Tips to Balance your Work and Life

1. Take short relaxation breaks, at least thrice a day. 2. Eat fresh, energy-giving foods. 3. Take a walk outdoors during lunch break. 4. Stay away from politics and back-biting. 5. Involve your spouse and children in your work. Bring them to the office during lunch break or on a Saturday. 6. Spend time reading and improving your mind. 7. Get involved in activities that will benefit others. 8. Develop an absorbing hobby or skill—driving, dancing, gardening, carpentry, painting, amateur radio, etc. 9. Keep in touch with your close friends and extended family, use the power of the internet.

Indigenous Health-Care Systems

The indigenous health-care system is commensurate with the traditional habits, lifestyle and value systems of a particular culture from where it has evolved. It cannot be effective if there is a radical change in the habits of that culture. This ‘patient–system– mismatch’ is very evident in the case of westernized American Indians who have lost their traditional healing capacities. On the contrary, the Keralites, for example, in spite of coming into contact with western culture, do not endorse its systems, and hold on to their own traditions. Perhaps that is why their age-old habit of using a high cholesterol diet has not resulted in an increased incidence of heart disease. The indigenous systems of medicine continue to have a stronghold in Kerala. All health-care systems, including modern medicine, are in agreement today over the issue that a patient’s psychological state has much to do with the healing process. Minor activities like taking part in a satsang, singing a tune you enjoy, and dancing for fun to your child’s delight can make you feel contented and allow the good chemicals flow. ‘The chief role of the doctor is, by various means, to induce the body to recover its trust in the Supreme Grace,’ said the Mother from Aurobindo Ashram, Pondicherry, decades ago. The contact of the patient with the physician is only an occasion to awaken him to the touch of the healer within.

New Ways for Corporate Women

Woman managers need to appreciate that it takes heroic energy to rock the cradle and rock the corporate world. First pin a badge for bravery on yourself for attempting it. Then, promise you will not even begin to tread the path that leads to the joyless land of being a super-woman or super-mom. Enlist your men and families as willing accomplices in the challenging task of reconstructing a corporate. Workplace that lovingly accommodates the needs of humans, for families, for music, poetry and time for just standing and watching the world go by! Be kind to yourself. Love yourself. Conquer fear and overcome the need for instructions. Pursue the ability to adapt and be a leader of proactive change. The New World is not for those who are what Nehru called unwilling victims, dragged to be sacrificed on the altar of change. Be leaders to be accepted as such. Banish forever your fear of being centre stage, your reluctance to accept that you are where the buck stops. Relearn and re-install the software of the human heart that your mothers embodied. The New Woman of the past decade must not forsaken her heritage of loving and caring for the tough hard-bitten so-called ‘male boss model.’ Both men and women managers need to put the human being at the centre of all business processes.

Key Elements in an Innovation Initiative

Stimulating Identifying people to be included in innovation initiative Help in selecting projects for creative problem solving Making available teams to work on projects Nurturing Officially recognize the teams and scope of activity. Schedule presentation to top management Provide a budget, Organize Innovation symposiums. Provide space and time for innovation spirals to meet Sustaining Start a MINDSPOWER club to meet once a month. Give innovation awards Celebrate good ideas. Prepare reports and publish success stories Use the innovation club for self development Reinstating Communicate results of Innovation Initiative Have annual awards for Best Teams

Survey on Happiness

A recent happiness survey shows that hairdressers have the highest levels of happiness at work! The reason? They are in direct touch with their customers. Chris Humphries, Director General of City and Guilds U.K., says: Nowadays, job satisfaction and happiness is about fulfilling your potential, tapping into your own creativity and feeling that you can make a difference. Many are exchanging their desk-bound jobs for vocations that enable them to be hands-on, use their brains and be in-change of their own destiny. In a Guardian article by Laura Smith, two out of five hairdressers described themselves as extremely happy. She gives two reasons: 1. Creativity 2. Contact with customers

Everyday Love

Our lives revolve round love. Next week our grandson Akira will be one year old. His little nostrils flare at the fragrance of a flower. He is an efficient drinker of milk and loves food. His perfect limbs stretch in strange flexible asanas and he does everything with noisy enthusiasm. He gazes up at the light and smiles to strange dreams. We are his puppets on a string. Glued to electronic toys are we forgetting the need to communicate love face to face? Are we forgetting daily acts of kindness and caring? While sms, email, Facebook or Twitter can enhance the instant communication of loving thoughts, nothing can replace the human touch. So make sure it plays a major role in building unbreakable bonds and bridges in your life. Let us send out valentines to those we care for, entitled “What I really love about you is……..” everyday!

