Search Results for: mental health

April 10, 2018 By Palak Mittal Leave a Comment

Basic guide to stay healthy and fit

Getting-Fit-and-Healthy

In the light of the universal health coverage launched by the WHO, here are some of the basics that you can follow to stay healthy and fit:

eating healthy

Eating Healthy Is Important: What you eat, is who you are. Eating simple, cooked meals instead of packed or readymade food will keep you away from the unhealthy elements such as bad cholesterol and extra calories. Including a lot of vegetables and fruits and ensuring a balanced meal every day, is crucial for a healthy life. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day and should never be skipped. Skipping breakfast can make you crave for food, thus leading to consuming more calories than required. Starting your day with a power-packed breakfast is the first step towards a healthy life. As a bonus, your day turns out to be more productive as well.

active sunday picture Picture Source: Active Sunday

Exercising Regularly Is A Must: Exercise and food are like two sides of a coin, and if you want good health, you can ignore neither. A minimum of 30 minutes of physical activity three times a week is a must to keep your spirits high and body healthy.

no-smoking- 3. Get Rid Of Your Vices: Smoking causes significant harm to your lungs and can result in several lung diseases including Lung Cancer. Hence, quitting is a necessity for a healthy and disease-free life. Alcohol abuse is another problem that you need to get rid of, as it increases the risk of problems such as liver disease, high blood pressure and in the worst case stroke & heart failure.

stress

4.Stress Needs To Be Managed: In the 21st century where the world is highly competitive than ever, stress has become the new enemy of both mental and physical health. Everyone experiences the stress of some kind day in and out, therefore it is essential to learn how it can be managed. Yoga and meditation can help in relieving stress. Also, indulging in hobbies and sharing a laugh with your loved ones are great stress busters as well.

2014-06-30-sleep

Sleep Is Crucial: Your job may not allow you to follow the circadian rhythm. Never mind, but at least, you must allow yourself a sound sleep of 6-7 hours. Sleep is crucial for your body parts to rejuvenate themselves and prepare for another 16 hours of efficient work.

health check

6. Health Check-ups should be a priority:‘Prevention is better than cure’ and that is exactly the reason why regular health check-ups are most important. As they do not just help you stay up-to-date with your daily health issues, they will also alert you to any future health risks. These check-ups will also enable your doctor to plan your treatment better in case of any health issues. Some common tests that you can go for our blood pressure, cholesterol and glucose level, body mass index, dental check and cleaning, self-check for changes in breasts in women and others.

As an individual, take a pledge to follow these steps and start living a healthy & happy life.

March 8, 2018 By GOQii 1 Comment

Why do women ignore their own health?

women's health matters

Today’s woman of India might be overly worried about the health of her child and the well-being of her family, but she barely finds time to take care of herself. Most women don’t even understand the importance of regular checkups or visiting a medical practitioner for lifestyle advice.

The recently released GOQii India fit report 2018 (Indiafit.org) indicates that men seem to be better at leading a healthier lifestyle than women. They have greater step counts and more water. They have fewer illnesses and digestive disorders than women. While women are conscious about being healthy, they more often than not, neglect their own. It is increasingly being seen that women are more prone to being anaemic due to iron deficiency.

However, all is not dark. There is light at the end of the tunnel. We are seeing some positive changes with several women now taking charge of their health or wanting to do it as soon as possible. They are getting conscious of maintaining a healthy lifestyle. When it comes to adapting to a healthy lifestyle, the first thing that women are concerned about is reducing their bulge. This is further confirmed in the India Fit report’18 which reveals that 78% Indian women consider weight management as one of the key focus areas whereas 61% focus on getting fit and active. According to the report, awareness about women health has become an important issue in the Indian society.

GOQii as a company is striving hard to get one and all to change their current habits and imbibe newer habits to lead a healthy and fulfilling disease-free life in the future. On this International Woman’s Day, the company’s focus for the month of March is on Women’s health. As part of its ‘Active Sunday’ program, the company has lined up a series of talks by inspiring men and women on March 11th across Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi, Gurugram, Ahmedabad, Pune, Kolkata and Hyderabad. REGISTER NOW

These inspiring men and women will take the attendees through their personal journey while they lay emphasis on woman’s health and its importance.

