Vastu Shastra, the ancient Indian science of architecture and design, is gaining renewed significance in today’s world. While rooted in...
Life Style
I like to add a bit of fun to my daily routine by adding core strengthening poses like Trikonasana and its variations,” Malaika said. Even if you have mastered a yoga pose, you can always improve. In her challenging fitness classes, Malaika Arora shows us how to do that. Malaika mastered Parivrtta Trikonasana or Revolved Triangle pose recently, but with a twist. The 48-year-old used a stick or ‘danda’ in the practice.
Here’s how to do it.
*Avoid doing this pose if you have a neck or back injury.
Benefits:-
The pose strengthens and stretches the legs, and opens the chest which improves breathing, and helps aid balance. Doing it with a stick adds more pressure to the workout and keeps the core engaged.
Modern lifestyle has brought into use machines, made life easy and is limiting the scope of physical activity. Busy and hectic work schedule and mismanaged lifestyle accompanied with consumption of processed food has widened the scope for stress in people and specifically the younger generation. Research data by American Psychological Association states that around 61% of stress is caused due to work and job pressure. Apart from work pressure and job insecurity, there are significant other reasons causing stress. Broken or insecure relationships, financial insecurity, late night work schedule, pleasing others and developing impressions or failing to meet are a few reasons that are highly seen as a cause of stress.
Well, now to call it an everyday partner, stress is turning out to be the evil in human life. The transformation in the food habits and adoption of western culture had already brought quite havoc in the lives of people. Consequently, stress is adding as an inducing factor to disrupt the lives of people physically and behaviourally. Stress has two specific enemies to be termed in a layman’s language. One is cortisol and the other is adrenaline. The more a person gets stressed, the amount of these hormones increases and the body functioning gets disturbed posing serious health risks.
To be more precise, the fact that is of high importance is that there are risks of getting various diseases due to stress. The unmanaged lifestyle and work pressure not only makes the person feel worried but also gives a long term problem attached with it. A few of serious illnesses caused due to stress are:
Heart Diseases
Until now, we knew that long-term stress can result in heart attacks. But the closely produced fact found by scientists is that cortisol changes the colour of the white blood cells, thereby encouraging the cells to attach themselves with the blood vessel walls. This causes the formation of plaque, which is a key factor for heart related problems.
Depression and other mental disorders
Well, this is a previously known fact that stress is the major cause of depression and has everything to do with mental health. Also the research reports have stated that the cortisol level in severely depressed people was too high, which can result in permanent damage to brain cells. Stress plays with hormones such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine that majorly affects the mood, appetite and sleep functioning of a person creating a chronic issue.
Ulcers and stomach problems
It has been found that stress is a major factor for weakening the immune system. As a result, the elevated level of stress in the body allows the bacteria to grow in the gut because of weak immunity. So, in problems such as stomach ulcer, indigestion, heartburn and ulcerative colitis, stress happens to be the ultimate reason.
Now, the question is do we have any solution for these stress related disorders? Can we not take the help of medicines? Is there a natural solution for this never ending stress issue? Fortunately yes, we have that effective solution that can give a new perspective towards life. And that magical solution is Yoga. Yoga has a solution for many illnesses and more importantly stress. It’s not just about the twisting and turning of the body but it’s all about the calmness that these activities provide to both body and mind. Studies have come out with the fact that people who practice yoga for at least 3 months have been found with lower cortisol levels. Although it is an ancient practice, it is giving after effects in the modern days and has been found reliable by many. Here are a few yoga asanas that will act as a cure for prolonged stress:
Balasana
This asana stretches your thighs and ankles and thus helps in relieving the stress by calming the mind. Apart from stress, it is also beneficial for people with neck and back pain. You just have to kneel down and sit on your heels. Now, bend forward till your chest touches your thighs and keep hands on side. Breathe lo9ng and deep and then come to the normal state. Keep repeating it for 10 mins and you can find it as a good way of stretching.
Paschimottanasana
Just like Balasana, this pose is a beneficial form for the spine and lower back. This asana is a great stress reliever, improves digestion and stimulates the liver. Sit down with your feet extended forward. Bend and hold your feet with your hand till your stomach touches your thighs. Stay in this position for about 30 seconds and then change back to normal.
