronauts back alive. At the time, Apollo 13 was roughly 200,000 miles from Earth.

The crew moved into the lunar module to escape the decreasing air pressure in the service module, then prepared to make the necessary swing around the moon in order to boomerang back to Earth. Debris from the explosion had knocked out the navigation system, so the crew used the sun to guide the crippled craft home. It took nearly four agonizing days after the explosion before they splashed down safely in the Pacific Ocean.

Bestselling Children’s Authors in the World

Ash notes that "based on total sales of their entire output", the following authors "have produced titles that have been bestsellers - especially those in numerous translations - over a long period."

• René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo
  "René Goscinny (1926-77) and Albert Uderzo (b. 1927) created the comic strip character Astérix the Gaul in 1959. They produced 30 books with total sales of some 250,000,000 copies."
• Hergé
  "Georges Rémi (1907-83), the Belgian author-illustrator who wrote under the pen name Hergé, created the comic strip character Tintin in 1929. Tintin appeared in book form from 1948 onward. He achieved worldwide popularity, and the books have been translated into about 45 languages and dialects. Total sales are believed to be at least 160,000,000."
• Enid Blyton
  "With sales of her Noddy books exceeding 60,000,000 copies, and with more than 700 children’s books to her name (UNESCO calculated that there were 974 translations of her works in the 1960s alone), total sales of her works are believed to be over 100,000,000, making her the best-selling English-language author of the 20th century."
• Dr. Seuss
  "His books in the U.S. Top 10 alone total about 30,000,000 copies: to this must be added those titles that have sold fewer than 5,000,000 in the U.S. and all foreign editions of his books, suggesting total sales of more than 100,000,000."
• Beatrix Potter
  "The Tale of Peter Rabbit (1902) was one of a series of books, the cumulative total sales of which probably exceed 50,000,000."
• Lewis Carroll
  "Total world sales of all editions of Carroll’s two classic children’s books, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, are incalculable. However, just these two books probably place Lewis Carroll amon

Top Ten Best Selling Fiction Books of All Time

Bach, Richard. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull

Blatty, William. The Exorcist

Benchley, Peter. Jaws

Caldwell, Erskine. God’s Little Acre

Heller, Joseph. Catch-22

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird

McCullough, Colleen. The Thorn Birds

Metalious, Grace. Peyton Place

Mitchell, Margaret. Gone With the Wind

Orwell, George. 1984, Animal Farm

Puzo, Mario. The Godfather

Robbins, Harold. The Carepetbaggers

Salinger, J.D. Catcher in the Rye

Cultivate Good Habits

Thoughts-actions-habits-character

Identifying the 20% who make trouble

Excuse making, blaming, refusing responsibility

Delaying gratification

Using pain and pleasure motivators  

Taking initiative by asking and acting

The confidence of a Christian with 4 aces

Follow the Golden Rule—Can I trust you?

Show you care—Do you care about me?

Do the best you can—are you committed to excellence?

Accept your limitations

The Top 10 Bestselling Books of All Time:

1. The Bible
   "No one really knows how many copies of the Bible have been printed, sold, or distributed. The Bible Society’s attempt to calculate the number printed between 1816 and 1975 produced the figure of 2,458,000,000. A more recent survey, for the years up to 1992, put it closer to 6,000,000,000 in more than 2,000 languages and dialects. Whatever the precise figure, the Bible is by far the bestselling book of all time."
2. Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung (Little Red Book)
   "Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book could scarcely fail to become a bestseller: between the years 1966 and 1971 it was compulsory for every Chinese adult to own a copy."
3. American Spelling Book by Noah Webster
   "First published in 1783, this reference book by the American man of letters Noah Webster (1758-1843) remained a bestseller in the U.S. throughout the 19th century."
4. The Guinness Book of Records
   "First published in 1955, The Guinness Book of Records stands out as the greatest contemporary publishing achievement. There have now been 37 editions in the UK alone (it was not published annually until 1964), as well as numerous foreign-language editions."
5. The McGuffey Readers by William Holmes McGuffey
   "Published in numerous editions from 1853, some authorities have put the total sales of these educational textbooks, originally compiled by American anthologist William Holmes McGuffey (1800-73), as high as 122,000,000. It has also been claimed that 60,000,000 copies of the 1879 edition were printed, but - since this is some 10,000,000 more than the entire population of the U.S. at that time - the publishers must have been extremely optimistic about its success."
6. A Message to Garcia by Elbert Hubbard
   "Now forgotten, Hubbard’s polemic on the subject of labor relations was published in 1899 and within a few years had achieved these phenomenal sales, largely because many American employers purchased bulk supplies to distribute to their employees."
7. The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care by Dr. Benjamin Spock
   "Dr. Spock’s 1946 manual became the bible of infant care for subsequent generations of parents. Most of the sales have been of the paperback edition of the book."
8. World Almanac
   "Having been published annually since 1868 (with a break from 1876 to 1886), this wide-ranging reference book has remained a constant bestseller ever since."
9. The Valley of the Dolls by Jacqueline Susann
   "This tale of sex, violence, and drugs by Jacqueline Susann (1921-74), first published in 1966, is perhaps surprisingly the world’s bestselling novel. Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, which has achieved sales approaching 28,000,000, is its closest rival."
10. In His Steps: "What Would Jesus Do?" by Rev. Charles Monroe Sheldon
    "Although virtually unknown today, American clergyman Charles Sheldon (1857-1946) achieved fame and fortune with this 1896 instructive religious treatise on moral dilemnas."

