Posts Tagged ‘fitness’
Wednesday, November 7th, 2012
HELL I am running late. What if the boss confronts me over the last week’s delivery? How will I finish my monthly target? I can’t miss my son’s school function this time. I am not getting anywhere.
If that’s how your days have been lately, you ought to push brakes. You ought to slow down. Life has a way of surprising us, intimidating us and sometimes attacking us. No one has ever lived a life that didn’t have this. If you are in an IT industry, the pressure can be overwhelming. The stretched out working hours and missing out on personal life makes it harder. Yet, there are some very practical ways to keep the pressure at bay and learn to cope with the routine.
Note down: First of all, take a break and note down all the things that you had planned to do for a certain given week and you couldn’t do them. Make two columns: personal and professional. Then jot down the reasons. Be very honest. Can you see why you couldn’t finish your targets? Now think of the ways to eliminate hurdles. Better, write them down. Determine yourself to follow your solutions.
First things first: Prioritizing always helps ease things up. Learn to make a list of priorities both personal and professional. You can prioritize based on deadlines, importance, urgency etc.
Focus: You cannot achieve anything if you try to do too many things. It is very important to focus on one thing at a time. And as you do this, do not think about other things. Give your undivided attention to the thing in question. Once you achieve one, you can achieve others, one by one. It’s possible.
Drink water: Believe it or not but hydration helps you focus better. Whenever bouts of pressure engulf your mind, just take a break for a few seconds gulp down a glass of water. In fact, keep water at a walking distance with you. Keep your body hydrated.
Pay attention to your body: To relax your mind, just have a look at yourself. For a few minutes, it can take your mind totally off the worries and pressure. Go to the washroom and take a good look in the mirror. Comb your hair, tidy your shirt, wipe off the dust from the shoes.
Enjoy the aroma: While getting fresh air on top of the office building is a great idea, we are referring to enjoying the making of coffee or tea. For a few minutes, just pay attention to making the cup of tea in the kitchen or at the coffee place. This is one good way to give your brain a little break. Bet you will enjoy the coffee or tea more than ever after this.
Tags: alw blog, articles on fitness, articles on stress free life, blog on stress free life., fitness, how to fight stress, relax, running late, stress free life, stressful, take a break
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Wednesday, October 10th, 2012
INDORE. IT’s one of those days when you fail to feel any motivation. The energy is on leave. And the spirit to live life to the fullest is on a holiday. All you have is a routine, a very drab work schedule and absolutely no will to hang on.
But still hang on, it happens to everyone once in a while no matter how healthy, fitness conscious you are. However, it may happen to you more frequently when you live a sedentary life. There are things that are sucking the energy out of you. And you ought to stop it. Take a look:
Begin well: Start out with a sumptuous breakfast. Grab a glass of fresh juice and see how it refreshes you. Include nuts or eat a high-fibre breakfast that preferable may have proteins and carbs. Even a glass of milk with a little dab of chocolate can nourish you for the day. But make sure you have plenty of things to stuff yourself for the day.
Take a walk: If exercise is boring, take a walk outside. Observing things, people while walking doesn’t get so boring plus it gives you some fresh air. It’s so important to breathe in the fresh air and let your nostrils smell the smells of the environment. This will be great to kick off a great day.
Cut caffeine to sleep well: A major reason why you can’t work well or focus better is lack of sleep. Too much of caffeine or tea during the day can be the culprit that steals your sleep every night. Make a count of the number of cups of caffeine you have every day. Cut down on it substantially and see how well you sleep.
Cut down on alcohol: Some people have a habit of having a few glasses of alcohol before they go to sleep. But a few facts must make them consider avoiding alcohol. Since alcohol has an effect on your nervous system, it retards sleep and then you suffer from insomnia. If you don’t sleep well daily, you will notice a clear effect on your motivation and energy.
Give your brain a break: It’s good once in a while to not think about Facebook, text messages, emails and just relax. Plug in an ipod and listen to your favourite song for a few minutes during work. Or start your day with half an hour of mediation when your brain relaxes. It’s very important that your brain gets much rest.
Drink water: Throughout the whole day, make drinking water a priority. Nothing charges you better than water. Walk to the water cooler in the office so you get a few minutes of respite from the stress too.
