IS YOUR job good for you?

YOUR’ WORK AND YOUR HEALTH

This is no rhetorical question. First of all, obviously enough, a job should provide reasonably adequate earnings to enable you and your family to afford good diet, good housing, health care, recreation, and other essentials. It should do more. Ideally, it should be interesting to you, should offer some challenge, should provide opportunities for advancement, and should provide an emotionally healthy rather than emotionally toxic environment. Physicians are increasingly aware that how a person feels about him- self or she heavily influences health as well as recovery from illness -and that high on the list of important feelings is self-esteem.

As one wise physician has put it, the man who is able to regard himself highly believes himself, capable of mastering the vicissitudes of life. He adapts by attacking his environment constructively and shaping it to his needs. He who has low self-esteem struggles valiantly but pessimistically, some- times passively accepting fact, sometimes destructively attacking. Self-esteem is the partner of hope, and hope is the chief agent of occupational mental health. 

More and more men and women now earn their livelihoods in organizations-companies, government agencies, educational and other institutions. And as their social and economic status becomes more dependent upon their roles in their work organizations, how they feel about themselves is related to a significant extent to what happens to them in those organizations. It is not always possible to fully achieve an ideal. Yet many of us could come much closer to it in our work than we do if we took real inventory -a hard look at our work, its satisfactions and dissatisfactions, specific possibilities for improving the job we have or finding something more satisfactory.

If your job does not pay you enough for your needs, is it possible for you to get a raise in salary? Are there courses you might take or other things you might do that could lead to promotion? If not, is it possible that you might find a job that has more to offer? Is there helpful information and possibly sound advice and guidance, you might get from a foreman or supervisor? In particular, perhaps these people or others could help you with an objective view of your situation, capabilities, and opportunities. Some cities have job counselors or provide other means to help you determine how to fit yourself for a better position. Vocational guidance has made considerable progress in studying the "square peg in the round hole" problem. 

Importance of rest and relaxation

A better understanding of the importance of rest and relaxation has been made possible by advances in neurophysiology providing new in- sights into what happens in the central nervous system. Investigators have been able to establish-by actually picking out the structures in animals and stimulating them with electric currents-that there are structures which have a damping or inhibitory effect and are in fatigue, and there are other structures which make up a system. 

If we sum up the vast amount of Neuro-physiological research, we fit this picture: An individual's mood-his ability to perform-at the given time depends on the degree of activity of the two systems. Inhibitory system dominates, the individual is in a state of fatigue; in the activating system dominates; he is ready to step up performance. This concept of fatigue helps to explain many symptoms otherwise difficult to understand.

All of us know, for example, that a feeling of tiredness can often disappear immediately if something unexpected happens or if a piece of intelligence or train of thought produces an emotional change. In such cases, the activating system is being stimulated. But if the surroundings are monotonous, if we are bored by what we are doing, the pitch of the activating system is lowered and the inhibitory system is in the ascendancy. 

And it is this that explains the fatigue that ran occurs in monotonous situations even when there is no stress. Monotony, by definition, is a wearisome sameness, a lack of change in the variety. And whatever the work we do, it can be considered monotonous work if it goes on without pause or change of pace.

We all are aware of the need for a good night's sleep, but too few of us recognize the need for rest and relaxation during the day. Many of us businessmen, professional people, and others-who not only work hard but are under heavy stress could live more comfortably without sacrificing efficiency-indeed, with increased efficiency-and probably live longer if we managed to take breaks during the day and take them without guilty consciences.