Saturday 30 July 2011

Hasya Bytes


Laugh And Live Longer

Bible: ‘A merry heart hath a cheerful countenance,’ and
‘doeth good like a medicine.’

Aristotle: ‘Laughter is the bodily exercise precious to health.’

Now doctors and psychologists in USA and UK are studying the
medical benefits of laughter on the human body and have
confirmed that laughter is really the best medicine.

Thursday 28 July 2011

Action Plan for Welcoming Hasya Into Your Life


  • Watch films and television features that make you laugh. 
  • Be with cheerful people. Avoid the Cassandras and the Agony Uncles. Avoid toxic people.
  • Read and share jokes on the internet.
  • Smile.  Do not smother a laugh.
  • Play with babies, make them giggle.
·          Buy balloons for toddlers.
  • Listen to laughter in a school playground.

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Laughter is a natural pain-killer


Laughter increases the levels of endorphins in our bodies, which are natural pain-killers.  Norman Cousins, an American journalist who wrote Anatomy of an Illness was suffering from an incurable disease of the spine.  Laughter therapy helped him when no pain-killer could.  Endorphins released as a result of laughter may help in reducing the intensity of pain in those suffering from arthritis, spondylitis and muscular spasms of the body.  Many women have also reported a reduced frequency of migraine and tension headaches. Norman cousins recovered from what is usually a fatal disease

He who laughs frequently is less likely to suffer from heart attacks.  ‘A light answer turneth away wrath,’ says a proverb.  An anger hijack can be stopped by a joke.
Laughter is certainly the best medicine.

Laughter controls high blood pressure and heart disease


There are a number of causes for high blood pressure and heart disease like heredity, obesity, smoking and excessive intake of saturated fats.  But stress is one of the main factors.  Laughter definitely helps control blood pressure by reducing the release of stress-related hormones and bringing relaxation.

In experiments it has been proved that there is a drop of 10-20 mm in blood pressure after participating for ten minutes in a laughter session.  It does not mean that those who are taking 2-3 tablets for blood pressure every day will be completely cured.  Maybe, you will require two tablets if you are taking three, or if you are a borderline high blood pressure patient, you may not require any medication after some time.  It takes years to develop high blood pressure.  It cannot be reversed in a few days or a month.  But definitely laughter will exercise some control and arrest further progress of the disease.

If you are at high risk of developing heart disease, laughter could be the best preventive medicine.  Those who are suffering from heart disease and have stabilised on medication will find that laughter improves the blood circulation and oxygen supply to the heart muscles.  Due to improvement of blood circulation there are less chances of forming a clot.  Those who have had heart attacks or have undergone bypass surgery can also participate in laughter therapy.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

Hasya (Laughter) Rasa




The greatest of all miracles is health. Every day our bodies are attacked by millions of microbes, viruses and bacteria.  The body is able to repulse these invaders and protect itself.  This mechanism is called the immune response.  The body’s immune response is enhanced by laughter.

Laughter is like internal jogging.  It fills your mindspace with positive emotions.  Emotionally it is relaxing, reducing harmful muscle tension.  Endorphins and serotonin flow into the blood, resulting in a peaceful happy state of mind.  A good bout of laughter also reduces the levels of stress hormones epinephrine and cortisol. 

Sunday 24 July 2011

Action Plan for Welcoming Sringara Into Your Life


Let love come in:
You need to invite those who love you and those whom you love to enter your life.  You may have friends whom you have no time to meet, children who know you only through orders you issue to study well, keep their rooms neat, or cut their hair.

Give love space and time: 
Love needs both quality and quantity time. One cannot replace the other.  Leisurely spaces allow love to take roots and grow.  Love does not need an itinerary, or be totally programmed according to your convenience.  It flourishes in idleness, in long companionable silences, in tears and in stumbling.  Sharing is its life breath. 

Celebrate Love
Celebrate anniversaries. Be generous with affirmations ‘What I really like about you is ….’ Create occasions to show verbally, tonally, and non-verbally that you care.

