You have a lot of money invested in your medical equipment, so you are careful to do whatever is necessary to keep it in good working order. Your cauteries, light boxes, and lasers get regular maintenance, and your curettes and scissors get resharpened as soon as they begin to dull. Your computer files get backed up, software gets upgraded, and new applications get installed whenever necessary.

Interesting, isn't it, how we devote so much time and attention to maintaining tools—and so little to maintaining ourselves. I have written about this issue before, and I certainly will again, because it is critical to overall well-being.

Most physicians are compulsive. We feel obligated to work strenuously and unceasingly. We become enmeshed in our daily routine. We are reluctant to take vacations because we fall behind, and patients might go elsewhere while we are gone; every day the office is idle we “lose money.”

Sooner or later, no matter how dedicated we are, the grind gets to us, leading to fatigue, irritability, and a progressive decline in motivation. We are too busy to sit down, look at the big picture, and think about what we might do to break that vicious cycle. This is detrimental to our own well-being, as well as that of our patients.

You need to maintain your intellectual and emotional health as carefully as you maintain your equipment by scheduling “mental rejuvenation days.” Once a month, take a day off to relax, think, and challenge your mind.

Stephen R. Covey, author of “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” calls this “sharpening the saw,” and applying it regularly can be a life-changing experience.

I'm not simply talking about catching up on journals or taking a CME course, although that's how I spend some of my rejuvenation days. Once in awhile, try something new, something you've been thinking about doing “someday, when there is time.”

Take a piano lesson. Learn to sail. Finally read “War and Peace.” Take your spouse someplace for a long weekend. Get out of your comfort zone. Challenge yourself.

I know how some of you feel about “wasting” a day: You consider it lost money. Vacations are even worse, because overhead money continues to go out and no revenue is coming in.

That whole paradigm is wrong. Stop thinking day to day. Think year to year instead. You bring in a given amount of revenue per year—more on some days, less on other days, none on weekends and vacation days. It all averages out in the end. Besides, this is much more important than money. This is breaking the routine, clearing the cobwebs, living your life.

Last month my wife and I drove to New Hampshire, checked into a bed-and-breakfast, and climbed Mount Monadnock, the most-climbed mountain in North America. It was her idea (she is much more fit than I), but as I huffed and puffed up the trail, I didn't have the time—or the slightest inclination—to worry about the office. We were only gone 3 days, but it felt like a week, and I came back ready to take on the world and my practice.

And I came back with some great ideas—practical, medical, and literary. Original thoughts are hard to come by during the daily grind, but they often appear, unannounced, in a new and refreshing environment.

Creative people have long recognized the value of rejuvenation days. A classic example is the oft-told story of Swiss research scientists K. Alex Müller and J. Georg Bednorz. In 1986 they reached a major impasse in their superconductivity research; it appeared 2 decades of work might be for naught. Spending a day in the library to clear his head, Müller decided to put aside his troubles and look up a subject that had always interested him: ceramics.

Nothing could have been further from his research field, of course, since ceramics are among the poorest conductors known. Yet as he relaxed and read, it occurred to Müller that a unique property of ceramics might apply to their project. Back in the lab, the team created a ceramic compound that became the first successful “high-temperature” superconductor.

The rest, as they say, is history; Mr. Müller and Mr. Bednorz won the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physics and triggered an explosion of research leading to breakthroughs in computing, electricity transmission, magnetically elevated trains, and many other applications.

Your rejuvenation days may not change the world, but they will change you. They will give you fresh ideas, and help you look at the same old problems in completely new ways.

And to those who still can't bear the thought of taking time off, remember Eastern's Second Law: Your last words will NOT be, “I wish I had spent more time in the office!”

To respond to this column, e-mail Dr. Eastern at sknews@elsevier.com

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