Here are the short profiles of the speakers

kolkotta moushmi

KOLKATA – Dr Moushumi Gongopadhyay

GOQii Player, Dr Moushumi Gongopadhyay has over two decades of experience in Counselling. She is the only qualified Victimologist and the sole Certified Craniosacral Therapist in the City of Joy. She juggles the role of a Psychological Counsellor, to that of a Nutritionist, a Colour Therapist, to a Graphotherapist and so on. A true professional, Dr Gongopadhyay is the best in her trade because of her unwavering dedication. She is also an activist working for “Victims of Domestic Violence and Intimate Partner Abuse” and helps them to lead normal lives. When she gets time off her super busy schedule, she likes to sing, dance and bake and honestly, her cakes are to die for.

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Reena delhi

DELHI- Reena Kansal

GOQii Player Reena Kansal is a powerful woman, she is a doting mother to two teenagers, a womenswear Design Head at Wills lifestyle, a Fitness enthusiast and an Avid Reader. 19 years ago, Reena met with an accident that left her on crutches for almost 2 years. Her grit & determination and support from her family helped her not only overcame this trauma but also transformed her approach towards life. From crutches to rappelling down mountains, to white water rafting and trekking, Reena has conquered many demons in her mind. She has to her credit the badge of having completed 3 ultra walks of 100 km and recently she completed her first ever half marathon in under 3 hours.

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Amrita Photo

PUNE- AMRITA MOGHE

GOQii player, Amrita Moghe, a shot put and throw ball athlete in her growing years is now a power punch who wears many hats. She is a caregiver for her ageing parents, doting mom for her 5-year-old, and a Consultant at a Global Bank, she still manages to remove time to pursue her interests. She competes only with herself and for herself. She is a runner and believes running has tested her mental strength and aided her in overcoming mental and physical blocks. Her focus to stay fit has helped her through her personal battles and has had a calming effect on her, helped her built perseverance and gave her the motivation to never quit. She takes each day as it comes and is a strong believer in karma.

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Madhu-Bala-Sharma

GURGAON- MADHU BALA SHARMA

Being blind from birth did not stop Madhu Bala Sharma from achieving her goals and becoming a role model for millions out there like her. From selling calendars and bookmarks for fun at a young age of 8 years to becoming a voice and accent trainer in GE Capital International Services, Madhubala has come a long way. She is proud when she says “I was the first one with a visual disability to take up the role of a Voice and Accent Trainer, both at GE Capital International Services and at IBM Daksh, now Concentrix. She took up voice and accent training as a challenge to ensure that she is able to create a new career opportunity for persons with visual disability. On public demand, she has now started conducting her own workshops in this field.

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Rahul Sharma

AHMEDABAD-Rahul Sharma

Rahul Sharma, founder-Cyruns Sports & Wellness was leading an ideal life as one could imagine. He had a well-paying job, and his life was on track for a happy existence until one day he woke up to a rude shock. He was diagnosed with High Cholesterol & Hypertension & was put on lifetime medicine. It was his quest to be a healthy and off medicine that led him to take up running. His dedication and sheer determination towards transforming his own life have made him today a certified running trainer & nutritionist, leaving behind his 21 years of corporate life. He says, “Fitness is here to be enjoyed and lead a healthy active lifestyle”. As a passionate Certified Trainer, he motivates, enables and makes training a fun and rewarding experience. His mantra in life is “Realize Your Potential”.

REGISTER NOW

samara1

BENGALURU-Samara Mahindra

Having lost her mother to Cancer and being left alone to make her choices and take her decisions, Samara’s eyes opened to a lot of brutal realities during her mother’s long journey of struggle with Cancer. The oncology ward of numerous hospitals became her home where she witnessed extreme cases and dire situations that were unimaginable. She watched blank refusals of curable stage cancer treatment to those who didn’t have the funding and children who saw hospital wards before a classroom. Consequently, she decided not to settle. She knew exactly which door she wanted to unlock and how many steps she wished to take. That was the beginning of Carer Program. The CARER Program is an integrative cancer recovery program that helps a patient recover from the side effects of treatment and cancer itself. CARER provides a holistic approach to healing through complementary therapies that target nutrition, movement and mind-body healing for patients post-treatment.