Family get-togethers affirm the bonds of blood and celebrate them.  Launching a family e-bulletin is a celebration of together news.  Everyone needs  ‘Oh’!  moments;  they heal the heart with good chemicals and peace.


Friday 22 July 2011

Sringara (Love) Rasa


Love is a great healing rasa. Giving and receiving it energizes and expand your inner self. 

There are many types of love ranging from ‘vatsalya’ or mother’s love, to ‘meithri’ the love of friends (according to the Greeks, the highest love is ‘platonic’ love―the pure love between friends),  love of the nation, and the universal love and reverence one feels for all living creatures.

Plant the seeds of love in your mindspace, give it space to grow and celebrate it.

Action Plan for Welcoming Karuna into Your Life


Take up a sport.
           Take up a hobby.
           Become a volunteer.
           Join your local community association.
           Get involved in your spiritual community.
           Reach out for someone today.
           Plug into the healing web of relationships.
           Establish a family assembly.
           Develop family traditions.
           Eat together.
           Give your child a hug.
           Join or establish self-help groups. www.selfhelpweb.org.


Thursday 21 July 2011

Karuna (Compassion) Rasa


When you give compassionately, you receive the gift of happiness.  The Buddhists believe in metta bhavana, a feeling of immeasurable loving-kindness towards all living beings. Like colour dropped into a glass of clear water, metta bhavana colours and permeates your whole life with the joy of all beings. In systems like pranic healing or reiki or even in organised religions, one prays for the peace and happiness of all beings in the universe. This can be an unending source of joy.

Sharing, helping each other and cultivating strong social relationships keep us healthy and contribute to a peaceful life. The rasa of compassion is a great source of creating a positive mental state and fortifying the body’s immune system as it taps into the feel-good chemicals in the body. 

Studies have shown that those with eight to six close relationships were healthier than those with less than four. It is this feeling that promotes altruism and the many service clubs in the world. We need social relationships to truly thrive. Social networks can help us change our health activities. Laughter Club, Alcoholics Anonymous (the Twelve-step programme), Weight Watchers International, regular dance and exercise groups are examples.

Pets in cancer wards have been found to improve healing and reduce the negative response to chemotherapy.

We need social relationships to be methodically developed to promote compassion and mutual empathy.  

Tuesday 19 July 2011

Navarasas of The Human Heart

Emotions, and the way you deal with them can affect your health. This guide will help you understand the impact of nine primary emotions in maintaining health. The positive emotions create a positive field which fills your blood with the chemicals of happiness and wellbeing. They are conducive to the building or rebuilding of the healthy heart.  The negative emotions create a negative field which fills your blood with the chemicals of unrest and unhappiness.

Navarasas are a two-thousand-year-old Indian concept of emotions which see the mind as a space filled with positive and negative emotions. These emotions are: love, laughter, compassion, chivalry, anger, fear, abhorrence and wonder. Shantha or peace is the result of handling all these emotions correctly.

Obviously, the positive emotions or states like love, humour, compassion, chivalry and wonder put the mind in a happy and enthusiastic state, thereby fostering health. On the other hand, the negative rasas like anger, fear and abhorrence produce a state of mind which creates, as described in Daniel Goleman’s book, an ‘emotional hijack’.

The Big Five negative emotions are Lust, Anger, Arrogance, Greed and Jealousy. They are listed both in Hinduism and Buddhism as generating an atmosphere of unrest in the mind.  In this state, the fog of negative emotions slows and confuses the mind. During meditative practices, the chemicals of peace and tranquillity flow into the blood.  Breathing, heart rate and pulse rate stabilise.  The mind is able to function calmly and freely. An alert and relaxed attitude is required for the teamwork involved in building ideas and analysing them.  Self-awareness of your state of mind can help you get the most out of life and lead to a healthy heart.

