Archives for January 2021

January 12, 2021 By Roopa Tandur Leave a Comment

Tips To Support Your Immunity During Winter

With the onset of winter, there’s always that one person at home who catches a cold and spreads it to the rest of the family members due to the close proximity. Infections spread easily during winter and given the ongoing pandemic, it has become quite important to support your immunity and avoid cough, cold and flu. But, is there a way to support your immunity naturally? Let’s take a look!

Support Your Immunity Naturally

Improve gut health as your gut is your second brain. Any disturbance in gut health will affect your immune system. Prebiotics and probiotics together help keep the gut healthy. Prebiotics in simple terms is the food that feeds the friendly bacteria in the gut. Garlic, onion, leeks, asparagus, bananas, barley, oats and flax seeds all help increase gut friendly bacteria and improve the immune system. On the other hand, probiotics are living microorganisms which give health benefits when taken orally. Probiotic foods include sauerkraut, yogurt, Kimchi and tempeh.
Eat Seasonal and dark coloured fruits and vegetables which are rich in antioxidants and vitamin C like oranges, sweet lime, amla, guava, apple, sweet potato, ginger, carrot and beetroot. You can also have sea buckthorn juice which is the best known source of vitamin C having 12 times more vitamin C than an orange. These foods help us keep our moisture levels and prevent dryness due to seasonal changes.
Get your daily dose of Vitamin D: As there are less food sources of vitamin D, getting a good amount of sunlight, at least 20 minutes during the day, between 9am to 3pm or including supplements to maintain your vitamin D levels is very important, especially if you are living in an area with severe cold. Low levels of vitamin D can lead to low levels of mood boosting hormone, mood swings and depression.
Supplement your regular diet with immune boosting herbs like ashwagandha, tulsi, turmeric, cinnamon, cardamom, methi seeds and ginger. The list is endless! These foods help us keep warm, improve gut health, reduce inflammation and also manage stress – all of which keeps our immunity at optimum levels.
Get adequate sleep of 7-8 hours: When we sleep, we give our body a chance to repair and restore itself to optimal levels. It helps you gear up for the next day’s activities. Good sleep also means fewer cravings for unhealthy food, better management of stress, less hormonal variations and weight gain.
Have well-balanced meals and avoid junk and unhealthy sweets in large quantities as they cause inflammation and increase your risk of infection. Including a lot of sugar in your diet also reduces the white blood cells ability to attack invaders. Having a lot of sweets also leads to more production of free radicals, which increases inflammation and lowers immunity.
Exercise regularly: Aim for 30 minutes of exercise at least 5 days a week as it improves metabolism and blood circulation. This makes it easy for the body to digest food and improved blood circulation makes it easy for cells to absorb nutrients from it. Exercising regularly also helps improve cardiovascular health, manage BP and avoid many lifestyle diseases. Exercise helps us manage our weight as being overweight impairs immunity.
Quit smoking and keep a check on alcohol intake: Nicotine is known to suppress neutrophil’s ability to kill pathogens, leading to tissue damage and inflammation. Research also proves that the brains of smokers have weaker neuro-immune response to infection and inflammation. Alcohol intake kills the healthy bacteria in the gut, triggering inflammation by altering the microbiome of the gut. It also destroys the cells of the immune system which leads to increased risk of serious infection. Alcohol also disrupts the body’s critical functions as the body does not have the ability to store alcohol as it does with other nutrients like carbohydrates or fats. So the moment one consumes alcohol, all the body’s energy is concentrated in breaking down the alcohol and sending it to the liver for further metabolism.

We hope this article helps you support your immunity and stay strong during winter. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below! For more on immunity, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by experts on GOQii Play.

#BeTheForce

January 9, 2021 By GOQii 1 Comment

Always Look At The Big Picture – Mukul Bhartiya User Journey

We often treat health as a one off objective but what happens once we achieve our goal? Do we fall back to our previous habits? While keeping health goals, it is important to always look at the big picture. While losing weight is a good target, being healthy should always be a lifelong goal! This is something our player Mukul Bhartiya understood during his journey with GOQii. Let’s look at his journey in his own words.

Finding GOQii

I started my journey with GOQii around two and half years back and my purchase decision was a result of meeting Vishal Gondal in 2012 at IIT, Mumbai where he was one of the speakers. I was looking for a fitness band and while researching, I came across GOQii. I immediately jumped in without having a clear idea of what I will do with it. Unfortunately, after just a month or so of purchase, I became very busy with work, having very little time to spend on my health. There was a disconnect with the coach and the 3rd coach assigned to me was a tough task master with his own ideas of fitness and health. So I decided to quit the journey.

I am a Black Belt in Shito Ryu Karate Do, but left practicing it around five years back due to personal issues. I kept myself active for a couple of years but after that, I became lazy, spending lots of time on social media, following twitter trends, validating my view point through anonymous writer’s rants. This time, around four months back when I looked at one of my pictures, it gave me a clear idea that I needed immediate help. I was weighing 84kg. Around 10 years back when I signed up for a weight loss program, though I lost 11kg, it was at the cost of my health. This time I needed certified people guiding me, so I went for GOQii!

