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Time Management Can Change Your Life

How Time Management Can Help YouTime is a precious commodity. We all chase it but never have enough, given our busy schedules. Ever stopped to ask yourself why you keep running out of time? Ever wondered if you’re working in a systematic manner?

My father always said that there are two kinds of people:

  • Those who work hard
  • Those who work smart

Those who work hard, do their work without giving it a thought and work monotonously. The smart workers are those who do their work in a systematic and planned manner, adhere to time management and also enjoy what they are doing.

What Constitutes Time Management?

Time management is the act or process of planning and exercising conscious control over the amount of time spent on specific activities, especially to increase effectiveness, efficiency or productivity.

To be successful is to manage your time well. It helps utilize the available time in an optimum manner to achieve one’s personal and professional goals. Without time management, you will not steer your life and you’ll eventually end up doing exactly what other people want you to do. Time management helps you take control of your life in the right manner. You decide what you want to do and where you want to go. Practicing time management has lots of benefits. Once you get a hang of it, you can work more, learn faster and play more.

How Does It Affect Your Health?

Today, work pressure has everyone stressed to the bone. More than often, people stay awake till morning trying to complete their work. During the day, they are seated with eyes glued to a machine. All these negatively impact the body and the mind. No physical activity means lack of movement in your joints, muscles and hence, one is prone to joint pains and other lifestyle diseases.

If you practice time management, you can complete your work and still have time to take care of your health. Believe me, you will start feeling positive. This in turn will help you be more stress-free. For most adults, sleep is the main factor that is compromised due to busy schedules. For students and professionals, moving about without sleep is a regular affair under the garb of wanting to achieve their targets. They may complete all their tasks, but do not realize that their mental and physical health is getting affected. Proper time management may prevent this.

Benefits of Time Management

  1. Increase in Productivity: Practicing time management can increase your productivity by helping you finish your work in the shortest possible time.
  2. Chances of Moving up the Ladder: In corporate sectors, the better you perform, the higher your chances of growth are. By managing your time, you could end up becoming a star performer in your organization
  3. Reduced Stress: If you manage your time well, you do not have to panic or push yourself to finish your work. You will get your work done at the said time, thus relieving you of stress and unnecessary work pressure.
  4. Higher Income: It is a well-known fact that in today’s world, time reciprocates money. Managing your time helps you accommodate more time to take up new assignments, opening up many more doors of opportunities.
  5. Boost in Self-Confidence: If you are completing your work within a given time frame and delivering quality as well, it will certainly boost your self-confidence and be fruitful for your career advancements.
  6. Stronger Family Bonds: Time management will help you spend quality time with your family and friends, which seems next to impossible these days. Time management helps you maintain a fine balance between your professional and personal life. Your family bonding will be much better.
  7. Better for Health: For better health, you need at least 7 to 8 hours of sound sleep. If you spend the whole night finishing your pending tasks, then you are certainly evoking great health hazards. There are many health related irregularities which are caused by lack of sleep.

All of the above explanations prove that the benefits of managing your time are irrefutable. Life is all about accomplishments and enjoyments. Efficient time management is the only instrument which helps you find both. You can’t allow yourself to sink under the files of pending tasks and persistently overlook your family responsibilities or personal necessities. Adopt a proficient time management technique to lead a balanced and prosperous life.

Have you been unable to manage your time or excel in managing it? Please share your thoughts in the comments below!

For more articles like this, check out Healthy Reads. If you want to set a schedule to help you manage your time and health better, speak to an expert by subscribing for GOQii’s Personalised Health Coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

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8 Diet and Lifestyle Tips For The Winter Season

lifestyle tips winter

By now, we are all experiencing the cool winter breeze. While the weather is quite pleasant, it also causes several issues like dry and itchy skin, cold and cough, etc. To help you stay healthy during this season, we’ve got some effective diet and lifestyle tips that will keep these issues at bay.