Each of the major rasas has a few stable sentiments and many passing, transient emotions. The permanent sentiments are pleasure, laughter, grief, anger, zeal, awe, disgust and surprise.  All the major rasas will have elements of these feelings.  In love, there will be the pleasure of union and the grief of parting. Many scholars add the ninth rasa, Shantha Rasa (or the rapture of peace).  The mutable sentiments are not present in all the rasas.  A few are present in each of the rasas.  They are like passing clouds and there are thirty-three of them.  

Inclusion and Exclusion

Belonging to a supportive nurturing group, is the best protection you can have against disease and unhappiness. Being loved can prevent you from the flood of negative emotions that have the capacity to destroy you.
With the breakdown of the joint family in India, the shock absorber of family ties is threatened. Nuclear families are creating explosive situations, which are lethal.
Invest in your family. Keep in touch with your extended family. Join supportive groups.
Being ‘included’ in a group is very healing. Study the group to which you belong and see whether you share:
common goals
a common language
shared jokes
your pet-name
personal successes and failures
time together
a common shorthand of thinking and speaking
compliments
comfort and support
affirmations and help

Saturday 16 July 2011

Phrases that would destroy relationships

Your words are often experienced by others like lethal weapons. When sent out with matching non-verbal signals or HSMs, they can demolish people. Watch your verbal, tonal and non-verbal arrows.
  • What I can’t stand about you is…
  • You’re always messing thing up.
  • Trust you to come up with an impossible idea.
  • Every time you come here, there is a mess.
  • You have no idea about this.
  • We’ve tried all that you say. It doesn’t work.
· It sounds O.K, but it is quite impractical
  • Be serious. Be practical.
  • Has anyone done it before?
  • Let’s ask fifty people about it.
  • You don’t understand our culture

Wednesday 13 July 2011

Happiness Mantras


Happiness Mantra 1: Each new day holds out a chance to create a whole new beginning, a sparkling new field of possibilities.

Happiness Mantra 2: The ecology, the geography of your inner mindspace, is in your hands.

Happiness Mantra 3: 'Swayambhu' is a word that describes happiness welling out of you, like an underground stream in the mountains.

Happiness Mantra 4: Focus on Stress and unhappiness should be turned upside down. Instead of attacking unhappiness, we should plant a garden of happiness, by welcoming the positive emotions into our lives - love, compassion, wonder, courage, laughter and peace.

Happiness Mantra 5: Focusing on our unhappiness by attacking it only helps to magnetize more power and attention to the negative person, event or object that causes it. Hence focus on cultivating happy people and avoid toxic people.

Happiness Mantra 6: When the garden is clean and blooming and full of life, the snakes of anger have no place to hide; the thorns of greed get cleared away. When the clutter of old hatreds is replaced by order, the flowers of friendship bloom. The scorpions of revenge and jealousy slither away and the butterflies of laughter return to celebrate the flowers.

Happiness Mantra 7:  Too much television is ‘Tele-visham’ – (Tele poison). Too much stimulation, a mindspace crowded by fantasy people and events, distracts you from focusing on your own mindspace, your home, your backyard.

Happiness Mantra 8:  Some days we seem to live a fantasy life dominated by day dreams, while reality tugs at our heartstrings for attention, like a neglected child. Take care of what is yours and enjoy it.

Happiness Mantra 9:  Let the cells of your body be gently bathed in happiness, positive thoughts and healing energies.

Happiness Mantra 10: ‘Physical fitness is the most important thing in life. The capacity to attain perfection of mind and soul depends on your physical health. Take care of yourself as no one else can do it for you.’

Happiness Mantra 11: All the ancients believed that no attempt should be made to cure the body without treating the soul.

Happiness Mantra 12: To be healthy is to have the ability, despite an occasional bout of illness, to live with full use of your faculties and to be vigorous, alert and happy to be alive, even in old age. This concept of operational health has been termed ‘wellness’.