Mukul Bhartiya Begins His Journey Again

My coach Ms. Falguni Bhojak is a patient and understanding coach and mentor. She asked me about my routine and my health objectives. She encouraged me to speak more about my health objectives, challenges and limitations and it resulted in a personalized health template for me. I years back. I wanted to lose weight fast, but she drilled down a few things in my mind, like “not everyday will be the same, I need to focus on the bigger picture and not allow failures to bother me”. We set a target of 1.5-2kg weight loss per month and made it a one year project. She also said that though weight loss is my immediate target, good health should be my lifelong target.

Ms. Bhojak’s first and foremost interest was to pull me out of laziness and make me active. She told me, “Mukul, can you start with half an hour of low intensity activity?” and guided me with the same. Now, what was “half an hour activity” around three and half months back, is “more than three hours activity” ranging from moderate to high intensity. In three and half months, I have lost 12.5kg. I am walking around 14-15km per day, spending around 30 minutes on martial arts, 20 minutes on yoga and eating healthy. Even on a bad day, I walk more than ten kilometers.

What Were Some Key Learnings?

Start always matters, even if it is small: I started with around 15 minutes of lazy activity and now I keep thinking how can I incorporate exercise in every activity.
There should be a bigger picture than the big picture: My coach’s question made me think what will I do after losing 20 kg? I have created a bigger picture for that and it has made my big picture look like a journey than just an end result.
Break the big picture into smaller pixels: Big picture may look daunting and many people back away, so break it down into smaller targets. Achievement of targets work as a reward mechanism for efforts we are putting in.
Stay consistent: Not everyday will be your best day. If you have a bad day, work hard the next day and make it better than your best day.
Everything needs time: You can’t make things happen by the snap of your fingers. Every result is the outcome of many actions you take on a daily basis to make it good.
Have someone who can critically analyze your actions but will be considerate and a helping mentor. Ms. Bhojak encourages me to ask questions, list out my challenges, immediately points out my deviations and keeps exercise routines which interest me.

There are options in the GOQii Arena where players can share their achievements, their story and their now-then photos and people share their achievements daily. Then there are “active month” challenges where participants can see their points, badges and ranks. There are some feature stories of achievers as well. There are many like me who either learnt or re-learnt something during their journey with GOQii. If everyone shares their stories, their journey, challenges, pain, achievements and guides each other from their experiences, moderated by experts, it can create a Facebook of “Health and Healthy Community”.

What Does Coach Falguni Have To Say About Mukul Bhartiya?

Mukul joined with a goal of losing 20kg of weight. He was doing meditation but workout or physical activity was missing due to the lockdown. We started with 30 minutes of workout. Moving ahead, as he was a trained Martial arts karate player and enjoyed doing it, we started with Martial arts as his exercise along with 20k steps.

He was following healthy eating and early dinner, but portion control was needed. So, we started working on it. He was quite determined and with his consistent efforts and hard work, we were able to see a loss of around 14.7kgs in 4 months.

The best quality of Mukul is that he is a very active GOQii Player who keeps updating his routine on the app and also discusses his challenges and progress with me on a regular basis – which is very essential in achieving any goal.

Does the journey of Mukul Bhartiya inspire you to begin yours? Head over to the GOQii App or our website to begin your journey today! For more inspiring stories, check out Healthy Reads.

#BeTheForce

January 8, 2021 By Pallavi Barnwal 2 Comments

The Single-Most Effective Sex Tip I Have Ever Given

Do you know the single-most effective sex tip that I’ve ever given?

Touch More!

Most of us consider touch to be a part of foreplay that leads to sex, but I am talking about touch just for the sake of touching. Yes, this kind of touch has the power to transform your sex life like never before.

You might think of touch as simply a skin to skin touch but it goes much beyond that. Touch is a central way that we share emotions with others. As a child, we felt safe in the nurturing, protective arms of our parents. As infants and little kids, we were held in a soft embrace or we will sit on the lap of our mother to receive that joy of nurturing. But as we grow up, the very same nurturing touch becomes sexualized.

But even as grown-up adults, we need this kind of nurturing yet non-sexual touch. It is where we go wrong in our intimate relationships, in our long term sex lives by linking touch only to sex. Intimate love relationships often fail because of the lack of this kind of touch. And to restart your sex life, you need to bring back this ‘touch’.

There are so many different kinds of touch: hugs, caresses, massages, cuddles, embraces, tickles, strokes and so on. And so many different places you could touch: hair, hands, feet, toes, fingers, belly, neck, backs, faces, shoulders, arms, legs, and more (remember to avoid touching the breasts or genitals because the purpose of this touch is not to be sexual but to enjoy the pleasurable feelings). And there are so many different messages you can convey with your touch: love, relaxation, seduction, sympathy, playfulness, desire, and so on.

Here’s why a touch is an effective sex tip that can help you put your sex life back in action after a long pause:

Reason #1 – Touch is exciting!