Garudasana
This asana is also known a s eagle pose and is a best way for improving concentration and dealing with anxiety. Stand straight and cross your legs and hands like an eagle. Hold this position for at least 30 seconds and then rest back to normal. It also helps to calm the mind by making it focus on the body.
Sukhasana
To remove exhaustion and anxiety, this asna is the best remedy. This asana is a great posture corrector too and helps in lengthening the spine. You just need to sit down with a straight spine and extend your feet. Now gently bend your left foot and place it under your right knee and right feet under your left knee. Slightly twist yourself to either side and focus on your breathing. Hold one position for 60 seconds and then move to another.
The need of the hour is to improve our lifestyle, change our food habits and incline ourselves more to physical activities. Though we would find it hard to accept, in ancient times people were stronger because of mainly the physical activities and lifestyle. So, if ever you find yourself stressed, just go for a bit of yoga and relax your mind and body. It’s your body and you certainly need to take care of it.
By Virika
Women empowerment is something we talk a lot but implementation on the ground seems far away from reality. In ancient times, women were enjoying equal rights like men in society whether its related to acquiring education or learning fighting skills. There was a time when they were treated as slave even. Post-British rule, in new India, national leaders and thinkers made and implemented policies for reforming the women’s current situation to give them equality in all aspects, and that helped them to grow spiritually, economically, professionally, literacy and they got awareness about their rights. Despite all this, still women face harassment and gender discrimination issues in our educated societies.
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT AND OUR SOCIETY
The government of India is running 7 schemes for women empowerment like Mahila-e-haat, Beti Bachao and beti padhao, one step center scheme, working women hostels, swadhar greh, Step and Nari Shakti Puruskars. You must be thinking this moment, wow, government is doing a lot for women’s empowerment, but do not you think so that we must ask this question to ourselves that why they need all these schemes in 20th century. Answer is, they are surrounded by those mindsets who have strong believe that their gender is superior to women. In today’s date, most educated and influential families women, who are educated and working, cannot take decision independently for investing their money in bank’s fixed deposit without consulting their male family members even now, so question of discussing about decision authority in women from rural area or middle-class family does not arise. This is just an example to understand the condition of women in our society.
Women empowerment cannot be measured by providing education and equal rights in getting job be it government or private sector. Women empowerment is more than this. Empowering women means to make them self-dependent to take their life decision by themselves. They can discuss or consult before taking decision, but they should not be forced to impose our ideas and suggestion to implement or execute. They should have right to take their own decisions. People learn from their own mistakes but if we will provide them always shield, they will not be confident enough to face obstacles. We must give them opportunity to learn from their even mistakes like we men learn too. This freedom of taking decision will empower their skills to take decision and strength to face their consequences even. Women deserves freedom to enjoy their chosen lifestyle without assessing them. They should be treated equally like boy. Women should not be told to stay at home in late evening or night because they are unsafe outside, but men should be taught to respect and behave properly. Our society always tells women what to do or what not to do so that they could be protected but we do not teach lesson of morality to our boys to behave properly in front of women of any age. If we restrict women to think twice before taking steps outside in late evening or going to night shift in office, we are not empowering them by thought but giving them stressful life to manage. Why do not we ask our boys to behave properly and build psychological pressure on them by educating them values of moral acts. Why only women are there to suffer with all these daily learning doze like going outside for party, what to wear or not to wear, making friend zone and many more things. We must empower their thought process too else women cannot work freely in their professional or personal life so whole exercise of women empowering will not reach to their expected destination. Empowering does not mean that we make schemes and rule for guarding women’s right, but we must try to develop a culture in society to fix those bad practices of our society so that we will not be requiring any policy anymore. We must focus to fix issues behind illness instead of paying all attention to control the disease. Such approach will automatically fix many challenges of women.