Happiness Mantra 13: Meditation produces beneficial effects such as reduction of tension, lowering of blood pressure, relaxation of muscles, increased concentration and work efficiency, and increase of immunological resistance to diseases.

Happiness Mantra 14: Service to others, music, prayer—all are forms of meditation—make the blood flow with serotonins—the happiness chemical. Hindu scriptures enjoin five types of service known as pancha-mahayajna—service to gods; service to sages; service to ancestors; service to humans, guests and the poor; and service to animals.


Happiness Mantra 15: Health is the foundation for a feeling of wellbeing and joy. It is very difficult to be full of enthusiasm if you are not in a state of positive health.

Happiness Mantra 16: Listen to your body. If you are tired, rest. If you are hungry, eat. If you are lonely, communicate, ask for a hug. If you are angry, deal with your anger constructively, resolve it.

Happiness Mantra 17: The body is our vehicle for the journey of our soul in this world. You may be an immortal soul who happens to own a body, but the body-vehicle has to be maintained in good condition, so that we may achieve the goals for which we were created.

Happiness Mantra 18: Yogasanas in conjunction with pranayama bring harmony and balance to every part of the body, and are extremely therapeutic for the body, mind and soul. They mould every part of the body to its ideal contour through various postures.

Happiness Mantra 19: Around every person there is a field of emotional energy. Some people always look and feel radiant and everything in their life flourishes and grows. They have a positive energy field around them.

Happiness Mantra 20: Some people, always feel and look morose and tense, everything in their life seems to fade and die. They have a negative energy field around them. The positive field is created by positive emotions and the negative field draws sustenance from negative emotions.

Happiness Mantra 21: Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of wellbeing. The positive field is created by tools and behaviours that may be verbal, tonal and non-verbal.

Happiness Mantra 22: Meditation, practiced regularly, helps develop the capacity to be analytical, positive and disciplined, and eliminate negative fields.

Happiness Mantra 23: Affirmations are the most important constituent of the positive field. It is a verbal, tonal or non-verbal act of appreciation. If you have to say something unpleasant, do it as kindly as possible, while genuinely appreciating the good qualities of the person and the relationship.

Happiness Mantra 24: The energy field around a person is most affected by positive, soul-level motives or ‘sankalpa’. If the gut-level motives are positive, the mere lack of skill in verbal, tonal and non–verbal transmissions can be overcome.

Happiness Mantra 25: When work is done with love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space.

Happiness Mantra 21: Learning to create a positive field is an important part of the climate of wellbeing. The positive field is created by tools and behaviours that may be verbal, tonal and non-verbal.

Happiness Mantra 22: Meditation, practiced regularly, helps develop the capacity to be analytical, positive and disciplined, and eliminate negative fields.

Happiness Mantra 23:  Affirmations are the most important constituent of the positive field. It is a verbal, tonal or non-verbal act of appreciation..  If you have to say something unpleasant, do it as kindly as
possible, while genuinely appreciating the good qualities of the person and the relationship.’

Happiness Mantra 24: The energy field around a person is most affected by positive, soul-level motives or ‘sankalpa’.  If the gut-level motives are positive, the mere lack of skill in verbal, tonal and non–verbal transmissions can be overcome.

Happiness Mantra 25: When work is done with love, it fills the body and mind with bliss and transforms any place into a sacred space.

Happiness Mantra 26:  The Divine spark is the silent flame of consciousness that reaches out to you from a flowering creeper or a healthy pet. 

Happiness Mantra 27:  Auspiciousness or a feeling of wellbeing is created in a space or a field by treating it as sacred.

Happiness Mantra 28: When you consider yourself as sacred, you will treat yourself well. Just as you put on clean fresh clothes, you will also clean up the mental space or field around you.  Sweep out all ill will, anger, fear and anxiety.

Happiness Mantra 29: Drala is created by the reverence, purity and faith within a space. When a person treats his office space with reverence and keeps it clean and sparkling, he attracts drala into that space.

