Instead of the 40 hour workweek, somehow we ended up extending back quite a bit beyond those boundaries over the last couple of decades. We’ve become accustomed to working 45, 55, 60 and more hours a week. I even talked with guys who regularly clock in about 80 hours on the job a week.

Even though economic conditions have worsened in the last couple of years, and things are tighter overall, there seems to have been a pervasive cultural message to work as much as we can. I think that that’s changing the last couple of years, with people reconsidering their lives and trying to budget time for things that really matter to them, like family, hobbies, and other life experiences. And younger guys seem to have taken this heart: by seeing their fathers worked tirelessly, more and more guys are trying to find what work allows them to apply their passions, and doesn’t kill them in the process.

But, workaholism still runs rampant in our culture today. Plenty of guys they’re either head in the sand and press ahead robotically to get ahead. Some are so driven by power, success for money that it blinds them to the rest of the rose bushes that they’re zooming past.

Usually, the first thing that materializes as a problem is marital or relationship problems. I hear a lot of women complaining that their guy works too much or too hard, and doesn’t have time for them. They complain about not having regular date nights, not having sex regularly, or just generally feeling unattended to emotionally. Many guys don’t see this until it’s too late, and then come in to count and try to help to patch up what’s already broken beyond repair.

Is this you? I know I’ve been guilty working too hard sometimes, but moderation is definitely the key. Do you find that you’re able to create the kind of work life balance that’s needed to create an optimal life for you?

Here’s four things to think about if you may be a workaholic:

1. You probably aren’t attending to your self, whether it’s diet, exercise, sleep, or your own emotional state. Forging out a life in balance means investing some energy in those areas of your life. Start small, and make commitments each week to modify one or more areas.

2. Get feedback: ask those closest to you how they see. Are you accessible for people when they need you? Do they feel like they’ve “got” you when they need you, or is there experience that you’re always attending to other things?

3. For dads: to consider if you were own father was a workaholic, and if he wasn’t there. Ask yourself if you may be re-creating the same cycle each over again, and if so, take preventative measures to stop it. You wouldn’t want your son or daughter to grow up feeling like you weren’t there, even if that’s how you felt growing up. Would you?

4. Identify why you’re working so hard. Is it for the money? Is it because you’re avoiding something, such as wanting to be home? Are you a perfectionist, or just hungry to climb the ladder at work? Identifying your motivations is really the Ground Zero for making changes to your life, and understanding why you’re doing something is key. It may not be easy, but if you spend enough time meditating on this issue, you may come up with some surprising results.

Plenty of men turn to work to provide a variety of needs: sense of identity, sense of purpose, money, power, prestige, for since a family, whatever. But, like anything else, if you lose moderation and a work/life balance, it may be easy to get lost in work and not be able to find your way out.

The holidays are usually defined as a time of family get-togethers, good food and drink, and relaxation, but for a lot of

Americans, the holidays are truly difficult in a number of ways.

Going into debt, dealing with family conflict, high stress, travel and marital discord, as well as depression and anxiety, characterize the experience of a lot of men these days. With a little planning and preparation, you can usher in the holiday season with minimal conflict, if you’re willing to consider these things:

1. Know your limits: Whether that’s how much money you’re going to spend, how much time you can actually stay any one family member’s home, or how much alcohol you can consume, it’s important know your limits. If you’re not doing things in moderation, you might be burning the candle at both ends. The holidays are a time off from everything that’s stressful, and if you’re creating more stress, you’re not really enjoying the holidays and relaxing. Know your limits, be able to say ‘no’ to others, and to yourself. Practice moderation, and knowing what’s good for you.
2. Watch for holiday mental health hazards: This is a memorable season, and for some, those memories are more haunting than festive. This is a time that we can reflect back on our year, for better for worse. If you’ve experienced a difficult year, whether that be a job loss, death of someone close to you, or general unhappiness or loneliness, the holidays have a way of amplifying those problems to make them seem worse.
   • If you succumb to depression or anxiety, the holidays have a way of bringing those out, too. Depression and anxiety peak around the holidays, so monitor yourself to make sure you don’t fall into these traps. Seek out help or support if you can’t for yourself.
3. Practice effective communication skills: Whether this is to your boss or to your wife or girlfriend, communication is essential during the holiday season. There’s so much going on, and so many opportunities to miscommunicate. So often, our wires get crossed with others because we fail to talk about what we need from them, whether that’s time off from work, spending some time with our guy friends to watch football, or figuring out how to divide the chores and household responsibilities equally. If we can learn to communicate a little bit more effectively than usual, we should be able to glide through the holidays without too much conflict.
4. Don’t avoid conflict: If you’re having an issue with someone, be direct with them and don’t beat around the bush. Holding in frustration or anger is only going to make things worse, whether you’re having an argument with a family member during Thanksgiving or squabbling in that pre-Christmas spat with your loved one, don’t avoid conflict. This is to those guys out there that are notorious conflict avoiders.
   • Also, if you’re drinking, watch the alcohol, because if there are things that are not being said, they may come out way worse if you’re drinking.  And you know how those holiday fights go…
5. Developing a holiday stress management plan: Develop a small stress management program for yourself, and employ it throughout the holidays, even doing it once or twice a week. Whether that’s continuing to work out at the gym, taking a light jog or hike, or doing some yoga, practice stress management because the holidays have a way of eroding your physical and mental well-being. Especially if you’re traveling, you’re going to be subjected to a lot of stress, and so will your immune system. Getting the right sleep, and knowing your limits, are both ways to prevent taking in too much stress during the holidays.
6. Plan: Good planning underlies everything, especially around this time of year. If you’re not a good planner, try to take some steps to help yourself by not creating more stress for yourself and those close to you. Whether that means budgeting for gifts, scheduling shopping, or getting your clothes ready before the morning of your flight out, you’ll be glad you set forth to take care of business before hand. Good planning is going to prevent you and your wife or girlfriend from inevitable stress and conflict, too, which will make her quite happy with you.
7. Create an quick exit strategy: For a lot of people, the holidays spent with family and friends can be a little bit overwhelming, especially if you’re staying with others or they’re staying with you. If you need to get out of the situation, kindly excuse yourself for a bit to get some fresh air or take a quick trip into town. If you’re staying extensively with family for three or four days, it’s important to get a little bit of time away for yourself or for you and your wife, away from family, the kids, whatever. Pace yourself, especially if you’re feeling contentious with a family member or loved one. You’ll be glad you did.

A lot of people have a really difficult time saying no to others in drawing healthy boundaries for themselves. Men struggle with this just as women do. A lot of guys suffer from the “nice guy” syndrome, and often fall into people pleasing behaviors that erode our confidence and self-esteem, and end up getting our power over to other people.

Here’s some things that happen when you can’t draw healthy boundaries for yourself:

1. You end up giving other people power over your decision-making process
2. Anger develops and builds up over time, and usually gets stuffed within us
3. We end up forgetting what it is that we truly want from others, from our lives
4. We end up playing games with other people to get love, attention and affirmation
5. We succumb to the fear that generates our inability to say no to others, and we end up living through fear instead of courage to stand up for ourselves.
6. Our relationships are not as authentic as they could be when we don’t say ‘no’
7. A lot of psychic energy is expended in worrying about what others want from us and designing ways to please them and their needs.
8. We develop a lot of guilt in the process, usually that stays with us and corrodes our well-being and self-esteem.
9. We can succumb to stress, anxiety and depression much more easily when we can’t say no to others.
10. Our lives become contingent on others and on the outside world, instead of contingent on ourselves and what we want from the world.

We devote a lot of energy in the process of pleasing others and not saying ‘no’ to others. It takes a lot of courage to risk doing something different. For most men, unlearning to be the “nice guy” takes a lot of risk and a lot of doing things different. It takes interacting with others in a very different way than what we’ve learned growing up, and development of these tools is essential to taking our selves and our lives back. We have to risk the fear of rejection, which is devastating to the ego, but is ultimately freeing and invigorating. If we can learn to say no to others, and start to say yes to ourselves, we can learn new experience that freedom and not feel dependent on others to give us affection or affirmation, and not reject us, if we don’t say no to others.

