I am very happy to report that my friend Jeff Garton’s new book - Career Contentment: Don’t Settle for Anything Less - has just come out.

As you will see from my review, I just love the book, and it is amazing how Jeff’s work and mine fit together.

We are going to be having a panel discussion about the book on www.Business.VoiceAmerica.com on Thursday March 6th at 3PM Eastern, which is noon Pacific time. The discussion is also going to be archived for people in other time zones. I plan to put up a link as soon as it is available.

There is a nice press release here.

I hope that you can listen in: I think that you will get a lot of food for thought!

“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.”
-Socrates (Greek Philosopher, 469-388 B.C.E.)

Your humble reporter has often spoken about his brush with burnout.

Even though I was a recognized expert on stress – and a former meditation teacher, no less! – I got perilously close to the edge. Fortunately someone noticed and I was packed off on vacation. It was remarkable that just a week in the Caribbean followed by an unforgettable one-week retreat in the Catskills was enough to cure me. My resting pulse rate fell from 68 to 48, where it stayed for more than a year, and I never again had any symptoms. The key point was that the short break was enough to interrupt the downward spiral and provoke the cognitive shift that prevented me from ever again making the mistakes that lead to the trouble in the first place.

I still work hard, but trust me when I say that working 16-17 hours a day, seven days a week is preposterous. Neglecting your emotional health and social life is bad enough. But the last straw was to stop engaging in spiritual practices that I had followed since childhood.

For a long time now I have been teaching that most people can make phenomenal changes in a very short period. It may take you a long time to prepare, but once you are ready change can be extremely quick. If you think about it, the actual physical business of an egg and a sperm joining to make a new life takes less than a minute. But the preparation for the event may take half a lifetime. At least I hope for your sake that it takes a lot longer than a minute…

And that’s all that I am going to say about that…

I was thinking about all this the other day when a stressed executive was telling me that he all he wanted was to spend six months sitting on a beach. In fact that would probably be a thoroughly bad idea.

It is not the time; it is the quality of the time, and the energy that you bring to it.

I cannot stress enough that for most people energy management is far more important than time management.

When it comes to beating burnout, the kind of vacation is likely more important than its length.

A summary of ten years of research by a team lead by Dov Eden, an organizational psychologist from Tel Aviv University’s Faculty of Management, was presented at last year’s meeting of “Work, Stress and Health” in Miami. The event is sponsored by the American Psychological Association and what Professor Eden had to say really supports what we have been talking about.

For the past ten years the team has been studying “respite effects,” which measure relief from chronic job stress during and after vacations away from the workplace. They have also been looking at the impact of constant contact: the revolution in telecommunications has kept some people permanently wired into the office while they are supposed to be away putting their feet up and drinking exotic concoctions with little umbrellas in them. So we are losing true “respite relief,” and that in turn is a cause of chronic job stress.

One recent study involved 800 professors from eight Universities in Israel, the United States, and New Zealand. The researchers measured stress levels before, during, and after a sabbatical leave of a semester or a whole year. They compared them with people who stayed home, and others who just took a long weekend or a one-week vacation. They found that those who took a long sabbatical break experienced about the same amount of stress relief as people who had taken either a week off or just a long weekend or long-weekend vacation. And all three groups returned to pre-sabbatical stress levels in about the same amount of time: approximately three weeks.

Some of Eden’s other studies have indicated that people who best succeed in uncoupling from work and detaching form its demands, get the most benefit from their vacations and they probably less likely to experience job burnout. It’s the ones who cannot detach from the constant flow of job-related demands that are most likely to suffer from burnout.

The key to a refreshing vacation is to create as much space as possible between you and your work life. I once knew someone who spent a week on Tioman Island in the South China Sea. It is reputed to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, which was one of the reasons why it was selected for the filming of South Pacific. For the whole week she spent all day every day working, and every day the hotel’s fax machine got jammed with the 60-70 pages that she sent out. That is not a recipe for a refreshing, life affirming vacation.

This body of research confirms what most sensible managers have worked out for themselves. When someone goes on vacation they should leave their cell phones behind and not check their email. People who feel attached to the office 24/7 are setting themselves up for long-term stress-related illnesses.

I get a lot more email and phone calls than most normal mortals, yet many years ago I made a remarkable discovery.