Happiness Mantra 30: Prana is the life force that flows in all living things.  When the life force leaves the body, the body dies. Kirlian photography has captured pictures of the pranic aura

Happiness Mantra 31: Prana enhances the positive field and the vital life force flows freely through it. It creates a powerful positive field—a field of all possibilities where any seed of an idea will develop rapidly.

Happiness Mantra 32:  Meditation is the broom that sweeps out the negative emotions and pours in the honey of tranquility into the mind.  There are many forms of meditation

Happiness Mantra 33: Often our senses are scrambled and numbed by the hurry of life. Each of the senses provides us with new adventures and helps us to live more fully.

Happiness Mantra 34: Enjoy the skill of the great architect of the universe. 

Happiness Mantra 35: In the silence, become aware of yourself.  Be aware of your body as full of health and energy.

Happiness Mantra 36: Be aware of your breathing, the beating of your heart.  Once you are aware of your body in silence, in peace and tranquility, then you begin to notice immediately, the destructive effects of stress.
Happiness Mantra 37: Be completely aware of the shift of feelings from moment to moment.  Knowing exactly how you feel can help you make better emotional decisions.
Happiness Mantra 38: The springboard is a tool that can help generate a positive field around you.  When someone offers you an idea, first as a discipline, look for those things about the idea that please you.

Happiness Mantra 39: A negative field is toxic with distrust. In the negative field, individuals are afraid to think differently; new ideas wither before they are formulated.

Happiness Mantra 40: In the negative field, only the most obvious ideas, which appear practical and sensible will be shared. All but the most obvious ideas will be rejected. These ideas will be of little use because they are probably centuries old.

Happiness Mantra 41: You can change the negative field by first changing yourself and filling the field with the positive emotions like love and compassion.

Happiness Mantra 42: Erase all tapes that are hurting, upsetting and destructive.  Every time you play them unconsciously you damage your body, causing your tissues to be bathed in acid toxins.

Happiness Mantra 43: A place can have a positive or negative field.  You can feel it when you enter a temple or church where regular services are performed. The feeling of prayerful sacredness envelopes all who go to that space.

Happiness Mantra 44: It is energy that causes all beings to act in this world.  The higher the level of positive energy, the greater the accomplishments.

Happiness Mantra 45: The universal life energy acts and lives in all created matter.  It is necessary at all times to make sure that the creation of a negative field is carefully avoided.

Happiness Mantra 46: Mankind is paying a steep price for failing to learn more about the Mind before embarking on the race for success in the new millennium.

Happiness Mantra 47: Stress is the price we pay for success. Stress stalks the precarious climb up the corporate ladder.

Happiness Mantra 48: It is being slowly realised that economic prosperity can lead to poverty in the quality of life and health.

Happiness Mantra 49: Many have to confront the question of how their values measure up against their need to own and have the world’s goodies.

Happiness Mantra 50: The fashionable corporate high of fast-track leaders—eyes shining, excess nervous energy, multi-tasking, dynamism personified—is achieved at the expense of a tissue-destroying high.
Happiness Mantra 51: You have a much better chance of doing what you love as an artist, sportsman, musician or film maker today than ever before.

Happiness Mantra 52: Women have moved into the workforce in an unmistakable wave. In modern societies today, many of them bear the dual burden of managing the home and a career. Be Ardhanareshwara. Achieve work life balance.

Phrases for Building Lifetime Relationships


There are simple words of reassurance that can miraculously improve the energy field.  They provide support and encouragement to those around.  Use them often, but use them sincerely.

  • I agree.

  • I really enjoy talking to you.

  • That’s good!

  • Good job!

  • I made a mistake, I’m sorry.

  • I like the way you left your room cleaned up today.

  • I couldn’t do it that well even if I tried.

  • That’s a great idea!

  • You’re on the right track.

  • That’s a winner!

  • I believe you can do it!

  • I know you can make it work!

  • If anyone can do it, you can.

  • Congratulations!

  • Beautiful!

