Russ Gerber is a long-time advocate of the thought/health connection. His thoughts about how to get the greatest health benefits from our leisure time seem especially timely as Kansas shows signs that warmer weather is here to stay for a while! I think that you will enjoy this excerpt from Russ Gerber’s April 9, 2014 article “Summertime Is Coming, and the Livin’ Should Be Leisurely” in Spot55 and hope that you will follow the link below the excerpt to the full article… Maybe now is the time to start thinking, or re-thinking, leisure time. Authentic leisure is good for everyone. It’s not just revitalizing; it’s healthy. But to make the most of leisure it helps to widen rather than narrow our concept of the term, which means not only to be free from the demands of routine work (even for just a weekend), but also to be mentally still and reflective. Leisure is culturally misunderstood, says philosopher Joseph Pieper, who maintains that to receive the full benefit of time away from business and chores requires an ability to let things go, to be calm, and most of all to be receptive. In his now-classic essay, “Leisure, the Basis of Culture,”Pieper explains: “Leisure is the disposition of receptive understanding, of contemplative beholding, and immersion — in the real.”