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bela gupta mumbai

MUMBAI- Bela Gupta

Bela Gupta is an engineer by qualification, retailer by profession, healthy lifeline inspired by the GOQii family and now a food tech entrepreneur. As every other start-up entrepreneur, her life is rising to bring in the dawn very early every morning, gratitude to the sun, meditating, walking or running, working out, eating balanced nutrition from her food brand-Herbivore, living healthy lifestyles, reading and networking. She has been managing operations like an Indian Goddess with multiple hands taking charge of at least 7 to 8 roles, strategizing and thinking about next steps, training and motivating existing team, interviewing new hires, meeting with investors, vendors and clients, socialising spending time with friends and family. On weekends, she most likes to trek in the mountains or indulge in some adventure I have very few needs, I own very little and I make a living off doing the things I love.

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Estelia Pinto

MUMBAI – Estalita Pinto

Estalita is a fitness coach who lived the corporate life for 16 years before she decided to make fitness her passion. While working in the corporate world she took up the challenge of Fitness Certification with Reebok Instructors Alliance. And since then, she’s never looked back. She took up Certifications for different programs with various institutions, national & international and now specializes in physical training and group classes. Her Fitness Mantra is’ to dance your way to a healthy life! Her single most important advice to others is to “Never miss a workout, however busy you may be… Like you would never miss food”

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sunita hyderabad

HYDERABAD – Sunita Tummalapalli

Sunita is a Reebok certified fitness instructor, and founding member of WIN (Women in Network), a non-profit organization that helps women and children from an underprivileged section in the areas of Health, Hygiene and Education. She has co-founded and operated Helios Fitness Center in Hyderabad. She is an active member of the Hyderabad Runner Club and has to her credit 41 full marathons, 8 ultra-marathons and 2 multi-day races. She has also completed numerous runs and walkathons, including several half marathons. She has completed marathons on all seven continents in 2015 to earn ‘Seven Continents Finisher’s Medal’. She ran all six World Majors and earned Abbott World Marathon Majors ‘Six Star Medal’ in Feb’ 2018 at Tokyo marathon. She is the 1st person of Indian origin to earn both ‘Seven Continents Medal’ and ‘Six Star Medal”.

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January 31, 2018 By Anusha Subramanian Leave a Comment

Games4Good for Mental Fitness

‘Memory Games’, seems to be the most sought after by GOQii players on ‘Games4Good’, the games platform that helps GOQii users, to connect, play, score and motivate each other.

Playing games on the mobile and other handheld devices has never got better. It has become part of daily routine for people of all ages. While, the ‘Brain Games’ or Memory games as we call it is designed to optimize cognitive functions and improve mental fitness, it is also designed to help individuals have fun both scoring and winning over each other.

These games while being fun also help individuals to break the monotony, concentrate and keeps the individual motivated.

What are Brain Games?

Brain, one of the most important body part helps us to do many functionalities in our daily routine and helps to maintain our health. Living a healthy lifestyle is enough for us to improve our brain health. There are various ways to keep our brain healthy, some of these are staying hydrated, eating mindfully to keep body and brain fit, sleeping well, meditating to increase our brain power, self-confidence, controls emotions, reduces stress and relaxes the mind, following a hobby helps to keep the brain active and lastly play games to avoid boredom and improve the cognitive skills.

With age most humans tend to struggle with learning, thinking and being attentive. These are caused largely due to weak cognitive skills. Playing games allows you to improve your cognitive skills through intense but fun mental exercises, it helps to pay attention, concentrate, learn, reads, remember and think.

The rule of practice works with a human brain too. The more you practice the game, the better you get at it. When you do certain activity multiple times your brain gets bored as well and does not feel the challenge anymore. The reason for this is because you start mastering the skills. When this happens, you need to start increasing the difficulty levels of the game and keeps yourself challenged. In games scoring is a component of fun, feel motivated and tracking your own progress.

Cognitive or Brain games helps you to stay focused and remember the information while doing multiple things. It tends to improve short-term memory, recall information stored in the past, improves logic & reasoning. These games increase your problem-solving ability, decision making and strategy development. It also enhances and improves hand-eye coordination. To hang on to information while in the process of using it, to think in visual images, perform tasks quickly and accurately.