Diet & Lifestyle Tips for a Healthier You

  1. Healthy Diet: Sir Robert McCarrison, one of the best known nutritionists says, “The right kind of food is the most important single factor in the promotion of health; and the wrong kind of food is the most important single factor in the promotion of disease.” There is an elaborate healing mechanism within the body, but it can perform its function only if it is abundantly supplied with all the essential nutritional factors. There are certain dishes which are winter specific in our country. We all relish them and besides being delicious, they serve a special purpose to keep us warm. Let’s start with our favorite, Gajar ka halwa which we all love. It is winter specific because we get the best seasonal carrots during this time. Next comes sarson ka saag. The saag is not just a flavoursome package but also a whole bunch of nutrition. Then we have gond ka ladoo (made from gum resin). This contains nuts and seeds too. It will keep you super warm. We have our own snack this time with nuts and jaggery chikki. A chikki a day is sure to keep the winter chills away! While we enjoy these, let’s not forget portion size. 
  2. Regular exercise: will keep you warm with a good circulation of blood. During winter, due to contraction of muscles to preserve energy, which is a natural phenomenon, many elderly folks suffer from joint pains and stiffness. To avoid that, it is best to continue doing light exercises. One can start off with a brisk walk for 15-20 minutes. People with a heart ailment or high blood pressure should avoid going out very early in the morning because of low oxygen levels. 
  3. Water: We tend to forget drinking water in winters as we don’t feel thirsty. But you know, water is the carrier of nutrients in our body and helps in detoxification. So make sure you load up on at least 2-3liters of water a day.
  4. Hygiene: Next comes the hygiene! Regular bathing is essential to keep the skin healthy and nourished. Wash your hands after coming back from somewhere, before cooking or eating food.
  5. Skin: Most of us suffer from dry, cracked skin during winter and we get tired applying lotions and oils throughout the day. I have a very useful tip for you to avoid this. Apply coconut oil or any other moisturizer immediately after bathing as during this time your skin is moist enough to absorb the oil and you will feel the softness throughout the day. You can also try these simple winter skincare tips: https://goqii.com/blog/8-simple-and-effective-winter-skincare-tips/ 
  6. Sleep: Good, restful, quality sleep helps in boosting our immunity by repairing the wear and tear of the body and mind. For an adult, 6-9 hours of sleep is required and for the aged ones, 5-7 hours. 
  7. Vitamin D: Vitamin D deficiency is on a rise in Indians despite the fact that we are blessed with the sunshine throughout the year. People prefer to stay indoors. Vitamin D not only keeps the bones healthy but also regulates our mood. You would have heard about Seasonal Affective Disorder, more prevalent in the western countries as they are devoid of sunlight. So, what are you waiting for? Go and get some sunshine! 
  8. Clothing: Wear warm, woollen clothing to protect yourself from the cold. 

And that’s it! These lifestyle tips are simple to follow and will keep you warm during this cold season. We hope this article helps you. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below! For more winter tips, check out Healthy Reads or speak to an expert by subscribing for GOQii’s Personalised Health Coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr 

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How To Manage Eye Stress and Strain

manage eye stress and strainMany of my players suffer from eye stress and strain due to excessive small screen time. With most of us using computers and cellphones at work, eye strain has become a major health issue. Research has shown that eye strain and stress issues occur in around 70-80% of people using computers at the workplace. Feeling fatigued, mistakes while working, watery eyes, twitching, and redness in eyes, constant headache, and irritability are some common issues that people face due to eye strain. It’s a growing need to cope with and manage eye stress and strain.

Tips to Manage Eye Stress and Strain 

1. Adjust Lighting
Many times we tend to ignore the light arrangement while working for long hours. The bright light from windows or sharp interior lighting can cause major eye stress.  One should position the computer screen in a manner that the windows are to the side, instead of in front or behind it. Try to block excess lighting from outside by using curtains. Reduce sharp interior light by reducing the number of light sources or by using warm light tone bulbs/tubes. Halogen lights are better than overhead fluorescent lights.

2. Reduce Glare On The Screen
Excessive glare on the screen which might go unnoticed is another cause of getting headaches while working on screens. There are different gadgets available to help reduce this strain:

  • Download a Blu-ray filter which is an app which creates a shield on your screen
  • Use anti-reflective coating/cover on your screen
  • If outside light cannot be reduced, you can use a computer hood
  • Use Anti-reflective coating glasses. One can opt for Anti-reflective (AR) coating glasses. These are special glasses made for people with excessive screen time. This special coating helps block harmful blue light, keeping the eyes relaxed.

3. Adjust Your Display Settings
Adjusting the display settings like brightness, text size, contrast, the color temperature of your computer can help reduce eye strain and fatigue. Generally, these adjustments are beneficial:

  • Brightness: of the screen you are looking at should appear relaxing to the eye. If the background seems to emit light/is too bright or seems too dull or grey, then you need to adjust the brightness. Also, most screens have automatic brightness control these days, wherein the brightness is automatically reduced if the surrounding lighting is dimmed.
  • Color Temperature: Adjust the screen settings according to your comfort. Reducing color temperature also reduces the amount of blue-light being emitted by a screen.
  • Text size: This is one considerable factor. Avoid straining eyes by reading text that appears difficult to read. Adjust text size as per your comfort.

