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

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. 

Valuing Human Effort

Young and handsome Ananda become the leader of a monastery when Buddha left his physical body. The townsmen were skeptical. They felt he was too young and frivolous.

They went in a group and asked him what the old bed sheetswere to be used for as the monastery had just been given new ones. Ananda said, ‘I had them cut into towels for the monks. ‘When those get worn out, what will you do?’ they asked. ‘I will fold them, stitch them and use them as doormats for monks coming in from the rain.’ Still they persisted. ‘What will you do when those too get worn out?’

‘I will have them cut into strips to use in the kitchen to handle hot vessels.’

‘Why do you take so much trouble over old bed sheets?’ they asked.

Ananda reflected for a while, then he said, ‘The life blood of some mother, some human being has been poured into making those sheets. That human effort should be treated with respect,’ he said. The townsmen left satisfied that Buddha had chosen well.

The Feminine Principle

Another interesting challenge today is for all human beings to develop the feminine principle. New leadership models require the development of the right brain, which is intuitive, holistic and creative. Most of these traits, along with nurturing and interpersonal skills, were previously relegated to a lower status in a predominantly macho world. The change in leadership styles required today, have made these very traits important. The Indian model of ardhanareeshwarar—a god who integrates the male and female elements in himself—is an ancient Vedic concept. Follow the logic through. The popular advertisement for Raymonds (the textile giant) shows the complete man as a man who can deal with a baby as comfortably as he can with a balance sheet. It shows someone who can laugh, and is not afraid to shed a tear. Accessing their feminine  side is a challenge men today face to deal with the transition to a more humane model of leadership.

Religion - the source to Encourage Social Unity

Religion, said the communists contemptuously, is the opiate of the masses. But if religion can calm the mind and slow down the heart and pulse rate, if it can make the engine of life work sturdily and

longer, why not adopt it?

Sri Aurobindo writes about a grand spiritual concept of health:

For nearly forty years I believed them when they said I wasweakly in constitution, suffered constantly from the smaller and greater ailments and mistook this curse for a burden that Nature had laid upon me. When I renounced the aid of medicines, then they began to depart from me like disappointed parasites.

Then only I understood what a mighty force was the natural health within me and how much mightier yet the Will and Faith exceeding mine which God meant to be the divine support of our life in this body…

Negative emotions—anxiety, fear, depression, anger, impatience,hostility, aggressiveness, overindulgence of any desire—cause imbalance. Moderation leads to harmony. An integral view of health demands an integral view of life. To attune the different elements of our nature around this central nucleus is the next step. Without such a reorientation and reorganisation of our life, it will not be possible to establish in ourselves the law of harmony and peace which is so necessary a condition for integral health.