First things first, the touch itself can feel amazing! Do you remember that first kiss you had? Do you remember the thrill of that skin-to-skin contact? Just a simple touch could light you on fire. Even when that initial thrill wears off, many touch techniques can feel even sexier and more pleasurable than sex techniques. There are so many ways to experiment with touch in the bedroom. You could spend an entire month spicing things up without even having sex!

Reason #2 – Touch is less intimidating

You’ve might be knowing about countless books and sessions on “try new things in the bedroom”. But like most people, you never follow through on that advice because it feels intimidating! Sex feels like a chore, a task when the emotional connection wears off and life hits monotony. In this situation, it’s vulnerable and deeply uncomfortable to put yourself out there and do anything new in the bedroom. But trying new techniques for touch can feel a lot less intimidating than trying new techniques for sex. Touch is an easy thing to be good at. You feel less pressure and less perfectionism when experimenting with simple yet rich and profound touch.

Reason #3 – Touch increases your desire

If you want to try new things in the bedroom, you both have to feel the desire to be intimate in the first place! Some people have Responsive sex drives, which means they don’t feel the mental desire to have sex until they get physically aroused. If you ask a person with a Responsive sex drive type, “do you want to have sex?”, they will mostly say “no”, because for them their mental desire does not precede their physical desire. But if you start cuddling, touching, and kissing, their desire will naturally emerge, and they’ll want to keep going. Touch opens up the door to sexual possibilities.

If you want to bring more touch into your relationship, here’s one easy way to do it: for the next week, try to dedicate 10 minutes a day to spend together privately, in your bedroom, just holding each other, touching, and kissing. Don’t think of this time as “foreplay”. The idea is to enjoy physical contact simply for the sake of physical contact without any added pressure of going into intercourse.

This sex tip may sound simple, but the truth is that most relationships are so touch-starved that just this one exercise has the power to make a big impact on your sex life.

We hope this sex tip helps you improve your sex life. For more on sexual wellness, check out Healthy Reads or tune in to LIVE sessions by our sexual wellness expert Pallavi Barnwal on GOQii Play. You can also connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pallavibarnwalcoach

#BeTheForce

Disclaimer: Reader discretion is advised. This content is for an older, mature audience who seek to improve their health and wellness. GOQii is not responsible for any misrepresentation of this information.

January 4, 2021 By Mamta Joshi 1 Comment

Decluttering And The Joy Of Giving

2020 was a rollercoaster of a year with the pandemic, lockdown, being enclosed within 4 walls and being panic-stricken thanks to COVID-19. The battle with COVID-19 is far from over but there is a little something you can do for your soul and peace of mind in 2021 – that’s decluttering! There are many people who have faced hardships and have lost more than just their jobs. Let’s utilize the first month of 2021 with an exercise that benefits us and the underprivileged people in need as well.

Decluttering Your House

Are you ready to clean your closets? Clean them and take out things you no longer have a use for. You can either choose to discard, donate or give them to people who may have use for them. For such an activity to be successful and not time consuming, reorient your home by category instead of by room – clothes, kitchen utensils, toys, stationary, footwear, accessories, etc. so that it becomes easy for you to reach the right person with the right things. Believe me, we all will face some troubles but amid all that, when we give to the needy, it will make us feel good too!

How Do You Go About Doing This?

If you have things you don’t use anymore, consider giving them away. One of the best ways to decide is to ask yourself when you used the item last. If you are unable to recall or if it’s more than 3 years, you’re better off giving it to someone else who needs it because there’s a good chance you’re not going to use it in the future too.

Even though you don’t want your old things anymore, it’s almost guaranteed that someone else will. There are many people in need of usable items and your donations can help. When you throw away your used items, they have no chance of reaching people who need them the most.

Also, before donating take the condition of the item into consideration as well. Only donate the items that are new, unused, or gently used. This means items which are in a good condition, clean and presentable. Do not donate items that don’t work properly, with missing parts, or are ripped, torn or stained. If you can’t use them in their current state, neither can others.

Benefits of Decluttering

Decluttering teaches us how to let go and create space. Owing less helps save time and feel lighter and self actualized.
It exercises our decision making skills. What to keep and what to get rid of is basically solving a problem. It works our brain and gives us a sense of satisfaction.
Clutter can affect our brain, our ability to focus, our sleep, and our anxiety levels. While decluttering improves concentration, sleep quality, reduces stress and enhances mood.
Decluttering exercise will leave us delighted, our home clean and organized. There’s something deeply satisfying about being in a space that’s free of clutter and where the only thing in use has its place. We feel more relaxed and focused when we find the item we need, easily. So better to get rid of extra things and enjoy the organized, clutter-free, calm and energetic home space .

Once Decluttered, Where Do You Donate?

One can donate to a residence or to any charitable organization involved in such activities.
You can check with your househelp, your local cleaners and watchmen, etc. if they require any of the items you wish to discard.
Involve the entire family in the process, especially the young ones. They will learn decision making, know the noble cause behind and experience the joy of giving.

We hope this article helps you declutter and donate to a good cause. You can also up your Karma on the GOQii App by walking, earning Karma Points and donating it to a charity listed within the GOQii App. Check out the Karma feature now!

#BeTheForce

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