Tags: blog on office fitness, fatigue, fitness, fitness articles for working executives, fitness blog, fitness blogs, fitness tips for IT professionals, health, ill effects of white collar jobs., laziness, lazy bum, office fitness, sedentary lifestyle
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Monday, August 13th, 2012
MANY women, as per a recent research, would prefer to lose their eyesight if that meant becoming slim. Arizona State University recently conducted a research that listed things women would give up only to become slimmer. Other women chose depression over obesity. The research has highlighted some very interesting statistics about health among people.
Drinking cola with pizza is a trend that has caught up on a very large scale in India. No wonder thus that one in 10 parents in Britain thinks cola is actually good for health and that it can actually supplement food and drink. This was revealed in a survey by a food company.
There’s some bad news for smokers too. They lose memory if they continue with the habit. According to a research by Northumbria University, smokers lose at least a third of their everyday memory. This was revealed through tests conducted on smokers and non-smokers, in which the former performed significantly poorly than the latter.
However, what was more shocking was another statistics that stated that while we all may be avoiding sugar quite consciously every day but unknowingly might be consuming 46 teaspoons. That is because even though you may not be eating desserts and other sugar foods, the processed food could be a possible culprit in your sugar intake. That is because many food processing companies have been steadily increasing the sugar content in their ingredients.
Team ALW has a lot of health objectives every year. We discourage people from smoking and eating processed food in abundance. We always prefer healthy home-made food for our employees while also taking positive steps towards their fitness.
Tags: dangerous food, diabetes, fitness, health, memory loss, merifitness, smoking demerits, smoking hazards, sugar, work out, worst food habits
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Saturday, July 7th, 2012
WHILE social networking has been posing constant challenges to researchers desperate to find psychological side effects of the phenomenon, there are a few things that are becoming pretty obvious. For one, people end up wasting a lot of time on Twitter and Facebook. That has been steadily affecting their work, resulting in inefficiency and eventually job frustration.
A report published in the New York Times recently throws light on the possible side-effects of social networking. Susan Greenfield, a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, told the Daily Mail that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span and who live for the moment. She added that social networking, as well as computer games, might be particularly harmful to children, and could be behind the observed rise in cases of attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder.
Earlier, another series of reports were doing the rounds that talked about the biological implications of social networking. A fellow from the Royal Society of Medicine Dr Eric Sigman seemed to suggest that real life socializing is healthier than its virtual counterpart. In his words, “Time that was previously spent interacting socially has increasingly been displaced by the virtual variety. A recent editorial in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine made the timely point that social networking “encourages us to ignore the social networks that form in our non-virtual communities. … The time we spend socializing electronically separates us from our physical networks.”
But what was most striking was Dr Sigman’s admission about how much time he ends up wasting if he keeps a track of his social networking friends than his work. That’s when he pointed out how much efficiency in work is being killed by the whole tendency to do networking most hours of the day.
Even if a person refrains from social networking throughout the day but surfs it continuously during nights, he affects his own health and efficiency.
Tags: facebook and side-effects, facebook and twitter, fitness, health, Social networking, Social networking and health, social networking and health effects, the social network movie, work and social networking
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Wednesday, June 6th, 2012
A VERY interesting research has found out a clear connection of your diet and your happiness quotient. ALW already has a concept of Happy Working and we believe in living life Hi5. Our Hi5 initiatives are designed to keep our team members really happy.
The new research has only re-established the belief that happiness and health are so intimately related. The research is saying that if your diet is full of a lot of fats, carbohydrates and sugars, it would leave you not only fat but also depressed and low.
But if you consume some of the ‘happy foods’, you may still be saved from the depression part. Here’s a list given by the study:
Sea food and potato: Sea food such as shrimps, fish alongwith egg, sardines and potato is your happy foods. The reason is that they are rich in iodine which has a direct connection with your thyroid. A thyroid which is not active usually will result in bad memory, depression, infertility, weight gain, low energy, heart diseases and even breast cancer. So if you want to keep yourself happy, include these iodine rich foods in your daily diet.
Get sun-tanned: Tanning is not all that bad afterall. Don’t hide yourself so much from sun. Expose your body with some sunlight once in a while. That is because sunshine can convert cholesterol into Vitamin D and it increases immunity too. Deficiency of Vitamin D causes cancer, depression and dementia. Do you understand now why we get sick very often during winter? Also, include in your diets all the foods that have Vitamin D.