WOMEN EMPLOYMENT AT WORKPLACE
As per one study published by statista.com; In 2019, about 20.7 percent of women were in the labor force across India, down from approximately 30 percent in 1990. This data is itself indicator of challenges in life of women at workplace. There can be multiple factors which is affecting and reason behind such a big fall in employment of women but majorly is, organization avoids hiring female employees at workplace to refrain themselves to implement schemes like maternity act, women safety rules, cab facility for pick and drop of female employee in case of late working hours and to avoid sexual harassment cases at workplace. This approach is restricting women to perform better at workplace, and this is big loss to nation as well such practices is wasting our talent. That is the reason, we are facing talent issues in our nations too. Government must ensure that women is getting equal opportunity at workplace in terms of wages, promotions, and safety. Organization must be bind by law to recruit female employees at workplace in equal proportion, and that is the only way we can create better environment for female to grow at workplace. There are few organizations which are working hard to make life easy for their female employees at workplace by providing them parents care leave, menstrual leaves, maternity leaves, providing work from home during illness of family members and other benefits like establishing POSH committee and its execution to protect them.
As per Forbes India, Women hold 17% of board positions in corporate India, but only 11% leadership roles, and that happen when companies act, 2013 says it is mandatory to have at least one woman on company boards, but representation of women at workplace should not be limited to paper. We must provide women a platform to perform and translate their skills into action without being gender biased. We have many names if we want to recall in mind when women achieved those accomplishment which was earlier seen as not cup of tea of women.
WOMEN LITERACY RATE IN INDIA
Women education is important for our society and family. In last decades, women are doing great in studies, and they are securing first position in board exams too and challenging male domination which is good for nation. However, we need more improvement to empower girls to acquire education. We need to encounter ground-based challenges like lack of proper infrastructure at schools that discourage parents to send their girls to school to study like lack of proper drinking water, toilet facilities and inadequate teachers etc. are major challenges to fix. Government campaign and CSR activities by corporates at rural area can motivate parents to send their girls to school for studies after understanding the value of education in our life else generally parents taken out their girls from schools for the sake of family responsibilities. Early marriages and dowry system are also major threat to women education. Parents at rural area are not much financially sounds so they always try to focus on early marriages of girls to get rid from financial liability of girl. Such mindset needs to be educated to think beyond to analyze worth of education in life of their girl for whole life. We must generate awareness about worth of education in our life. Education gives women to power to think and make them capable to take decision for their good. Women empowerment without proper education to girl is only dream. Government is making all required step to reform the situation but initiative from us, being a part of civilized society, is demanded and expected to come in front to motivate and support this reformation. We can see the change, but it will start from us only.
WOMEN EMPOWERMENT STARTS WITH SANITIZATION
We must encourage women or girl to speak about mensuration issues and problem they face alone. This is not taboo to hide but this is concerning matter in terms of health and hygiene. According to a new report by the National Family Health Survey, 62 per cent of young women in the country use cloth for menstrual protection. Women aged 15 to 24 use cloth during their periods. In Bihar, 82 per cent of the women on cloth during their period. Aforesaid figures speaks loud and clear that CSR activities and government’s campaign may bring awareness in women and in mindset of society. Illiteracy level in Indian women especially in rural area is something which is becoming barrier to fill this gap. There are some NGO which are trying to reach out more and more girls schools to educate them about menstruation, especially when they are going to have their first period. Since long time, menstruation is seen as taboo to discuss. It is believed the women having periods cannot enter in kitchen or temple, surprisingly, still most of us believe and follow being a part of urban- society leave about rural area. This is natural process of female body but treatment to biological process brings feeling of guilt in women or girl at early stage of life, which invites many menstrual disorders issues. Being unaware of whole reason behind this monthly process, they find themselves different from other gender. They shy to discuss their health issues which led them to serious disease at later stage or sometime early stage. So here, we need to educate them so that they can become our change agent to communicate and educate other females by promoting awareness campaign.
CONCLUSION
We need to understand and accept that when we talk about women liberalization or empowerment to them, we are not doing any favor for women, this is their right which is being suppressed by our society since long time. We are rectifying our blunders not doing anything special for them. They do not need any special treatment, but our society needs psychological treatment for sure so that they could understand the value of women in our life. Every time we cannot treat the disease, sometimes we must identify those reasons which are spreading the disease. Equality in gender will bring balance in our eco-social system. Women should not be treated specially but genuinely for sure. If women empowerment schemes and activities is existing in our society that indicates existence of negative mindset in our society. So, if women need empowerment, then such mindset people also need treatment. Balance should exist in society.