1. Not overworking to the point of exhaustion. Ask yourself, “Are there parts of work I can do less of for my own health and happiness?”
2. Eat right: There are foods that will aggravate stress, and foods that will sedate stress. Try cutting down or quitting caffeinated and sugary drinks and foods that increase stress levels. Try eating more complex carbohydrates, lean meats and fish, and vegetables and fruits.
3. Getting daily exercise: This is a tough one, because it’s really hard to make a regular schedule to exercise and get to the gym. It can be work in itself. This is a lifestyle change, not an instantaneous  “hit the gym once in a while” thing, so pace yourself. Stress happens over time, and your stress combat plan should develop over the long term.
4. Practice relaxation: Yoga, meditation, even mindful breathing are all superior techniques to help reduce stress.
5. Network development: Many times, guys don’t have anyone to talk to. They might not talk with their other male friends, and their wife or girlfriend may be stressed in her own way. Making the outlet to talk and creating a support network is essential to stress management. Without it, we end up stuffing stress, letting it fester and building it up over time to create much worse problems.
6. Develop routines: stress is a part of everyday life, and those that have the plans most easily executed will come out on top of their stress. See the lifestyle changes you’re making as integral to your lifestyle, not a temporary thing or fad. If you set your sights on stress management as a high value for you, you’ll start to choose behaviors that reflect that value.
7. Practice positive psychology: Thinking positively – while hard for some – trains your brain to see things through a different scope. Choose optimism over negativity.
8. Reduce alcohol consumption: Alcohol is a depressant, and it also affects your sleep by increasing the body’s stress hormone epinephrine, which stimulates heart rate and stress. Alcohol, in moderation, can take the ease off stress, but, for the long term, it’s not the best solution.
9. Say ‘no’ more: Too many guys are just as guilty of not saying ‘no’ as their female counterparts. When we can’t say ‘no’, we guilt ourselves into accepting more and more from others, whether that’s doing favors, taking on more work, or generally stuffing our own need to do less. Learn to take on less responsibility, and learn to say ‘no’ – the world won’t end if you do.
10. Manage your time: The inability to manage time erodes our foundation to deal with stress. Not being able to deal efficiently with all that’s thrown at us in a day can shut your whole machine down quickly. Learn to manage your time, and you’ll immediately experience better stress reduction. Use lists, calendars, and your phone. Plan commuting times, cook on Sundays for the week’s worth of lunches, and generally start to visualize your upcoming week, so that you can do what you need to do before it needs to be done.

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Feeling depleted is, unfortunately, common for a lot of Americans. We’re working more hours, getting less sleep, and generally “burning the candle at both ends.” Having energy is critical to maintaining a hectic life, whether it’s feeling more energetic with your kids, being powered up to take care of to-do lists, or having a sense of overall well-being and happiness.

We’ll look at 12 energy boosters that will help with fatigue and lethargy, and then identify some things not to do.

1. Control stress: this is so important. Stress can promote the release of cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine, and begin the “fight or flight” response in the body. From an evolutionary point of view, this prepares the body for fighting or for running, but it also taxes the body, leaving you feeling tired and worn down.

Try meditation, yoga, or simply taking a 5-minute break from your desk to focus on your breathing in a mindful way. I work with guys who love this, and say that the benefits are worth a regular practice. Talk with someone close – your wife or girlfriend – about the things that are stressing you, and you’ll also deepen your relationship with her at the same time.

2. Watch your carbs: carbohydrates – especially refined carbs like white flour products, sugar, and potatoes – give you a short-term energy boost, but crash your system a little later. These food are high in glycemic indexes, so choose foods with lower GI’s, like beans, fruits, whole grains, including whole wheat. These foods will give you more of a steady stream of glucose, so your blood sugar doesn’t spike and then crash.