Greens: Green leafy vegetables, fruits, oats and whole grains are just the greatest happiness foods because of their richness in fiber. Experts say that fiber cleanses intestinal tract, it reduces inflammation and reduces spikes in insulin and blood sugar. If your diet does not have fiber, you will feel more depressed.
Calcium rich foods: Milk, cheese, cabbage, yogurt, spinach and almonds are just some of the foods that are extremely rich in calcium content. It is said that dairy products are responsible for our energy levels and they release neurotransmitters to make the body feel good. Lack of calcium is responsibility for bad memory, irritability, depression and anxiety. Among women, calcium deficiency results in hormonal imbalance too.
You just need to deliberately make efforts to include some of these foods in your daily diets. We already told you once that pizza can make you depressed. You already know why, because it is unhealthy. Hence, pay attention to healthy foods and you may be surprised to find yourself happier than before.
Tags: balanced diet, dieting, diets that make you happy, diets that make you sad, fitness, good diet, happy diet, health, health diet, healthy food, new health research 2012
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Tuesday, June 5th, 2012
TYPING constantly on the keyboard, or replying to client’s email, or constantly writing reports – all this for a few more hours and you bet you will be hungry. Cubicle cravings are pretty common among the techies. This can be much worse since they already lead a sedentary lifestyle. During the day too, if they hog on unhealthy foods, they are well on their way to develop serious health problems in future.
What are the possible foods that may come to mind of a techie dragging through his day? The first and foremost are the fried potato chips. Easy to get. Tasty and tempting. The next on the list is pizza or a burger or if not anything, chocolate. No need to mention that these are not the healthiest of things to munch on a regular basis.
So how do you really deal with cubicle cravings? Actually there are a lot of healthier ways. And if you consider some of these, you can rest assured that you will fulfill your hunger and take care of your health at the same time. A few tips that will help:
Carry an apple: What does it take to carry fresh fruits to office with you? Just a paper bag. Fruits like banana, apple, cucumber, grapes are easy to carry to work and whenever you are hungry, have the power to refresh you. You will feel the difference very naturally when you munch chips versus when you eat a fruit. On top of it, you will be treating your body with vitamins, minerals, water and fiber.
Home-made goodies: There are so many things that your mother keeps inside your kitchen just for munching. There is the home-made chivda, chikki, mathri etc that are healthier because they are cooked at home and are more hygienic than a baked samosa or a burger. Make a habit of carrying some of these things in your tiffin box.
Kitchen popcorn: Instead of ordering popcorn from your office, carry home-made popcorn with you. At home, you can always ask your mother or your wife to top it with your favourite spices or flavours. This is healthier.
Nuts, seeds, dry fruits: Isn’t that a wonderful idea to carry nuts, seeds and dry fruits along with you and munch them whenever you are hungry. Imagine how much of a treat this is to your body. They are rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals. Dry fruits are high on iron and they boost your metabolism too.
Fruit salad: Though it would need a bit of refrigeration, fruit salad can be so healthy, refreshing and tasty at the same time. It can give you a great mental break from work, you feel healthier and more energetic.
What to avoid?
- Mithai, cakes and pastries, whether home-made or otherwise, is harmful if you consume them regularly. Never use them as a snack to munch at the office.
- Even sandwiches with heavy potato fillings are bad for health. They must be consumed in very less quantities and that too occasionally.
- Pizza, burgers and baked/fried samosa as a snack can be very dangerous. These are very high fat foods and can be more dangerous when consumed as a substitute to food.
Cubicle cravings are absolutely inevitable. And the best way to deal with them is to face them with healthier options. Remember, there are ALWAYS healthier choices available. You only need to select them.
Tags: cubicle cravings, fitness, green snacks, health, health snacking, healthier snacks, healthy diets, healthy snacks for office, home-made snacks, IT fitness, IT health, munching snacks, office snacks, snack recipe., what should the techies eat, what to eat in office, what to not eat in office
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Tuesday, May 29th, 2012
BOREDOM is a crime. You cannot commit it. Not allowed. However boring your routine may be, you just cannot let it remain a routine. There is ample scope for you to spice it up. Why are we discussing this under this platform? That’s because boredom leads to a psychological complacency in your life that may not be so conducive to your health. Take a moment. Consider this.