By Ankur Gautam, ( A Human Resource Professional with 17 year of experience of industry who worked with organizations to develop strategic policies to develop better and influential diversity and inclusion programs.
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Entrenched deep into our cultures, the Chai is the quintessential ice-breaker, refreshment of all seasons. Be it sweltering hot weather of coastal areas, teeth rattling cold of up-north, the dry weather close to the deserts. There is nothing that is a more common denominator than the Chai. Some say that tea is one of the few good legacies left behind by the British, but then herbal teas with their ayurvedic concoctions existed before Britishers came in.
Though what started under the British was the cultivation of tea across Assam and Darjeeling and that’s where it all began. As the most affordable and unbelievably tasty beverage, Chai is a culture that existed well before the franchises made coffee a big deal and eventually flavour infused tea culture came in. The chai we are talking about is the one which has a perfect mix of ginger, cardamom, sugar, water and milk. The piping hot result of this is a life-breather for many, a stressbuster, a cure for sore throat and cold and a welcome drink for guests. Technically, there is no time to have the Chai. It binds all stratas of the society, a culturally ubiquitous beverage.
Imagine the country’s PM also took pride in being a Chai vendor in his early days. Up until recently, the various westernized versions of tea that have become a culture, but to my mind, nothing beats the Chai, be it the lemon tea or the green tea even with their much-publicised health benefits. Not many know or care, the spiced Chai helps improve digestive system, supports immune system and protects overall cell health and what not.
Considering all the facts, I guess, the Chai can safely be declared as the national beverage. Do you agree?
By Virika Shah
Man has been survived today and the same man is being departed on the other day. Subsequently, from being birth till death, man has been enduring in this world under the name called “life”. As has been imagined by many people, everyone starves to dwell their lives with happiness, prosperity and pleasure, should this certainly be true? Maybe not, prosperity and pleasure have been discerned in an awry implication by many, despite the fact may prevail contrary.
Contrary in the sense means to be residing for others satisfaction and their dignity. Man breathes for himself, his family and his friends in the form of love, rather throbs others feelings and underestimating other people’s dignity in order to formulate himself and his own people delighted; Should this dwelling of happiness formulates his gratification life long? Maybe not, Man resides himself and his beings and disappeared one day, this may creak quite bad to the humans. And so it is necessary to abide for others lives and also being an assisting hand to them while they are about to recede in their lives without any help. This sort of satisfaction and prosperity is being existed until the world exists.
Success, fame and money have been playing a significant role in each and everyone’s life, although the major significance is being accomplished while the man stands a reason behind one’s smile. It may be interpreted like that is impossible to formulate a smirk of a smile on everyone’s face, although one man may strive to evolve a motive for at least one’s smile, maybe it’s possible.
Sometimes people uttered a sentence called, “Life is a game, life is a race, try to conquer first otherwise this life whacks you bad”. Should this sort of sentence be necessary for the people? This sentence may be discerned by the meaning of the anxiety about one’s forthcoming future, either if one’s journey of race is being dropped off, then his or her life may be disappeared somewhere in the distress of his or her deliberation about their past. In spite to date, neither has been witnessed the future not had been rewinding our past. Life seems to be unpredictable, maybe it is, despite the fact about life may be a question mark to everyone, even though all the compassionate lives in this world may obtain an answer to the question of life.
By Lakshmi Prabha Swaminathan
Staying healthy is not easy but very important, there are many benefits to being healthy. Regular Exercising coupled with healthy and balanced diet goes a long way in keeping us energetic and healthy. It is essential to find some time to devote to one’s health, no matter how busy we are and whatever is our age.
Shivani Saxena
Exercising doesn’t necessarily mean that we need to enroll in a gym, one can work out from home also. For starters, one such exercise is Surya Namaskar. It has many benefits like.
Improved Better digestive system.
Maintaining blood sugar level.
Reduces anxiety.