So, if you haven’t tried the games on GOQii Games4Good-now is the time to challenge your brain with games to train Memory, Focus, Problem Solving, Mental agility and all other cognitive skills.

January 16, 2018 By Nida Kazi 9 Comments

To be Healthy – do you have to go on a diet?

Most of who are on the higher side of an “acceptable weight spectrum” and trying to lose weight, and you declare your intentions to the world, then you have to be prepared to battle questions such as “Oh, you must be on a diet” since you have decided to lose weight. Day in and day out you will be asked this question and you will just not be able to wriggle out of the situation.

As days pass it only gets annoying when people can’t stop staring at your food plate, followed by the responses such as do you only eat salads, do you live off of them? How do you survive? Or are you allowed to eat rice or roti? leave alone desserts.

Does being health conscious mean that you have to be on a diet 24×7 365 days a year?

No, is the answer to the above question but sadly, the perception at large is that to be health conscious one has to go on a diet.

Let us first clearly understand what is diet?

The textbook definition of Diet is that ‘it is a sum of food consumed by a person or organism’. Going by that, diet is anything and everything one eats. So there you go, every single person and every organism on earth are on a diet every single day.

Although today, the word diet implies intake of specific nutrients for health or weight management.

Now the third definition which most people think of when you talk about “Diet” is that you have to eat as little as possible, you have to eat everything raw and the food has to be bland and tasteless.

Does it mean that we have to go on restrictive diets to be health conscious? What is being healthy? Does it mean hitting a particular digit on a weighing scale? Does it mean you have to shrink down to size 0?

What if you have those 8 pack abs and look as if you just walked out of the magazine cover, but have very bad sleep cycles and blood cholesterol shooting right through the roof? Does that term you as being healthy?

According to the WHO, health is, “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity”.

Our definition of health is not even close to the real meaning. In the clamour of following fads and trying to fit into the picture perfect images created by media and peers, we let go of other aspects that make us healthy. In order to look a particular way, we let our mental and social well-being take a back seat.

Yes, it is important to eat the right food but, do we really have to be so rigid about it?

The most important thing to keep in mind is doing everything in moderation, eat fruits and salads daily but, don’t skip the roti altogether. Go for that piece of cake every once in a way, just don’t overdo it.

The most neglected aspect of being healthy is being mindful. Be present in the moment, especially while you eat. Do not be all over the place, or engrossed in your phone as you shove down the food.

One thumb rule to follow would be to ‘chew your water and drink your food’. Yes, that’s right!! Chew each morsel so well that it is literally liquid before you gulp it down. And when you drink a beverage, take a sip, swivel the liquid in your mouth. Let all your sensory ends of your tongue get activated and experience the flavour of the beverage before it goes down your throat. Believe me, your gut will thank you for it.

Your body already knows what it needs and how much but you need to tune in and give it time to do its job. When you eat with full attention and take your time, the gut sends a signal to your brain when you’ve had enough. This helps you cut down your food intake and yet make you feel more satiated than ever.

Remember it’s not what you eat but how you eat it is what’s more important.

Be active. Do what you most enjoy doing. Go for a run if you like, or just stroll around with a pet. Swim if you have to. Post your exercise you should feel good about yourself, not want to hit the sack and stay there all day.

And most of all do not forget to pay attention to your mind. A sound mind resides in a sound body. But, if you let go of your mind no matter what you do for your body it won’t work quite well enough.

Practising some deep breathing and meditating for a few minutes a day works magically for your mental well-being. If you are not a fan of meditation, then listen to some music to uplift your mood or How about going for a deep tissue massage? All these remedies will help you to calm down your mind and de-stress.

Do not fear to socialise with friends just because you are on a diet. Mingling with like-minded people makes you feel happy and boost your morale. There is no better therapy than sharing a laugh with some good friends.

So, my take on being health conscious is that you should be able to enjoy life to the fullest while feeling good about yourself. Eat healthy unprocessed foods in most of your meals on most days of the week, but don’t shy away from letting go once in a while. And, take care of your mental health along with your physical need.

So what is your take on being health-conscious?