Make the Most of Your Time

First things first

Learn to say “no” to the unproductive 

Success depends on what you neglect

JESUS AT THE MASTERS

 

             The caddies didn’t believe it was Jesus Christ, not at first.

            True, John Daly said he had asked him to come down for some golf. John said he had offered up some prayers asking for help with his drinking and gambling problems. Next thing he knows, Jesus had qualified to play in the Masters.

            “I haven’t met him yet,” Daly told Sports Illustrated. “I’ve been in court dealing with my fourth wife’s demand for increased alimony, but I’ve read a little about him and I’m eager to talk to him in person.”

            By then a rusty 1963 Corvair wheezed into view, the engine sputtering before dying in the groundskeepers parking area. When a man giving off a glow of radiant light stepped out of the car, we knew he was a special chap who put no value in transportation safety.           

            Jesus was mobbed, first by tens, then hundreds, all asking for autographs that they could sell on E-Bay. He wore blue jeans, a Texas Aggie T-shirt, and a WWJD? Wristband. “What Would Jesus Do?” shouted a woman in the crowd.

            “Nah,” Christ said with a laugh. “What Would Jack Do? My Dad and I are huge Nicklaus fans. Not only could he play golf, but also he designs great courses. We’re kind of partial to creative talent.”

            Christ continued, “Money is ruining sports. Man cannot serve two masters,”

            The crowd was a little puzzled by the masters thing. “Everyone knows there is only one Masters Golf Tournament,” Clete Purcell, a tournament official, said.

            “Let’s tee-em up,” Christ said, walking over and putting his arm around Daly who wept uncontrollably because of the forgiving and unconditional love he felt from Jesus.

            Christ gave Daly the honors. Shaken-up by his encounter with Jesus, Daly hit a dogleg hook into the woods. Jesus, nodding empathetically toward Daly, quickly approached his ball. With no practice swing, he struck the ball. Ka-Boom! The ball took off like Elijah’s chariot and zoomed upward and onward, quickly rising higher and higher disappearing behind an immense cloud that flashed with lightening.

            “Out of practice, Christ said. “ I need to remember to reduce the power in my swing when I’m here on earth.”

             He shrugged, smiled toward the crowd, and placed a second ball on the tee. His next shot zoomed 350 yards, landing in the middle of the fairway.

            The huge crowd following him must have numbered at least 5,000. They were surprised to discover that Christ kept up a running banter as he played. “Keeps me loose,” Christ explained. 

            “I used to play golf just about everyday—except Sundays, of course—with Adam. Talk about a beautiful course! No one could top the one we had in Eden. The only problem was the snake kept swallowing the ball. After Eve came along, Adam had so many ‘honey-do’ projects he didn’t have time for golf.”                       

            Teeing-up for the fifth hole, he continued, “ I didn’t play again until Moses came to Midian. That was a rough course.  Bushes everywhere. Moses always took a mighty swing trying to get the ball from the tee-box to the green so he wouldn’t have to probe around in the bushes. One day he took a prodigious swing and the ball sailed right over the green. That’s when Moses had his ‘burning bush’ experience and had to take the next camel to Egypt.”           