I had been out of contact for a week, and even after disposing of the spam and junk mail, there were still well over a thousand messages “demanding” my immediate attention. But during that week away, events had moved on, most no longer needed any input from me at all. Matters had been resolved and solutions found. We lost no business, and I have it on good authority that the earth did not fall into the sun.

I came back rested and restored, and firing on all cylinders: everyone benefited.

Quite obviously it is not a good idea to be completely un-obtainable. I have had two friends, one of whom lost her mother and another his wife, and neither heard the sad news for more than a week. So even when I am in some far flung part of the planet I make sure that there is a way for me to be contacted, But only three people know how.

And I am no longer an electron junkie.

Try it the next time that you have a chance. It really is easier than you think.

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice; and be ye kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, hath forgiven you.”
–The Bible, Ephesians 4:31-32

“Detach yourself from all that makes your mind restless. Renounce all that disturbs its peace. If you want peace, deserve it.”
–Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj (Indian Spiritual Teacher and Exponent of Jnana Yoga and Advaita Doctrine, 1897-1981)

“You must have been warned against letting the golden hours slip by, but some of them are golden only because we have let then slip by.”
–Sir James Matthew (J.M.) Barrie (Scottish Writer and Playwright, 1860-1937)

For those of us who lobby for resources, it is no overstatement to say that Alzheimer’s disease has reached crisis proportions in the United States.

As we are getting older, the incidence, prevalence and mortality of Alzheimer’s disease are all rising.

The 2007 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report by the Alzheimer’s Association makes sobering reading. Here are some of the headline facts:

• Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia
• At the present rate, one in 85 people will have the disease in 40 years
• There are now more than 5 million people suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, and the report projects an increase of 16 million cases by 2050 unless preventive measures are taken and/or science is able to come up with a prevention or cure
• One person is now diagnosed with dementia every seven seconds
• One in every four American families is affected by dementia
• The incidence of dementia is one in 1,000 before age 65 and one in 20 after age 65.
• More than $100 billion is spent per year on dementia, which is about 10 percent of all healthcare expenditures

As we have discussed before, the symptoms of dementia may be delayed for 3 to 5 years through healthy lifestyles and behavior modification, and there are many new treatment approaches in the pipeline.

The huge issue is that statistic about one in four families being affected by the disease. And it is a disease: it is not part of normal aging.

Caregivers can suffer terribly.

The Alzheimer’s Association also has some information for those who care for people with Alzheimer’s.

There is also some food information here concerning caregiver stress.

I would also like to direct you to some of the things that I have written here about the wellness of caregivers.

And for everyone, don’t wait until you are thirsty before you dig that well. Work on building you personal resilience and follow the simple lifestyle guidelines that may significantly reduce your risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

One very promising approach to understanding many psychological problems is to look at them from an evolutionary perspective: to see if clinical observations can be re-framed around the evolution of the brain.

Our brains are a hodgepodge of bits and pieces that have evolved over millions of years. We still have regions that evolved in reptiles, as well as the stunningly complex neocortex that has been developing over the last few hundred thousand years. Most of the time the different systems and circuits cooperate, but that cooperation falls apart if people are under the influence of alcohol or dugs, or in different types of neurological and psychological problems. Then the older and more “primitive” regions of the brain take over. That is typically what happens when a drunk wants becomes irritable or wants to fight. It is also what can happen in people who have sustained damage or have abnormal development of the frontal lobes of the brain. Alternatively it may happen if something over-stimulates the primitive regions of the brain.

Colleagues in London have been doing experiments with a computer game that could be immensely valuable for people with panic attacks and some types of anxiety disorders.

Working with healthy volunteers, Dean Mobbs and colleagues at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College, London, used a Pac Man-like computer game, in which subjects were chased through a maze by an artificial predator. If caught, they received a mild electric shock.

At the same time, brain scans measuring blood flow showed that when the predator was a long way off, lower parts of the prefrontal cortex area of the brain were active. This region is associated with complex decision-making, such as planning an escape.

But when the predator moved closer, activity shifted to the periaqueductal gray area, which is responsible for rapid response survival mechanisms such as fighting, flighting or freezing.

This shows us that the brain’s response to fear changes as a threat gets nearer: the more impulsive region takes over from the decision-making regions as a threat looms closer. A problem in the balance between the two regions could explain some anxiety disorders. Most sufferers report that they “know” that their fears are illogical, but they react anyway. So the key question is what is it that shifts the balance of activities between the forebrain and midbrain regions of the brain?