Try a different deodorant
This weekend, visit your favourite mall and pick a different fragrance. Fragrance has the power to lift your mood up. You can feel the difference when you smell different from usual. Hey but choose carefully. Take something which is light and beautifully fragrant. Something that you would be proud of, not something that may repel others around you.
Get a gadget-free sleep
Switch off your mobile after 10 pm this week and give yourself a gadget-break. A calm, peaceful sleep can work wonders to your energy levels the next day. Don’t touch your laptop, mobile phone, iPad, video games or any such thing. And feel the difference it makes to your lifestyle.
Pay attention to what you wear
The biggest thing that can actually change your mood in a flash of a second is a compliment showered on you. But how will it happen if you absolutely don’t pay any attention to your clothes. Pick your clothes for the week on advance. Try different colours each day. Experiment a little. Team up formals with semi formals. You will definitely find enough things in your wardrobe to experiment with, only if you are willing. This will make you feel nice about yourself. You will have earned yourself a great self-esteem.
Rewards on weekend
Nothing can motivate you to work more efficiently if you know there’s a reward waiting for you at the end of the week. Decide your own reward. It could be a shopping experience, a marathon movies series you have been wanting to watch for a long time or simply a great meal at a new restaurant. Plan it on every Monday so you spend the rest of the week in anticipation of the reward. This will keep you in great mood and you will feel motivated to work.
Morning exercises workouts
If you spend the day yawning most of the time, pay attention. It’s your body’s way of telling you that you need some energy in your life. If you decide to exercise in the morning, you will realize you feel much more fresh than usual during the day. Only 20 minutes of morning exercise is all you need to keep the energy levels going. Take this step. Come on. You can do it.
Tags: AnyLinuxWork, bored with routine, change your routine, exercises, fitness, health, health of techies., IT health, morning, psychological problems, software professionals, spice up your routine, workout
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Saturday, May 26th, 2012
TECHIES, good news. Even if you have a family history of blood pressure, you can still do something significant out of it and that too without spending an extra penny. A new research suggests that if you do moderate exercises daily apart from brisk walking for 30 minutes, you can cut down the risk of getting a blood pressure despite the hereditary factors.
The results of the new study have shown that fitness can be so practical and healthful without much effort. A moderate amount of exercise that is walking for 30 minutes every day which amounts to about 150 minutes per week can be great for people who have a history of hypertension due to family history.
How does it work?
The reason why it is important to control blood pressure is that the heart needs extra effort to pump blood pressure through the arteries. This increases the size of the heart and you then get increased risks of heart attacks, kidney failure, stroke and atherosclerosis (buildup of plaque in the arteries).
Of course doctors will tell you to work seriously on your diet, cut sugar and rice, avoid fatty foods and too many carbohydrates and so on. However, all these things will not be enough if you don’t subject your body to a regular exercise or any physical activity.
Understand that one’s blood pressure is a measurement of the pressure of the blood flow in one’s arteries. Everyone has something called systolic blood pressure and the higher number tells us the pressure in our arteries when our heart is contracting and pumping blood out into the body. Opposite is the case with diastolic blood pressure. The lower number is the pressure in the arteries when the heart is relaxed.
Hence while we exercise or walk, our systolic blood pressure increases to improve blood flow, thus increasing available oxygen to the working muscles. Our blood vessels may also become more relaxed, or dilated and this allows for the increased blood flow.
The good news is that the new study has ruled out the effect of hereditary factors in at least lowering the blood pressure of a person. It clearly has stated that despite family history, if you start walking in your late 20s, you will reduce the risk of high blood pressure considerably.
Even older people who already are struggling with BP, can lower the risk by starting to walk every day, At the same time, if a person stops walking, say for a week, he or she would experience the old level of blood pressure. This means that every person with a blood pressure or having a family history of it, must make walking a regular habit. Nothing can be more valuable than health.
Tags: benefits of walking, blood pressure, family history of BP, fitness, health, health tips, health trends of 2012, walking, walking lowers blood pressure., walking regularly
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Saturday, May 26th, 2012
Pizza, burger, sandwiches, baked samosa are probably the most tempting foods more because they take less time to serve, are cheaper, can be consumed quickly and are convenient to carry. People in the IT industry almost thrive on these foods for days. Single guys and girls living outside their towns, usually worked up with pressures, prefer to consume any of these fast foods than healthy and properly cooked food. Many others are bored with the ‘dabba’ ingredients so much that they don’t mind surviving on Pizaa for months together.