3. Say ‘no’ more: too many guys are just as guilty of not saying ‘no’ as their female counterparts. When we can’t say ‘no’, we guilt ourselves into accepting more and more from others, whether that’s doing favors, taking on more work, or generally stuffing our own need to do less. Learn to take on less responsibility, and learn to say ‘no’ – the world won’t end if you do.

4. Get the sleep you need: sleep is such a valued commodity for so many of us. We don’t get nearly the quantity (or quality)

sleep we need. Quitting smoking, exercising regularly, and turning the t.v. off all help for better sleep hygiene. Actually getting into bed at a set time, whether you fall asleep or not, is crucial in developing a sleep schedule. You’ll see how this slight improvement carries over positively to affect so many things in your life, by sleeping sounder.

5. Develop a plan for consistency: changes take work. No one’s asking you to make all of these changes all at once. Parse yourself. Take one item, and start to do that first. Commit to a regular sleep schedule, or try modifying your diet. Do one thing at a time, and you won’t overwhelm yourself and not do anything. Building energy is a long-term strategy, although our culture wants you to have “more energy – right now.” You can feel more energetic in the short-term, but maintaining lifestyle changes is a long-term strategy.

6. Find what makes you happy: is it work? is it spending time with the ones you really care about? is is finally learning to play the guitar, after all these years? When we’re “in the flow”, and doing what we enjoy and what makes us happy, we feelenergized and compelled to keep doing those things that produce happiness. Find what these things, people, or places are, and start to incorporate them. Stop hanging out in places that de-energize you (unless this is your workplace), with people who de-enegrize you, and, by removed the energy “degenerators”, you’ll free up more physical and psychic energy for yourself to use how you wish.

As a culture that wraps our happiness up with money, it’s ironic then that most of the research that has come out states explicitly that money doesn’t buy happiness. According to one Princeton University study, the link between income and happiness is mainly an illusion. “Although income is widely assumed to be a good measure of well-being, the researchers found that its role is less significant than predicted and that people with higher incomes do not necessarily spend more time in more enjoyable ways,” states Eric Quinones, who looked at two Princeton professors, economist Alan Krueger and psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman.

So, what does produce happiness? Researchers do point out several factors involved in happiness, such as:

1. Developing coping strategies for stress and hardships in your life
2. Taking care of your body, including getting the right sleep, eating well, and exercising
3. Creating a social support network of friends, family and people you trust to confide in
4. Practicing mindfulness: yoga, meditation, or simply focusing on those “little pleasures” that create our days
5. Learning to forgive: we let of of pain, anger and hurt when we can forgive those that have wronged us
6. Experiences over things: researchers also point out that experiences, such as a first date or a great trip, will bring us more happiness over acquiring more material pleasures.
7. Live your values: take a moment to identify what you truly value in life, and see how well your lifestyle reflects the the things you truly value.

We need money for a variety of things in our lives, but when we start to invest all of our happiness in how much we make, what we own, and what we’ll reap in the future, we become contingent on an outside source (money) for our happiness. Happiness is inherent within, and accessing one’s own happiness is personal affair. Hopefully some of these tips will help you design a “happiness program” for your own self.

Our time is crunched, and we only have so many hours in the day. Sometimes, even that’s no enough. Unless we’re super-organized, lack of time management can overwhelm us and suffocate us. It adds unneeded pressure to an already pressured lifestyle. Guys have many different roles to play: employee, husband, boyfriend, son, and friend. We’re constantly challenged to successfully meet the demands of those roles, and then some. Sometimes, due to poor time management skills, we can barely give more than the minimum to any relationship.

Stress is a byproduct of poor time management, and so is poor sleep. When we’re overloaded, and have too much to do, we constantly worry and ruminate on those things we still need to do. Our sleep gets affected, and the vicious cycle begins. We’re only giving a fraction of ourselves to others and commitments when we’re not fully rested, and when we’re spread too thin.