This new research is published in the journal Science, and builds on similar findings in animals, including tests on rats that were performed at the University of Colorado in Boulder and published in 2005. In those experiments rats with a non-functioning prefrontal cortex did not cope with stress as well as those with normal brains.

From an evolutionary perspective, maintaining the correct balance between the different regions of the brain that handle fear help animals to avoid or escape predators.

There are some situations where we only have to be wary about potential threats, but other times we need to react without thought. The closer a threat, the more impulsive will be your response. If the threat is large enough and close enough we lose any semblance of free will and just take action.

Just as happens when someone is in the throes of a severe anxiety attack.

Yesterday we began to look at Aaron Antonovsky’s concept of Sense of Coherence.

Here is one of the most widely used sets of questions to determine an individual’s Sense of Coherence, derived from Antonovsky’s The Sense of Coherence Quest.

The questions concern a number of aspects of our lives.

Each question has seven possible answers. The person doing the evaluation marks one number from 1 to 7 for whichever one most closely corresponds to their beliefs or feelings.

1. When you talk to people, do you have the feeling that they don’t understand you?
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Always have this feeling

2 In the past, when you had to do something that depended upon cooperation with others, did you have the feeling that it:
Surely wouldn’t get done 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Surely would get done

3. Think of the people with whom you come into contact daily, aside from the ones to whom you feel closest. How well do you know most of them?
You feel that they’re strangers 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 You know them very well

4. Do have the feeling that you don’t really care about what goes on around you?
Very seldom or never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very often

5. Have you in the past ever been surprised by the behavior of people whom you thought you knew well?
Never happened 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Always happened

6. Have you ever had people that you counted on, ended up disappointing you?
Never happened 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Always happened

7. Life is:
Full of interest 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely routine

8. Until now your life has had:
No clear goals or purpose at all 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very clear goals and purpose

9. Do you have the feeling that you’re being treated unfairly?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

10. In the past ten years your life has been:
Full of changes without your knowing what will happen next 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely consistent and clear

11. Most of the things you do in the future will probably be:
Completely fascinating 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Deadly boring

12. Do you have the feeling that you are in an unfamiliar situation and don’t know what to do?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

13. What best describes how you see life:
One can always find a solution to painful things in life 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 There is no solution to painful things in life

14. When you think about your life, you very often:
Feel how good it is to be alive 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ask yourself why you exist at all

15. When you face a difficult problem, the choice of a solution is:
Always confusing and hard to find 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Always completely clear

16. Doing the things you do every day is:
A source of deep pleasure and satisfaction 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 A source of pain and boredom

17. Your life in the future will probably be:
Full of changes without your knowing what will happen next 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Completely consistent and clear

18. When something unpleasant happened in the past your tendency was:
“To beat yourself up” about it 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 to say, “Ok that’s that, I have to live with it ” and go on

19. Do you have very mixed-up feelings and ideas?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

20. When you do something that gives you a good feeling:
It’s certain that you’ll go on feeling good 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 It’s certain that something will happen to spoil the feeling

21. Does you have feelings inside you would rather not feel?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

22. You anticipate that your personal life in the future will be:
Totally without meaning or purpose 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Full of meaning and purpose

23. Do you think that there will always be people whom you’ll be able to count on in the future?
You’re certain there will be 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 You doubt there will be

24. Does it happen that you have the feeling that you don’t know exactly what’s about to happen?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

25. Many people - even those with a strong character - sometimes feel like sad sacks (losers) in certain situations. How often have you felt this way in the past?
Never 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very often

26. When something happened, have you generally found that:
You overestimated or underestimated its importance 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 You saw things in the right proportion

27. When you think of the difficulties you are likely to face in important aspects of your life, do you have the feeling that:
You will always succeed in overcoming the difficulties 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 You won’t succeed in overcoming the difficulties

28. How often do you have the feeling that there’s little meaning in the things you do in your daily life?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

29. How often do you have feelings that you’re not sure you can keep under control?
Very often 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Very seldom or never

There are no right or wrong answers, but the overall pattern of your scores will give you some useful insights. There is a large research literature in which scores on this scale have been related to everything from career choices to the risk of getting PTSD.