Workplace Wellness Assessment

Here are some few questions to assess your workplace wellness: 1. Would it be personally profitable for me to spend more time reading? 2. Do I effectively balance time between family, social, academic and recreational activities? 3. Do I concentrate too hard on just getting the job done rather than on my whole career? 4. Do I see about my bosses as role models? 5. Do I hope that by improving my knowledge I will have a job and a good life? 6. Are there some active steps I might take today to ensure a successful future? 7. Would talking to professionals in various fields help improve my job awareness? 8. Would this be a frightening thing to do? 9. Are there some channels, people or sources that could make this a pleasant experience? 10. Have I honestly assessed my potential for growth and participation in future jobs? 11. Do I travel more than a week every month? 12. Do I rest when I am tired? 13. Have I learnt to say ‘No’ politely? Score a. Good: More than 9 Yeses b. Adequate: 5 or more Nos c. Poor: Less than 5 Nos

Innovation champion

An innovation champion, accredited to be a Four Ace MindsPower trainer with the necessary training and attitude, is critical to the success of the Innovation Initiative. The champion should have Innovation facilitators in every department. In addition, leaders of innovation spirals hold together the structural network required for the process to work. Top management support and empowerment of the champion are needed to provide autonomy and delegation, which are key to innovation.

Tips to Work-life Balance

1. Take short relaxation breaks, at least thrice a day. 2. Eat fresh, energy-giving foods. 3. Take a walk outdoors during lunch break. 4. Stay away from politics and back-biting. 5. Involve your spouse and children in your work. Bring them to the office during lunch break or on a Saturday. 6. Spend time reading and improving your mind. 7. Get involved in activities that will benefit others. 8. Develop an absorbing hobby or skill—driving, dancing, gardening, carpentry, painting, amateur radio, etc. 9. Keep in touch with your close friends and extended family, use the power of the internet. 10. Plan to cut off from work on weekends. 11. Meditate. Take care of yourself. 12. Look at your life-goals and evaluate your job to see if it will help you achieve them. 13. Learn to say ‘No’. 14. Remember that people are more important than getting ahead. 15. If you have a toxic workplace, look for another job. 16. Know that you are more important than the car you drive, house you inhabit, your bank balance or the promise of a foreign holiday.

Happiness for Health

Today so much of our lives are spent in the office. The corporate jungle takes an unimaginable toll on the heart. The endless deadlines, the deadly competitiveness, going from one crisis to another, negatively impact the body. Nature’s ultimate survival mechanism of fight or flight becomes a chronic response. Such a response is like using an atom bomb to kill an ant—totally inappropriate. Due to the modern urge to change jobs rapidly, many executives find themselves in threatening environments surrounded by potential enemies. They have had no time to develop friends or trusted supports. Every day they walk into the modern equivalent of a jungle infested with wild animals and danger. Family support systems are far away. Nuclear families build up explosive pressure due to a revolution of rising expectations, fuelled by the media. Many of us spend most of our time at work. If we do not enjoy our work, if we feel overwhelmed by it, it will surely damage us. The constant pressure of negative emotions causes inescapable damage to our arteries and other delicate tissues. It also slows down the body’s capacity to repair this damage. Politics can make the blood boil with suppressed rage and unexpressed anxiety. ‘Fast tracking,’ being a corporate star, will extract the inevitable price of damage to arteries if you are not ‘mindful’, if you are not aware of the impact of everything you do on your system. Mindfulness will help you unclench and relax the muscles, slow down the racing heartbeat. You can start by consciously breathing slowly and calmly.

Creating a positive interpersonal field

Develop the capacity to pick up subtle verbal, tonal and non-verbal signals from others. Learn also the ability to send out soothing, nurturing signals to others, thus creating a positive interpersonal field. In order to develop this skill, practice working with people and listening to them with the same attitude as you would a beloved child, or respected parent. Your word, tone, glance should be completely focused on the person. Don’t dilute the interaction by playing with your Blackberry, talking on your cell phone or fiddling with your laptop. When you are with someone, pay complete attention. Anything less will only elicit a lukewarm response. Those who can create positive fields around themselves attract and build lifetime relationships.

Meditation To Overcome Stress

One way to break the pattern of stressful living and strive for personal wellness is to change the responses to tough situations. There is, of course, no way to make the situations less tough. Meditation and pranayama provide a way of reducing the automatic and violent reactions to stress. You can actually control autonomous systems like heartbeat and pulse rate, which were thought to be outside the individual’s control. Knowing and practising meditation can provide you with a silent space where you can retreat into peace: slow breathing, steady heartbeat, low pulse. This space is always available within a person who has learnt to meditate. While you cannot change your job, family or your life-situation, you can certainly learn to breathe more peacefully, thus reversing the process of excitation and avoiding the emotional hijack. It is not possible to learn meditation by thinking about it, any more than it is possible to learn swimming by talking about it. If you have to swim, you have to get into the water. Learning meditation and understanding your breathing patterns through pranayama are the best investment you ever make. In India, there is no excuse not to learn these things. Stress need not be the reaction to the pace of your life. You can learn peaceful responses that protect your body.