For you Valley guys, seeking out Phoenix therapy to help deal with the underlying causes of poor time management is going to the root of the problem. Even iPhones and Droids don’t help with everything; there’s still a human component to time management problems behind the device.

Staying organized and identifying and prioritizing those things in our lives that need more of our attention are the first two things you can do to reduce time management problems. Keeping a to-do list is good, but not if you’re not going to use it or if it’s going to become a hindrance for you. It’s important to find a system that will work well for you, so that you know what dates and appointments to expect before hand. Remember, as goes in health: proactivity is better than reactivity. Time management stress only appears as a reactive symptom, when you’re not doing anything to help yourself.

Feel like you’re lost and wandering through your life? Envious of those who seem to have a clear route to their own personal success? Many men I speak with feel this way, and blame not knowing what they want, or having unclear goals. Goal setting is difficult when you don’t know what the goal is in the first place. It can be difficult to get somewhere in your life without having a laser focus set on things you want, whether that’s into a good relationship, better muscle tone, or finally buying that home you’ve wanted.

Does this describe you?

1. Feel fuzzy and not sure what you really want
2. Appeal to other’s versions of success, either for you or for themselves
3. Not sure what you get fun or pleasure from
4. Have negative self-messages about success
5. May be afraid of success
6. Just lazy? Or playing a victim?

Are you zero-ing in on your goals?

Here’s some rocks to start turning over to help you deal with unclear goals:

1. How do you prevent yourself from having what you want in your life, whether that’s more variety in your personal life, a different career, or a change in behavior (decreased alcohol use, quit smoking, eat better).
2. What negative patterns from your parents have you picked up? Did you have a parent that limited themselves, and if so, how do you repeat that pattern?
3. What did you do as a child that you loved to do? Are you doing those things, or something similar, today? Why not?
4. If you could put yourself in the right ___________________, what would that look like? What are the barriers to get there (list them out with a brainstorming session)
5. How do you talk to yourself? Positively? Critically? Start paying attention to the language you use with yourself, and see if you get caught in criticizing yourself and stopping yourself from moving forward.
6. Does fear (of success, of failure) play a role in your unclear goals. How does this limit you?

Getting in touch with our goals is, by default, a process of getting in touch with ourselves. If we can learn to tune into ourselves, and listen for what we want and how we talk with ourselves, we develop better awareness to deal with the barriers we have often self-imposed on our forward motion. You may need some professional help, and as someone who specializes in Phoenix therapy, I work with guys to unstick themselves. Call me, or e-mail me, for more information about how to help unstick yourself, and get to work on the goals that are right there for your taking.

There’s a big difference between being stuck in a rut, and being depressed. The latter is chronic, the former is temporary. We all get stuck in ruts from time to time. We can’t always bring our ‘A’ game to everything we do. Our biorhythms, our lives, our minds: everything is cyclical. One day we’re flying, and another day feeling a little unmotivated and sluggish.

Popular culture professes to have many instant cures for feeling stuck in a rut, and this blog post is not one of them. Let’s talk a little more about what being in a rut might mean:

• You simply don’t want to do whatever it is, say go to work, take care of yourself, stop drinking, etc.
• Some outside entity forces you to change: girlfriend, paying your mortgage, getting to work to pay that mortgage
• We lack the creative “spark” or energy to invest in whatever task or activity we will do – we’re simply not inspired
• There’s a “should” or “must” attached to it; rule number one about humans is that we create an opposite reaction to forces telling us what to do. The energy is there – it’s just pent up and going the opposite direction. If we “have to do something,” it’s more likely we’ll drag our feet, or simply not do it altogether.
• We’re not in touch with what flows, or what’s fun. Our sense of play has diminished, and our sense of obligation overrides what we really want to do.

Here’s some ways to remedy that sense of being stuck in a rut.

