How Not to Commit Suicide

Businessmen with heart trouble should always run to catch their trains, shovel snow, smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and lose their tempers frequently. Fat men should eat heartily to make sure they stay fat. Middle-aged executives should play 72 holes of golf or five sets of tennis singles with a teen-ager every weekend. Above all, every executive should work as if there were 28 hours in each day, and whenever an ailment crops up, avoid doctors and treat it himself.

These suicide tips are Dr. Peter J. Steincrohn's shock treatment for businessmen in his tart, trenchant book: Mr. Executive: Keep Well--Live Longer (Frederick Fell; $4.95). In a medical memo addressed to the health hazards and cures of the stresses of life in the executive suite, Dr. Steincrohn, who is also a newspaper columnist (60 papers), makes a plea for good sense and moderation in the businessman's own terms. "The prematurely sick or dead executive is a failure," says Steincrohn. "He has let down his family, his friends, his corporation. And often the executive most brilliant in his work may be the most stubborn and obtuse when it comes to keeping healthy and staying alive."

Tension is the businessman's health nemesis, says Dr. Steincrohn, and while some of his remedies for tension are predictable, others are not. Among them:

P:Busy executives should not be at the mercy of jangling, work-disruptive telephone calls. Secretaries should be instructed to take all calls, let the businessman call back at fixed telephone breaks in his daily schedule.

P: Every executive suite should have a couch, and the afternoon snooze a sacred place in the routine. Loosening shoelaces when sitting for long periods is also a surprising relaxer, and too-tight collars can create as many executive headaches as bumbling clerks.

P: The leisurely lunch should be an essential "oasis in the desert" of the workday. If the executive is too busy to eat except on the run, it is better not to eat at all.

P: A massage a day will keep tension away; but if it is not feasible, six deep breaths two or three times a day will give tired tissues an oxygen lift, as will bending over and shaking arms and hands "until they tingle."

The author has no patience with the middle-aged biceps philosophy "that exercise is good for creaking joints and beat-up circulatory systems." It should be taken but only in moderation, e.g., nine holes of golf for the middleaged. Too much exercise is dynamite, he says: "Many get away with it, but many get away with Russian roulette, too." But what is good for the executive system is 1 or 2 oz. of liquor ("but not a drop more") before dinner at night. "I feel it relaxes tension; it helps remove the grip of pressure. It promotes appetite and amiability."

But all the self-care in the world is no substitute for an annual, thorough medical checkup, says Dr. Steincrohn. He estimates that at least 100,000 executives now have such a physical a year. The executive should also give himself his own test: Does he worry too much day in and day out over his job? If he does, the chances are that he is not temperamentally cut out to be an executive. In this case, the only sane--and businesslike--solution to keep well and live longer: give up being an executive.

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