Helps the body to detox.
Improves Sleep
Another variation of Surya Namaskar, ie doing it at a very fast pace is a good alternate of Cardio Exercises one can do in the Gym.
As the country battles the Covid’19 pandemic, yoga has been rediscovered as a mean to boost immunity, improve overall health and wellbeing. Lack of proper sleep, poor nutrition and stressful life all lead to a weakened immune system and leaves us vulnerable to sickness. Unfortunately many such bad habits have creeped in our lifestyle and we need to make a conscious effort to make the necessary changes in our lifestyle. Practising Yoga regularly and consistently is one such good habit we can adopt.
We should also not undermine the benefit of drinking lots of water, it keeps us well hydrated and helps the body perform better.
Stay healthy, stay safe.
Every once in a while, life gives you an opportunity to slow down and reflect back on where have you reached and what have you achieved so far. That’s exactly what happened with most of us during the nationwide lockdown. These tough times gave us a perspective to unwind and declutter not just the physical space around us, but also our mental states. And while we are in phase 1 of unlocking, we have already started missing our so to say quarantine life. So here’s a look back at how last 2.5 months have been.
While some of us decided to reenergize and reboot ourselves, some discovered and kindled our inner talents by surpassing our own expectations. If I were to categorize myself in these two buckets, I would say I fall under both to some extent. Let me give you a sneak peak into my life during lockdown. My quarantine days began with a high note of energy and enthusiasm to make a positive change in my lifestyle, be more self-caring and focusing on channelizing my strengths while continuing to work from home.
I set up a small home office in the corner of my room to work from. I became a regular in my yoga and exercise sessions which helped to refresh myself and stay fit and healthy. I took more time to introspect and be thankful to the almightly for blessing me with a wonderful life, a great family, parents and the most loving life partner. Seeing the challenges being faced by the less privileged in such challenging times, me and my husband decided to help as many lifes as we can touch around us.
I started enjoying the sound of birds chirping, wind blowing while I enjoyed my cup of coffee sitting in the balcony listening to my favourite songs. I even started experimenting with food and prepared almost everything we generally like to order from outside (needless to mention cooking some lip smacking momos has been the most favourite and fulfilling part of my cooking dairies).
I would not deny that a significant part of my day (or Should I Say nights) went into watching movies, TV series, documentaries as well. But I also made it a point to take up a new habit. Reading is something which is not my cup of tea, however, one day I just happened to pick up my I pad and download kindle on it. The next thing I found myself doing was taking a subscription of Kindle unlimited on amazon which gave me access to a wide range on books to ponder upon and since then there has been no looking back. I now enjoy reading so much so that I like spending all my time reading rather than the usual Netflix and chill. After all, breaking the monotony is also important right. I wish to continue doing the same in times to come and make each day count.
I understand that life beyond this lockdown will never be the same. We will all have to embrace these changes in our lifestyles, adapt to the ‘new normal’ and make peace with it. This reminds me of a great learning I came across while watching the movie ‘Founder’ recently which describes the story of how a person named Ray Croc became to be known as the Founder of Mc Donalds. He says- “Persistence. Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent won’t. Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius won’t. Unrewarded genius is practically a cliché. Education won’t. The world is full of educated fools. Persistence and determination alone are all powerful. Show that you don’t have to be defeated by anything. That you can have peace of mind, improved health and a never ceasing flow of energy. If you attempt each and every day to achieve these things, the results will make themselves obvious to you. While it may sound like a magical notion, it is in you to create your own future. The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. Or as Ralph Waldo Emerson declared, A man is what he thinks about all day long.”
On this note, let’s keep spreading positive vibes and never lose hope. We are all in this together and we will get through this by changing our attitudes. Good things are on their way.
Hello, Style Hut readers! Parenting, nurturing and navigating a child is not an easy task. As schools are closed, let us understand how we can deal with childcare during a quarantine. We all may already be feeling the challenge of social distancing, a.k.a. lots of together time. This shift to being homebound carries some moral ideas that may help to navigate our children to cope up with their future :
Apart from teaching them to be hygiene, wash their hands frequently, cover their mouth by a mask and stay indoors, we can also ask them what they know about the virus and the response. Keep asking if they have questions. When children know the problem, they want to know the PLAN; you don’t have to have a solution but let your child know how you are planning to stay safe and informed. Will there be enough food? Do you have the supplies you need? Let your child know that it’s okay to be worried. But assure them that this worry is temporary and that they can ask questions at any time. We’re all in this together and we’re all learning a lot.