What I really like about you is…

Monday 11 July 2011

Social Bonding

No man is an island, but a part of the Main,’ said the pensive poet John Donne.  Man is a social being, and interpersonal intelligence is the ability to understand other people.  It is to be able to see what motivates them, how they work and how to work cooperatively with them.  Interpersonal intelligence is the inward sense of being able to understand oneself, to form an accurate model of oneself and to operate that model effectively to live life.  Professor Howard Gardner of the Harvard School of Psychology told me that the two aspects of personal intelligence, interpersonal and intrapersonal, form the most important foundation for a happy, fulfilling life.  To those who define success as happiness, these two elements can be the bedrock of a happy life.

Sensitive people can empathize with others.  They can understand the feelings of others as though they were feeling it themselves.  This skill involves being able to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non–verbal signals from others.  Charismatic leaders are able to reach others by breaking the barrier that exists between people.  A charismatic speaker can make thousands of people react like one mind.

The Upanishads say that the divine spark or life force exists in all—the leader, the leper, the judge and the criminal. 

The concept of a life force is recognised in all cultures. It is called Chi by the Chinese; Light, or Holy Ghost, by Christians; Prana by the Hindus; Mana by the Kahunas and; Bioplasmic Energy by Russians researchers.

It is conceivable and probable that the following words also describe the life force or prana:

Sunday 10 July 2011

Innovation In Living Spaces

Peter Drucker, in his classic work on innovation, speaks of a real estate company which became a success in a depressed post-war market. It was months after the Second World War. No one was buying a house. Young people, just married, were particularly averse to investing in a home. Till a young real estate genius created a runaway success. He did not sell houses, he sold dreams. He sold a little 200 square foot studio apartment with a 2000 square foot blueprint of a dream house. ‘Build your dream home as and when you can afford it, in modules,’ was the message. He used the concept that people invest in dreams rather than immediately visible, touch and feel products.

The innovation tool, ‘Turn it upside down,’ helped me turn a major corporate hospital brand from a place of illness to a sanctuary of wellness. The same hospital taught me that the most important element of a place of healing is not the floor, not the walls, not the counters…. These things are important to care-givers who are on their feet and vertical to the floor. But hospitals are built for patients—most of whom are horizontal, on their back, lying on beds, looking at the CEILING. One of the hospitals where special care has been lavished on the ceiling is the Singhania’s hospital in Kota. The ceilings are a blaze of colour. Collages are created out of broken marble chips. What must have started as an attempt to practice economy, has resulted in a masterpiece to keep patients as happy and amused ‘watching the changing patterns on the ceiling like clouds in the sky!

Wednesday 6 July 2011

Toward an Innovative Workplace


The lack of resources forces us to innovate.
§ Tough times help us adapt.
§ Tough times force us to think outside the box or even eliminate the box.
§ Everything changes—people, products, companies; men, materials, machines, methods, markets and money (the six Ms).
§ Creativity is the spark and innovation the fire in the fireplace, which cooks and bakes.
§ Creativity involves four components—the Creative Person, the Creative Process, the Creative Product and the    Creative Climate or environment.
§ An environment replete with the positive emotions of love, peace, bravery and compassion provides a positive climate, which nurtures creativity.
§ Creativity training at IBM, whose motto is ‘Think’ resulted in producing the largest number of patented inventions.
§ Innovation should be part of everyone’s job description.
§ Vision and leadership are necessary to inspire a widespread commitment to innovation.
§ The lack of collaboration between departments stifles innovation.
§ Motivation of employees and innovation complement one another.

§ Team work drives innovation.

§ The ability to thrive in an environment of rapid change is essential.
§ Money and resources are essential lubricants of the innovation process.
§ Conformism and stereotypes hinder creative problem solving.
§ Innovation should be focused on specific business goals.
§ An open atmosphere ensures greater productivity.
§ Efficient meetings are a trademark of innovative organisations
§ Innovation centres drive innovation.