Analyze daily routines to cut stress

After his near-fatal heart attack he was bombarded with advice, most of it coming from his friends who were in their way showing concern and wishing he would take life a little easier. Some of it was from acquaintances who also had survived a similar experience. All of them zeroed in on one refrain. Change your lifestyle, relax, sell your business, take life easy, retire, go fishing.

Most of the admonitions he knew were applicable to him, but he knew he would be miserable if he gave up all his business contacts. He also knew he would vegetate spending his time in a boat or on a bank luring fish from the water.

What his well-intentioned friends didn’t understand was that what was relaxing to them was stressful to him. He decided to systematically analyze his daily routines, at home and at his office.

He made a list of stressful tasks or duties he encountered. These included everything from sales meetings to discussions with hostile or dissatisfied customers. He delegated some of these responsibilities to employees.

He looked at his schedule and the time of day he tackled these tasks. He was a morning person and was at his best mentally and physically in the morning hours.

He had always tried to shield his family from business pressures and had never shared these duties although his wife and adult children were fully able to do so. That, to, would change. He called himself semi-retired with a flexible schedule.

He made a list of things that really gave him pleasure. When the boys were young he had followed their athletic games and was a great team supporter. He enjoyed people and church-related activities. He liked to travel if he could visit interesting sites.

He made a list of activities that bored him. He had always mentally checked himself to be sure that each day was either productive or educational and in his mind, not wasted. Yes, fishing was wasted time in his mind.

He asked his physician to provide an exercise and nutrition program that would be healthful for him. He found that brisk walking was invigorating and stress relieving. He enjoyed vegetables and simple foods.

He learned ways to control tension, such as lying back in a chair for a moment and closing his eyes while imagining relaxing scenes.

He enlisted the aid of his son and several trusted employees who gave him a warning signal when they noted him becoming tense. The warning signal could be a sign or a code phrase like, “You read to go fishing?”

He was always a jovial person who had a good sense of humor. He decided to laugh more, to laugh at himself and some of the foibles of daily life. Laughter, he knew was a great stress reducer.

He attended some stress seminars and shared thoughts with other business executives. Many of them put a little more fun in life, too vacations and seemed to take life a little less seriously.

By modifying his daily routine he found that moderate stress – a part of life – holds no threat and had made him productive and enthusiastic. He also reaffirmed his belief that what is stress for one is not stress for another.


So he no longer makes excuses for not wanting to take a day off and go fishing. He is able to say with certainty that’s not my style. But I sure do know something I would like to do instead.

Harold H. LeCrone, Jr., Ph.D. Copyright 1988