            On the sixth hole, Christ hit his first shot into some tall grass.  The ball rested under a tree limb. Without hesitation, Christ took a vicious swing. The ball ricocheted off the tree limb, hit a fairway marker, careened off a rock, and bounded into the middle of the fairway. Christ shrugged his shoulders, looked toward the crowd, then up to heaven. “Praise God,” he sang out.

            The seventh hole brought near disaster. Hitting a two-iron, Christ sliced his ball into a lake. He absentmindedly walked on top of the lake and fished the ball out of the water, all the time talking, “I dearly wanted to play a round of golf with David.  Dad thought he would play well—liked his heart. But with Bathsheba, Nathan, and Absalom crowding his schedule, he never could find the time for golf.”

            With a fluid swing, Christ hit the ball off the top of the water. The ball left his club crisply never rising higher than five feet until it glanced off the water and skipped three times onto dry land.

            Without a pause Jesus continued, “I tried a game or two with the prophets—what bores. They would ruin the fun by telling you where the ball was going before you hit it.”

            Christ continued, “After that, I got a little busy and it wasn’t until the dark ages that I tried to play again. I wanted to play with Richard-the-Lion-Hearted—what a great name for a golfer—that’s where Earl Woods came up with Tiger’s name—but Richard couldn’t play a lick what with all that armor he wore.”

            Taking the seven-iron out of the bag, he hit the ball three hundred feet where it landed on the green and rolled into the cup for a birdie. By then the crowds kept getting larger and larger blocking play. As the multitude swelled, the Masters Committee Chairman asked Christ to leave. “No problem,” Christ said, “I’m used to rapid departures. I just wish I could have played Amen Corner.”

            When asked if he wanted a ride, He replied with a twinkle in his eye, “Thanks, but no need.”  He found Daly in the crowd rounding up people for an Alcoholics Anonymous chapter. Christ hugged him. With that, there was a blinding flash and they were gone.

            The line on Christ: five pars, one bogie, one birdie, and one saved soul.

 

PREVENTING OVERWORK

            Vacation, a time of rest and freedom from work, can be experienced each and everyday. Duke University psychiatrist, John Rhoads, MD, studied successful, effective, and healthy executives who worked at least sixty hours weekly and compared these individuals with executives who developed burnout from working over sixty hours weekly. The following table summarizes those findings.           

 

THOSE WHO EXPERENCE WORK SUCCESS	THOSE WHO EXPERIENCE work burnout
Postpone thinking about problems	Ruminate about work problems
Take time off when productivity begins to diminish	Take their computer and cell phone on their vacations to keep-up with work activities
Use exercise, hobbies, and sports to deal with work stress	Use drugs or alcohol to deal with work stress
Enjoy scheduled vacations	Tend to postpone vacations
Cultivate a stable family life	Spend very little time with their family
Maintain friendships	Have a difficult time cultivating friendships
Exercise regularly	Watch television regularly
Have varied interest outside of work	Feel uncomfortable away from work
Can laugh at themselves	Take life and themselves too seriously

 

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO HAVE FUN?

	LITTLE OF THE TIME 1-pt/each √	SOME OF THE TIME 2-pt/each √	A LOT OF THE TIME 3-pt/each √	MOST OF THE TIME 4-pt/each √
I enjoy hobbies without feeling guilty about not working.
I am optimistic and cheerful.
I surround my self with happy, positive, and fun-loving people.
I correct my mistakes and blunders, but don’t continue to worry about them
I take a long weekend away from work when I begin to feel burned out and tired.
Leisure activity helps me feel rested.
Sports and games bring me more laughs than frowns because I play to have fun not necessarily to win.
I enjoy creative play—dancing, painting, party games, playing a musical instrument, etc.
I laugh at least once a day.
I take vacations without worrying about the job.
Multiply √ by the value given in each column

 

Add the total for each column to get the GRAND TOTAL = ________

Scoring

10-14 points = President of Eeyore International

15-24 points = Party pooper

25-34 points = Fun to be around

34-40 points = Life of the party

Problems of an Increased Workload

            A self-induced increased workload causes deterioration in marriage and family life, undermining the main source of non-work related support. Likewise, avoiding vacation time leads to a decline in efficiency and initiative resulting in an increasing spiral of mistakes and complaints from associates and customers. Paradoxically, rather resulting in approve from others over­work eventually results in criticizes from family, colleagues, and employers.

             Usually those who fail to take regular vacations become cynical, negative, rigid, and inflexible. Accompanying poor work performance is the inability to relax and enjoy recreational pursuits.