• Start communicating with yourself. Ask pertinent questions like, “Why am I wanting to do this? What do I get out of doing it? What would I rather be doing, and could I be doing it that way?”
• Try not to “push” yourself through to the other side, and make yourself unstuck. This tends to create a behavioral pattern over time, which encourages chronic “stuckness” over the long term.
• Take time out, and brainstorm your values. If you don’t know what your values are, take some time to come up with them. Write down values like, “exercise” or “personal time” or “time with my family/wife/girlfriend”. Try create ones like “creative time” or “do-nothing on purpose time”. When you get to the root of what you’re about – your values – and you’re doing activities that align with those personal values, you help yourself de-rut.
• Identify the areas where you’re stuck, such as relationship, work, personal life, money, mind. Create an action plan to work towards solutions to address those specific area. Watch for overwhelming yourself by thinking in a ‘black or white’ mentality, and lumping everything together as a problem. You’ll overload yourself, and stay stuck. Maybe this is what got you into the rut in the first place.

Activating ourselves from the inside is most important, because others – whether they be our wives, girlfriends, bosses, or personal trainers – can only motivate us from the outside so much. Taking ownership for our situation, and making a commitment to ourselves to change is tough, but ultimately much more rewarding.

Meditation for Stress

Ronald Siegal, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, recently came to Phoenix to deliver a weekend mindfulness training, and he summed up mindfulness in this way: mindfulness connotes awareness, attention and remembering. Mindfulness includes non-judgment (of our feelings, thoughts or experiences), as well as acceptance.

There are many forms of meditation out there, and some traditions include visualization practices, among other things, but mindfulness meditation is different. When we practice mindfulness, we practice sitting with what arises in the present moment in our inner experience. We’re not changing anything, or pushing out any unwanted thoughts; we’re simply tuning into our immediate experience, which happens to include our thought stream, emotions and everything else that’s happening. It’s not a ‘touchy-feely’ as one might think, and you don’t have to be a Buddhist monk to meditate. Anyone can do it, and plenty of guys find this really helpful in reducing their stress.

The old adage, “what we resist, persists”, is applicable to how we sometimes ineffectively deal with our problems. When we sit in meditation, we can greatly reduce the experience of suffering by letting that ‘which persists’ just be as it is. In mindfulness meditation, we learn to sit with what “is”, or the thoughts, feelings and sensations that unfold from moment-to-moment in our inner experience.

This is different from how most of us live our lives: we often are hurried, mindless, and sometimes reactive to others. We sometimes live on auto-pilot, and forget that our behaviors and actions are the products of thoughts and feelings that drive them.

Here’s what to do when starting a mindfulness meditation practice:

1. Start simply: try sitting for five minutes at a time in a quiet spot, either in your office or outside
2. Get comfortable, in a chair or on a cushion.
3. Close your eyes, and start to settle into your body.
4. Start with bringing your attention to your breath: slowly inhale, and let go of your breath on the exhale
5. Bring attention to other parts of your body, including your shoulders, neck, heart, stomach. Notice the tiny sensations each of these parts of your body produces.
6. When your mind pulls you away from the breath, let it. The mind will do this many times in the course of one sitting, so part of meditation is to allowing it to do that, and to step back out of the thought stream to observe it. We’re not changing, avoiding, or pushing away any thoughts, good or bad.
7. Use your breath as your anchor. Keep coming back to your breath each time you become aware of a thought.
8. Try this for five minutes for the first couple of days, and keep going if you can. Don’t make this such a big deal: making it a chore will make you not want to do it.

And here’s what not to do:

1. Think of pretty images, like sunsets or unicorns, that are more visualizations.
2. Relax the need to push away uncomfortable thoughts or difficult feelings; be aware of how you push those away in your experience
3. Try to “do” anything. This isn’t a test or a race, and when you’re meditating, you’re not “doing it wrong”.
4. Avoid distracting sounds and environments.
5. Fall asleep
6. Get yourself so uncomfortable that meditating becomes too difficult.
7. Think you’re doing it “wrong”. You’re not. You’re just sitting with whatever comes up.

Meditation is liking riding a bike. It takes a little time and practice to get started, and when you do, you’ll notice the benefits quickly. You’ll develop more peace of mind, overall well-being and happiness from your mindfulness meditation practice.