I've started reading another one of Dale Carnegie's books again...
I'm sure a lot of you have already read this one, but I've only gotten my hands on it as of late... the title of the book is "How to stay happy with your Life and Job"
Don't ask me why I bought it, I just somehow ended with a copy of the book at hand while I was queuing to pay for my eldest school supplies last week...
It was a curious read...
Well. okay, I admit it... I've always been a fan of the Dale Carnegie series, I've got most of his books, but this one.... so there...
Anyway, on one of the chapters of the book, the author was talking about fatigue... or what is properly known as, "diminished capacity to work" within medical circles...
What caught my attention is the passage which explains why sedentary workers, or professionals who sit on a desk all day, has no right to complain about being fatigued by the end of the day...
The author further explained that, a study was conducted to test for toxins in the blood confirmed that physical workers, whose basically involved with manual labour, does accumulate what they term as "fatigue toxins", which you feel whenever you engage in any form of physical exertion.
The study tested both sedentary workers and physical workers and found that at the end of the day, they both registered elevated levels of these "fatigue toxins". The question being pointed is, okay, we understand why a carpenter or laborer would feel tired after the day's shift but why would a sedentary worker show the same behaviour too?
Is it, mental fatigue?
No!
A conclusive study found out that the brain, does not give off "fatigue toxins", in fact it is the only organ in the human body which does not take a day off, not even when you sleep at night! Your brain is still hard at work monitoring vital body functions, while the rest of you "recharge" from the day's strenuous activities....
The study further elaborates that, great thinkers, like the ranks of Albert Einstein, and Carl Sagan, don't register any elevation of these "fatigue toxins" at the end of an 8-hour work day, even though their mental exertion could best any sedentary workers output in any day....
So what is the reason? Simple...
Sedentary workers register the same behaviour of elevated "fatigue toxins" as manual laborers because of muscular strain. Period!
The psychology behind the idea is mind boggling... actually, it's mind-freeing!
The fact is, that when ever professionals work, we strain or put our bodies into a condition which mimics physical strain... Simply reading your boss' correspondence, we squint our eyes, or curl up our brows.... this is because, it was how we evolved...
Human beings started as hunter-gatherers, and the skills involved necessary to survive back then only requires physical strength, dexterity, and maybe a little bit of ingenuity... a successful hunt means that we need to devote both energy and physical resources to the hunting effort itself...
Fast forward million of years, and little has changed... the office warrior, through a lifetime worth of habit formation, develops this auto-response of justifying good work with an "action of strain or exertion"....
That is why, we strain our eyes when we read/concentrate on reports, or lock our shoulders when we attend board meetings, or tighten up our necks when we do our taxes...
All that tension, anxiety and stress is what's causing the fatigue, much like the manual laborers when they go about with their daily duties...
Going back to the study... great thinkers, never had this problem.... why? because they've managed to develop the habit of relaxing while in the process of intense mental workout... and the author suggests that we could also adopt this habit....
The rewards of course, needs no further explanation, but obviously, you would expect an improvement in your efficiency, much like a well-timed engine, you'd blaze across anything which requires mental, physical work... your focus would also be enhanced since you're more relaxed and balanced, its an entire lifestyle change altogether....
One of the exercise suggested is taking time to pause and go through a minute to tell yourself to relax.... then get to the most comfortable position you could be in, which of course would mean that you won't be compromising anything that is essential to your task at hand... like, you can't be lying down why making a presentation to the board of directors... get the picture?
Anyway, go ahead and try the exercise... close your eyes.... then slowly tell yourself, relax... relax... relax.... relax eyes... relax.... in between deep breaths.... do this for the entire duration of a minute... then open your eyes...
Did you feel refreshed?
I hope it worked the same for you as it was for me when I first tried it... remember the saying... "The body often follow what the mind dictates"... this is a known fact that traditional eastern medicine, and yoga gurus have been exploiting for centuries now... in short, this stuff really works...
The book advises that you should do this as regular and as often as you can.... over time, this would become like a reflex... it becomes a habit... an automatic response that you can employ to boost not just your physical condition, but improve your life as well....
This part of the book made me realized that I've been wasting precious years in my life procrastinating and wasting my energy and time... I should have taken notice of this fact early on...
I mean, you don't need a book at all to tell you that stress + fatigue = bad health....
I mean why is it that a lot of sedentary workers die young? Proof? Well, just look into the Sunday paper's list of Obituaries and you'll see people on their 50's, early 60's dead.... People whose lifestyle is that of a sedentary worker, sometimes even esteemed professionals altogether... just because all they did was a accumulate a lifetime's worth of stress with their lives....
I vow to make a complete overhaul of my life based on this truth... I think you should also start too...
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