The Necessity For Rest and Relaxation

A nervous breakdown, understandably enough, takes a great deal out of you. Apart from anything else, it’s a warning that you’ve been making demands on yourself up to which no reasonable mind can live. It’s impossible to work non stop without some sort of a break, some rest and relaxation at some point.

This was certainly my problem. Instead of pacing myself sensibly, I allowed the business to run me. Everything had to be done yesterday, at breakneck speed, otherwise…what? The sky would fall? The earth would open up and swallow me?

That’s the whole point. You must learn to control your life, not the other way round. This is where goal setting is such a two edged sword. You can have it fixed in your mind that you must write five articles in a day, every day. That’s your goal, and you’re going to stick to it. This is very laudable, but what’s going to happen if you don’t write five a day? If you only write four one day.

Well, you’ll just have to write six the following day. This can become so fixed in your mind, that everything else goes by the way.

I read somewhere about this chap who was determined to write a certain number of articles over a six month period, (actually, I forget how long, but it was something like that). Anyway, his goal was a huge number, but he set to and managed to write them… then promptly had a nervous breakdown!

No, goals are fine, but they must be reasonable and flexible. And they must allow you enough time for relaxation. Let’s put it this way. If you have a number of problems that have brought you to the edge of a nervous breakdown, what’s going to happen to those problems when the breakdown hits? They’ll have to be shelved until you’re better.

If this means that people are going to become upset with you, even angry, that’s too bad. Your health is all that matters. Besides, you’re in no condition now, virtually, to know what pair of socks you’ll wear this morning, let alone how to sort out a large, looming problem. You’re sick, and if people don’t like it, they’ll just have to learn to live with it.

One of the main symptoms of a nervous breakdown is the feeling of being swamped, either by direct problems or by a mass of work you think you have to do immediately. Make a decision. That decision will be that nothing at all will be done or even attempted until you feel better.

Eat properly and nutritiously, exercise, even if it’s only going for short walks, go to the library and grab some good fiction by authors you like, watch television, listen to relaxing CDs, anything at all that takes your mind completely off work. Don’t even allow that four letter word into your Universe!