Leisure Time
Leisure Time
No Woman Can Do without It
From the moment the alarm rings in the morning, you're on the go. You make coffee, take a quick shower, rouse the kids, fix breakfast, get dressed, dash to work, spend eight intense hours or more on the job, pick up your son after baseball practice, drop your daughters off at soccer, fix dinner, help your children with their homework, get them into bed, iron clothes, make lunches and then do some paperwork you wanted to finish before the meeting tomorrow.
Whew! You need time out here. Leisure isn't a luxury, doctors say. It's a necessity if you want to feel young.
Leisure plays an important role in your overall health and well-being, says Leslie Hartley Gise, M.D., associate professor of psychiatry at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. If you don't get enough of it, you can begin to feel grouchy, fatigued and depressed. Over time, life without leisure can lead to ulcers, migraines, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and other physical ailments, she says.
"Leisure activities can certainly help you feel more satisfied with your life. Could that translate into making some people feel younger? My guess would be yes," says Howard Tinsley, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. "Some may think of it as literally feeling younger, while others may feel like they just have more zest for life. They may feel more energized and excited to wake up in the morning."
Adding to Your Reserves
One way to look at the importance of leisure is to imagine that your body is a vast oil field that has two types of energy. Some of the oil, called superficial energy, is like gasoline. It provides the quick bursts of energy we need for day-to-day living. But the other type, called deep energy, is like a slow-burning oil that keeps us going in times of illness and other extensive periods of stress. Its energy is irreplaceable and is intended to last a lifetime, says Walt Schafer, Ph.D., professor of sociology at California State University, Chico, and director of the Pacific Wellness Institute in Chico.
"With adequate sleep, adequate time away from pressure and adequate play, we can replenish those superficial energy reserves," Dr. Schafer says. "But if we don't, then we start tapping into those deep energy reserves, and that accelerates the aging process."
Learning to Play
Unfortunately, many women simply haven't learned how to create leisure time or use it properly. To them, play is just another chore.
"Some women treat their leisure as if it were a job," Dr. Schafer says. "Their leisure is task-oriented, demand-oriented and packed with pressure to perform well. Instead of experiencing the joy and playfulness of leisure, they're putting themselves at risk of draining their energy reserves even further."
Ironically, the pressure from that approach to fun can create stress--the very thing that leisure is supposed to relieve. And experts suspect that stress siphons youthfulness from your body.
"We all want to feel useful. We all want to feel as if we're contributing. But if that's all you do, then you're short-changing yourself," says Jeanne Murrone, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Center for Mental Health, a clinic affiliated with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority in Charlotte, North Carolina. "Leisure is the time to renew yourself. Without that renewal time, you're going to burn out. So leisure--that time when you don't have to do something perfectly, but just for the enjoyment of it--is probably just as necessary for us as sleeping, exercising and eating properly."
Here are some ways to create more time for leisure in your life.
Planning takes knowledge. Leisure doesn't just happen. It takes effort and planning to work fun activities into your life. Read the newspaper, scan the bulletin boards in your neighborhood supermarkets. Phone your local parks and recreation department and ask about outdoor trips, sports leagues and craft classes, suggests Patsy B. Edwards, a leisure counselor in private practice in Los Angeles. You can also explore your library, community college and church for new activities.
Set aside time each day for a leisure activity you enjoy, even if it is just a ten-minute walk around the block, Dr. Schafer says.
Find motivation that makes sense. Find a reason to make room in your life for leisure, says Carol Lassen, Ph.D., clinical professor of psychology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver. It might be as simple as telling yourself that you want to live longer or have a better relationship with your spouse, kids or friends. But whatever it is, it has be something that is more important to you than work. If it's not, you're less likely to stick with it.
Don't Think about It By the end of the day your boss wants you to come up with some innovative ways to solve a problem that has been vexing your company for months. But it seems the harder you think about the problem, the tougher it becomes to dream up bedazzling ideas. So stop trying so hard, says Jeanne Murrone, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist at the Center for Mental Health, a clinic affiliated with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority in Charlotte, North Carolina. Go for a walk, do a crossword puzzle or some other leisure activity. The miraculous thing about leisure is it not only can keep you youthful, it may also give you a creative edge over your more intense co-workers. "Some of your most creative times can occur when you're not thinking about work," Dr. Murrone says. "It's like making bread. You can put all the ingredients together, but unless you put it aside for awhile and allow the dough to rise and rest, it's not going to be very good bread. Leisure serves much the same purpose. If you leave some space in your life for leisure, you may find yourself being more productive and creative." |
Where Does the Time Go?
Most of us actually have more free time than we think. How we spend it is the problem, experts say.
On average, women have about 41 hours of free time a week when they're not working, doing household chores or sleeping, says William Danner of Leisure Trends, a Glastonbury, Connecticut, company that analyzes how Americans use their time. But because the number of leisure activities--including sports like wind-surfing, hobbies like jewelry making and entertainment like country music--is expanding rapidly, the amount of time we can devote to any one activity is shrinking.
But one activity--watching television--is gobbling up more of our leisure time than you might suspect. In fact, a Leisure Trends survey of over 5,000 people found that 30 percent of our leisure time--almost one in three of our free-time hours--is spent anchored in front of the tube. In comparison, socializing and reading--the second and third most popular activities--accounted for only 8 and 6 percent, respectively, of the available leisure time each day.
If you want to spend your prime doing better things, experts recommend the following approach.
Keep a diary. For a week, write down what you're doing every 30 minutes including things like showering, cooking dinner and working, says Roger Mannell, Ph.D., a psychologist and chair of the Department of Recreation and Leisure Studies at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. At the end of the week take a look at your diary and see how much time you spent working and how much free time you had.
Each day rate your satisfaction with each leisure activity. Was tennis on Tuesday more fun than that party on Friday? If you're filling your time with obligations you don't find rewarding, you should make changes.
Set limits. It's important to draw boundaries between your work and home life. For example, avoid taking work home at night. "By doing that, you're letting both your employer and your family know that your leisure time is just as important to you as getting to work on time, meeting your deadlines and whatever else you do on the job," Dr. Murrone says.
Learn to shift gears. Create a space at the end of your day--even if it is only 10 to 15 minutes--to be alone with your thoughts so you can make the transition between work and home. Walking, reading the newspaper or listening to music could do it for you. For some people, it's just a matter of changing their clothes, says Dr. Lassen.
Make your own fun. What is leisure for one person is work for another. Know yourself and what you think is fun. Make a list of your strengths and weakness, what you like to do and what you detest. Then make your leisure choice based on that list. "Gardening, for example, is fun for some people, but for others it's boring work," Dr. Schafer says. "I do white-water kayaking and I think it's joyful and great fun, but for others it might be terrifying."
Be imperfect. Some people avoid doing certain types of leisure activities because they don't feel they can master them. "It's important to recognize that you don't have to do everything well," Dr. Murrone says. "Write a story but don't edit it, draw a picture but don't show it to anyone, so it can be as messy as you want. You don't have to win the golf tournament, you don't have win the race, you don't have to create a painting that is a masterpiece. It's really not a matter of how well you do, but that you enjoy doing it."