Not being a parent myself but being surrounded by parents, I thought I ought to reach out to them to get some expert tips on how to manage little ones during the quarantine. My second thought is to be a mindset coach and allow your child to have a learning mindset. Allow your child to be creative, explore and ask questions. You don’t have to know all of the answers but it promotes critical thinking. Every morning set daily targets and have motivational quotes to enthuse your child.
We can also have fun-family-friendly activities like playing ludo, antakshri, music chair, making crafts, word puzzle, drawing, etc instead of using the technological devices or placing a cell phone in their hands. Yes, you can rent a movie on Netflix or watch on TV/laptop and have an evening movie night at home. Kids always follow their parents. So we all can have a quality time with them. Don’t forget popcorn in this fun !!
Digital world has made us more digital. We also have the opportunity to read books online. But what about your old library? In this quarantine period, apart from teaching children the school books, we can open up our out-books either comics, story, short story, fiction or novels from the almirah and give them to read. This is a good time to get your child into the habit of reading. You can also read a book to them every day. This will help them develop their vocabulary and language skills. For older kids, give them a reading goal for the weeks when they are at home and encourage them to complete it.
Teach the children about power naps, how it is very important for our health. This time doing a lot of gardening will blossom our lawn by summer. Teach them how we can give life to plants and how they produce their own food from sun, heat, light and water.
So be wise and keep yourself and your lovely children self-quarantine thereby giving a heartbeat to your life. That’s the only intelligent way to approach this virus, which is be super cautious and do everything humanly possible to make some learn and some fun with your children. They need us as we need them.
Have fun !!
Recently organised was The National Achievers Award 2019 Presented by Sasha Media Solution Pvt Ltd., in association with Brand Icon Pvt. Ltd. Chief...
As consumers become more environmentally conscious and socially aware about the ill-effects of manufactured products, sustainability has become a need in modern times rather than being an advantage. Everyone knows about the impact on earth and its environment due to factories and their manufacturing processes. Sustainably sourced and reused fabrics help everybody do the little that they can to help conserve the Earth’s resources and its environment.
Monika Agarwal
In this regard, recycling has always been considered an environmentally friendly practice. And a recycled fabric is no less sustainable. Design houses can easily come across recycled fabric in the market or reuse the fabric used in the production of clothes and accessories that would have otherwise been disposed off. In fact, propagators of sustainability and eco-friendly practices advise in favour of recycled textiles and fabrics.
On the flipside, however, synthetic fibre comprise of almost 65% of the total world production of fibres. It consumes a lot of oil – which in itself is a renewable resource. Natural fibres like cotton, silk, wool tec. also make use of resources that needs to be conserved. Hence, making use of recycled fabrics will help in reducing the speed of their depletion.
Thus, to help conserve the limited resources Earth has to offer, Veave’s Studio has launched a home furnishing line of products called Teori Living. Products such as Table Mats, Table Runners, Cushion Covers and Tissue Boxes are all made using fabrics that would have been discarded. As Veave’s Studio converts “recycled fabric” into home furnishing products, there are lesser wastes to be disposed off overall. Textile waste would have been otherwise disposed onto land – creating more problems than solving them. In addition, since Veave’s Studio makes use of natural dyes using vegetables, it decreases the chances of harmful decomposition of textile. Moreover, it’s found in their product line that the entire collection presents embroidered and hand woven fabric which no doubt are recycled textiles and a good sustainable practice. This kind of practice is beneficial to the environment and highly recommended in the textile industry. Also, it allows for reduced carbon footprint left behind thereby reducing the overall cost of manufacturing textiles.
Hence, sustainability is advisable to everyone and recycling is a step towards it.
(Inputs By Vatsala Chopra Founder of Veave’s Studio)
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