Manevitz | online counseling Web site | technology control | compulsive worker

One of the simplest things he recommends is imaging. Just take a few moments out of the workday to imagine yourself in whatever you think is an ideal place. Then relax, and allow your breathing and muscles to relax as your mind does. For a compulsive worker, says Manevitz, this sort of exercise improves the sense of flexibility. It also helps people learn to be "in the moment, meaning to be able to fully experience what you are doing at any given time, rather than being a participant observer who is thinking about what else you should be doing."

And of vital importance, Manevitz stresses, is planning a realistic vacation with realistic goals. Because workaholics often try to cover maximum ground whether working or playing ("All the capitals of Europe in a week? Sure!"), they often take vacations from which one needs a vacation to recover. Just don't do it. If you do, he explains, the vacation won't be the re-energizing experience it should.

Manevitz is, by the way, dispensing this advice about not overdoing it via cell phone as he travels between sessions for patients he's counseling during a vacation weekend. Also on the schedule for his relaxing two-day break are discussions with a colleague about developing an online counseling Web site, going through two or three file cabinets he's schlepped out to the Hamptons, playing softball, and, he admits cheerfully, a list of five or six other things.
"Different people find different vacation scenarios relaxing," chuckles Sussman. And in these rapidly changing times, "The point is to work on knowing yourself rather than following society's old rules about what constitutes getting away from it all." AW

8 DO'S AND DON'TS FOR TODAY'S VACATION-TAKER
DON'T try to go cold turkey technologically. Just don't dial up or log on unnecessarily or compulsively. ("Don't let the technology control you; let technology enable you to control your life," as Dr. Manevitz puts it.)