A physician's guide to controlling stress.

When Ban Carson goes to work, it really is brain surgery. How does a top neurosurgeon balance life's conflicting demands?

Ben Carson's life is like that of a juggler with a book balanced on his head riding a unicycle on a high wire. Every movement is efficient and focused, planned and designed, so that each rotation of the wheel and the balls segues smoothly into the next.

Carson is a celebrated neurosurgeon, known worldwide for leading a medical team that separated West German conjoined twins in 1987. He has also refined the techniques for hemispherectomy, a radical brain surgery to stop intractable seizures. As the director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institution in Baltimore, Maryland, he's an administrator and a teacher. He's an author of two autobiographical books, Gifted Hands and Think Big. He sits on the board of directors of the Kellogg Company and is a Fellow of the Yale Corporation, the governing body of Yale University, his alma mater. He's in demand as a speaker and travels extensively, talking about his life and philosophy. A few years ago he founded the Carson Scholars Fund and added a philanthropist ball to his collection.

In addition to all these very public responsibilities, Carson is a husband, father, and son. Raised by a single mother with a third-grade education, he's fiercely devoted to his family, which includes his wife, Candy, and three sons Murray, Benjamin, Jr., and Rhoeyce, ranging in age from 14 to 11. His mother, Sonya, also lives with them.

Finding Focus

How does Ben Carson juggle so many responsibilities and still maintain his focus and his balance? A typical day for Carson may involve hours of surgery without a break for food and other essentials. Most of us could survive a day like that, but a week?

"Typically in a week I do 10 operations and a couple clinics, and see 60 patients. I usually have at least one speaking engagement; sometimes these appointments are at hospital functions, but others are possible. I do laboratory investigations. Sometimes I give lectures to the medical students or residents. Those would be the things that deal with work. Then at home at nighttime I play pool or Ping-Pong with the boys. After church we have philosophical discussions about the book of Proverbs," says Carson, who is a Seventh-day Adventist Christian. "On weekends we are absolutely inundated with phone calls from people who want me to do something."

The Carsons also make time to host or attend a potluck with friends from their Bible study group at least once a month.

"Friendships are hard to maintain when you are as busy as I am," he says. "Most of my friends are church-related people, the people that I work with, and people who are in business and on boards."

Setting Priorities

Your life may seem like you're standing still in comparison, but you still feel busy, stressed, pressured for time, exhausted, disconnected from your families. How does Carson seemingly do it all?

"I ask God for wisdom to start every morning, because the priorities change from day to day. The real key for me is to start every morning and end every day that way, so that I can prioritize. I work far enough ahead so things don't become crises and I am not reacting to crises all the time. It definitely requires long-range planning," says Carson. "I have a schedule sitting on my desk at all times. I'm constantly looking through it so that I put things into context as they come up.

I write my family into my schedule--because if I don't, all those other things will come in and invade that time, and I'll wind up being one of those people who never sees their kids. It will just say reserved. That way someone [can't say], `Here's some time; it's just your family time, you can do it here.' To them family's not important. To me it is."

Not even the press of work keeps him from regularly connecting with his family.

"My philosophy is that I'm never going to get finished at the hospital. There's always another scan to review, another problem, some emergency. That never stops. I'd just rather be clone at 7:00 or 7:30, go home, and be able to see the kids and spend some time with them than not to be done at 11:30 or 12:00, go home, and find they're already asleep. What difference does it make if I'm not done with it at 7:30 versus 11:307 I'm not going to be done with it either way," he says. "By the same token, I try to make sure that the weekend time is spent with the family."

Family Strategies

To stay connected with his boys, Carson has developed special strategies.

"I ask them each for a fact every day. I tell them that they need to tell me something I don't know. I think they look forward to coming up with something. Obviously, I talk to them about their schoolwork. And I ask them, `What kind of fun thing would you like to do?'"

He and his equally busy wife, Candy--who is a musician, owns a travel agency, and serves as executive secretary for the Carson Scholars Fund--stay connected through technology.

"We both have little telephones, so we talk a lot of times during the day. She goes with me frequently when I go away, and so we have an opportunity to spend some quality time away from the kids."

You may complain about having time to read the headlines, let alone the whole newspaper. How does a man in whose hands many lives are placed stay current in a field in which innovation or the lack of it may mean extended life or sure death?

"I have a research associate whose job is to review all the current articles and bring the pertinent ones to my, attention. When I fly, I take the articles with me and read them. I make use of every minute. When you do that, it's amazing what you can get done. Busy people very frequently learn tricks of efficiency. You learn how to organize your schedule. If I have five minutes, I'm going to pick up a phone and dictate an op note from the morning."

Or eat. In a day filled with many balls in the air, eating lunch is not guaranteed.

Balancing Physical Stresses

"I eat breakfast every morning. My wife makes sure that breakfast is on the table, and I eat a well-balanced meal when I get back home at night no matter what time it is," says Carson, a vegetarian, who adds that he never eats hospital or cafeteria food.

Breakfast usually consists of a bowl of cereal or sometimes a muffin and a glass of juice.

"But if I know I'm not going to eat that day because I have a 12- to 14-hour operation, I'll eat a fairly big breakfast: pancakes, vegetarian breakfast sausage, toast," he says. "During the day I at least have a lunch with me, although sometimes I don't get to eat it. If I get five minutes, I'll eat."

With such a grueling schedule, sleep--though minimal--is efficient.

"I try to get six hours of sleep. That seems to be all my body requires. I try to arrange my schedule so that if I don't get it one night, I at least try to make sure I get it the next night," Carson says. "I keep stress to a minimum. Neurosurgery is one of the three most stress-related jobs. The average age of death for neurosurgeons is 59 years of age. I don't get stressed out because of my faith. I say, `Lord, I'm just going to do what I can.' He gets the credit for the good things and the blame for the bad things, so I just go in and relax."

That's if 12-hour surgeries are your idea of relaxing. For a man who meets those kinds of physical demands regularly, you would think more exercise would be out of the question.

"I do concentrate on that," Carson says. "I try to run up and down stairs. I'm frequently totally exhausted by the time I get to the top, but it gives me a lot of aerobic exercise. I have one of those universal gymnasiums, but I seldom get home early enough to use it. I play tennis. I bike with the boys. I regularly say to people: `If you eat three balanced meals a day, get enough exercise regularly, get a good night's sleep, and don't do harmful things like drinking and smoking, you'd put us doctors out of business.'"

Juggling the statistics about his profession with what he recommends to others versus what he is able to do himself, doesn't something suffer?

"Everything suffers," Carson admits. "It's a matter of minimizing the suffering. Obviously I could spend full-time doing any of these things. And if I spent full-time on any of them, they would be that much better. So by definition, everything suffers all the time. But the key is in an imperfect world to keep things running as smoothly as possible."

Pretty intense, even for a baby boomer. Is it possible to be too busy?

"When I think I'm busy I think frequently about the life of Christ. I think back on all the things He did in a few years--that puts things into perspective. I think, Man, He was a busy guy. I also think about what a short time we are here. Our life spans are like a flash in the pan. Trying to keep things in perspective is really the key."

What an extraordinarily balanced view!

Vikki Montgomery Fields is a freelance writer/editor in Takoma Park, Maryland. Her mission in life is to communicate positive lifestyle solutions and to crate and promote resources, products,a nd services that enhance quality of life, particularly for families with children.