Of course, anything done beyond the normal with your body, will not go without consequence.
If a report published in siliconindia.com is to be believed, fast food consumers today are more at a risk of developing depression than those who never ate fast food or ate very little.
The study was conducted by Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Granada, Spain. Experts are saying that increased intakes of fast foods can actually lead to depression. People included in the study were mostly working professionals who consumed these foods on a regular basis, many almost daily. They smoked a lot, worked for more than 45 hours per week. Check out the consequences:
Depression: Consumption of fast foods was directly related to depression in at least 51 per cent of the cases. The fast foods are often not the cause of depression but people consuming them are more likely to surrender to professional and emotional pressures due to lack of the right kind of nutrients in their body.
Singles: Another striking observation of the study was most people living fast foods were more likely to remain single. A possible connection could be that they are so addicted to fast foods that they don’t feel the need of having a partner cook for them or with them. They are happy consuming these foods alone.
Lethargic: Most people consuming these foods on a regular basis were found to be less active physically compared to their counterparts not eating much fast foods. They were found with almost no zeal to take up new challenges or work.
The study comes as a certain warning to adults and children who are dependent on fast foods for their daily meals. The best way to consume fast foods is on occasions. Lets understand that fast foods were never meant to be balanced diets. They were more like ‘party foods’. Lets keep them for parties only and embrace our old and healthy Indian thaali.
Tags: balanced diet, corporate fitness, fast food, fast food disadvantages, fast food leads to depression, fitness, fitness tips, health, health tips, healthy tips, Indian thaali., nutrition, pizza causes depression, side-effects of fast food, tips to keep fit
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Friday, May 18th, 2012
WHY should it not surprise anyone that meditation actually makes your brain smarter? That is because meditation has advantages that improve the working of the brain. A recent research conducted at the University of California Los Angeles has found that people who meditate regularly have large amounts of gyrification that is folding of cortex, which allows the brain to act faster.
For working professionals, this can be a key to improving their efficiency at work and gaining a little health advantage at the same time. A very interesting finding of the research is that the brain has better adaptability to environmental changes. And this is how it works. There is part of the brain called cerebral cortex, which is the outermost layer of the brain tissue. This tissue is responsible for memory, attention, thought and consciousness. The more the gyrification or the folding, the better is the brain at doing activities such as transmitting information, retaining memories, taking decisions etc.
Well these results are believable for a number of reasons. There are some real advantages of meditation that could be responsible for its effect on a better functioning of the brain. Like:
Relaxation: The foremost objective of meditation is to relax the body. Meditation involves deep breathing that helps in forgetting the surroundings. It lowers the consumption of oxygen, decreases the respiratory rate and heart rate. This on the other hand improves blood circulation. The brain thus is quiet and calm and feels refreshed.
Lowers cholesterol: There are clear indications that people who meditate enjoy lower cholesterol and are comparatively safe from cardiovascular diseases. The mental exercise during meditation also helps people with high blood pressure.
Keeps headaches at bay: People who suffer from headaches often can pacify the ailment considerably by meditating everyday. This also helps the brain as it is saved from stress and overwork.
Better control: Meditation makes people calmer in general. Since they are able to focus better through mental exercises, they are more likely to have a better grip on their body and life. They have calm temper and they don’t get angry very often.
Improves concentration: The brain is able to focus better if you are meditating regularly. Meditation involves relaxing the mind and body, this exercise increases the ability to focus throughout the day.
Creativity: People who meditate daily have better ideas as meditation works like tonic to the brain. It refreshes the brain and prevents it from constant thinking. This results in a better ability of imagination and creativity.
The above advantages will have a clear say in improving the performance of the brain and so the new research findings have only confirmed what always existed about meditation. Meditation is particularly relevant for software professionals who are often worked up and burned out.
Tags: benefits of meditation, brain, fitness, health, health tips for IT professionals, health tips for techies, meditation, meditation for software professionals, meditation makes you smarter, meditation skills, relax your brain, why meditate
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