4. Take Frequent Breaks
Try to take 5-10 minute breaks every 2 hours to reduce the feeling of fatigue. Take a stroll, look away from the screen and splash your eyes with cold water. During your computer breaks, stand up, move about and stretch your arms, legs, back, neck and shoulders to reduce tension and muscle fatigue. Use cold green tea (used) bags for relieving puffiness around your eyes. (Keep used green tea bags in the refrigerator- and put them over your eyes- covering the under eye area as well) rest for 20 minutes and remove.

5. Blink Often
Blinking keeps your eyes from drying out. Constant gazing at screen reduces blinking by 30-40%. Hence, the eyes feel dry and strained. Every 20 minutes, blink 10 times by closing your eyes as if falling asleep (very slowly). This will keep your eyes from drying out. If eyes feel strained post blinking, rub palms together and apply a warm compress to the twitching eye and gently massage the eyelid with your fingers.

6. Exercise Your Eyes
Eye exercises can greatly help in improving eyesight and is a must for people having long screen hours to avoid developing eye issues.

  • Try moving your eyeballs up and down without blinking. After about 10 repetitions of this exercise, rub the palms of your hands together and cup your eyes so you can feel the warmth seep through. This is called palming.
  • You can follow this by moving your eyeballs horizontally, from 9 to 3, and diagonally, from 2 to 7 and 11 to 4. This can help relieve the extra pressure on muscles which develops while looking at computer screens.

I am sure these suggestions will help you avoid and manage eye stress and strain. Having a routine eye exam is a must if you have more than 3-4 hrs of screen time every day.

We hope this article helps you stay healthy at your workplace. Do leave your thoughts in the comments below! For more health and lifestyle tips, check out Healthy Reads or speak to an expert by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

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Strength Training and It’s Benefits

strength training

Having covered so many topics across health and fitness, we wanted to focus today’s topic on Strength Training. I have always been fond of strength training. If performed correctly, strength training can provide significant functional benefits and improvement in overall health and well-being.

Weight training can increase Bone Mineral Density and Muscle Mass. It also increases the strength and toughness of our tendons and ligaments, improves joint function and range of motion, and reduces potential for injury. Strength training will tone your muscles.

benefits of strength trainingStrength training or weight training or anaerobic training all are same. In anaerobic exercise, cells use ATP (Adenosine Tri Phosphate) as a source of energy or glucose in the absence of oxygen. It usually lasts up to 2 minutes.

I began strength training at the age of 16 with traditional Indian squat, Surya Namaskar and push ups. At that time, my knowledge was limited. After some time I realized that my immune system is performing better. I used to fall sick more often with fever and/or cold but weight training really helped me make my immune system stronger.

Weight training can be done using body weight, elastic bands, dumbbells, barbells, and kettle bells. I prefer using my body weight as there is no investment which is required and sometimes, I use dumbbells for weight training.

If you are feeling depressed or stressed, try weight training. It helped me overcome depression and might work wonders for you! After a weight training session, endorphin levels increase in the body. Endorphins are the neurotransmitters released by the pituitary gland which makes one feel good. Neuro-muscular coordination improves.

One benefit of strength training is that during training you are burning calories but the effect will remain for more time because of the increased muscle mass. So weight training will help to increase the B.M.R. as muscle needs more energy to survive.

What Happens in Strength Training?

During strength training, there will be a wear and tear in the muscle fiber but that damage will be repaired after sleep and proper nutrition. Your muscles will become stronger. Your muscular strength and muscular endurance will go up after 2-3 sessions. For hypertrophy (increase in muscle mass), you need more training sessions, proper nutrition and rest.

During weight training, blood flow will increase to a particular muscle. There will be more supply of nutrients to that muscle and muscle will increase in size and strength. Smaller muscles need less time for recovery but bigger muscles like the hamstrings or quadriceps need more time and nutrition.

But before starting weight training you have to prepare your body and mind. Start with a good warm up. During or before you exercise, try ballistic stretching where you are not holding the stretch. After your training session, perform cool down and static stretching where you will hold the stretch for 10-15 seconds.

Want to know more about Strength Training? Ask an expert by subscribing for Personalised Health Coaching here: https://goqiiapp.page.link/bsr

For more on fitness, check out Healthy Reads.

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