• Nagesh Kukunoor a chemical engineer gave up a career as an environment consultant in Georgia to become a film director in India, which was always his dream.
• Shankar Mahadevan used to work as a software engineer on Oracle Version Six before he gave it up and began a career full time as a singer\composer.
• Chetan Bhagat a mechanical engineer with masters from IIM Ahmadabad is today a renowned author of four best sellers.
• Boman Irani did a diploma in polytechnic and used to work at Taj Palace as a room service staff. Even as he worked to help his mother at their family bakery, he continued his passion for photography and at the age of 25-26 was also pursuing theater simultaneously. By the time he entered the film industry in 2000 he was 44 but he never gave up his passion for acting. Look at what a success he is today!

If you find you are in a similar situation where you are just not interested in what you are currently pursuing, you probably need to rethink your priorities and give your own dreams a chance. These above mentioned successes are definitely inspirations but that doesn’t mean you too should melodramatically leave everything to pursue your passion. We need to be rational too; since it’s your livelihood at stake.

We will try to throw some light into how to go about it:

Moderate expectations

You will not become a master or a pro over night. Do not forget the reason why you started this new field, it was because you wanted to do what makes you happy. Do not somewhere down the lane forget that fact as you keep high expectations of returns. Do it because you enjoy it and have an amazing passion for it. Give your 100 % at every opportunity and leave the rest. Dissapointment at the work will come and go. Deal effectively with it and keep going. If money is your only objective, there is no room for passion in your life.

to know more :

TENSE FREE WORK PLACE

Identify your passion

First and foremost it is of utmost importance to find out what it is that you are the most interested in. What task or interest calls out to you? We all have multiple interests but find what you enjoy doing, and have enjoyed doing for a long time but have never actually pursued it. What is it that you feel you were born to do!? It could be anything – dancing, writing, music, directing, acting, fashion designing, drawing, etc. You need to lay a finger on what it is.

Are you good at it?

This is the next most important question that you need to answer. Other than simply having a keen interest in something, you also need to know if you are good at it. That does not mean you have to be the best or the absolutely outstanding but you shouldn’t be horrible at it either. Then there is no point in pursuing something you aren’t good at, is there? Your passion should easily come to you without much efforts or hard work. Pursuing it should make you feel alive! And that vigor should be seen in the outcome.
To know more get connected to: Relieve your tension at workplace

Stop!! Managers, Businessmen and leaders of companies….! Are you witnessing more emotional health issues with your employees which results in lower productivity. Do you know that roots of even chronic illnesses occurred to many employees, have been connected to Health of the Mind. 

Yoga is unarguably the best ways to improve emotional health of any being  

Science Daily yesterday reported that Twenty minutes per day of guided workplace meditation and yoga combined with six weekly group sessions can lower feelings of stress by more than 10 percent and improve sleep quality in sedentary office employees, a pilot study suggests.

 In this context, mindfulness refers in part to one’s heightened awareness of an external stressor as the first step toward relaxing in a way that can minimize the effects of that stress on the body.

  “It doesn’t matter what the stress is, but how you change the way you perceive the stress,” Klatt noted. “I like to describe mindfulness as changing the way you see what’s already there. It’s a tool that teaches people to become aware of their options. If they can’t change the external events in their life, they can instead change the way they view the stress, which can make a difference in how they experience their day-to-day life.”

 Mindful attention awareness increased significantly and perceived stress decreased significantly among the intervention group when compared to the control group’s responses. Overall sleep quality increased in both groups, but three of seven components of sleep were more affected in the intervention group.

 On average, mindfulness increased by about 9.7 percent and perceived stress decreased by about 11 percent among the group that experienced the intervention. These participants also reported that it took them less time to fall asleep, they had fewer sleep disturbances and they experienced less daytime dysfunction than did members of the non-intervention group.

 The researchers took saliva samples to test for the presence of cortisol, a stress hormone, but found no significant changes in average daily levels of the hormone over time for participants in both groups. Klatt said the design of this part of the pilot study could have affected the result, and the sample collection technique will be changed in subsequent studies.

 Klatt said mindfulness-based stress reduction, developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, has been studied widely and determined to be useful in lowering symptoms ranging from depression and anxiety to chronic pain. But the time commitment required in the program makes it impractical for busy working professionals, and adding a stress-reduction class outside of work could add stress to these people, she said.

Medimanage’s People Wellness Solution creates Health Calendars for businesses and organizations, which include programs like Meditation, Mindfullness, Awareness Camps et al.

It is proven that investing on health of employees costs lower to provide than to avoid!!!

Energize Your Diet

Why is it that filling up on pasta or Chinese food for lunch leaves us snacky and sleepy an hour later? Or that falling short on fluids makes us forgetful and foggy? Fact is, eating habits play a powerful role in how well we function on every level. Below, six top fatigue-fighting nutrition strategies to chew on.

• Have breakfast… even if you don’t feel hungry. You’ll be a lot perkier: Studies show that people who eat breakfast feel better both mentally and physically than those who skip their morning meal.
• Eat every three to four hours. Having three smallish meals and two snacks throughout the day can keep your blood sugar and energy levels stable all day long, says Roberta Anding, R.D., a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association (ADA).
• Fill up on more fiber. Fiber has a time-releasing effect on carbs, so they enter your bloodstream at a slow and steady pace, giving your energy staying power
• Fuel your brain with omega-3s. Found in fatty fish (such as tuna and salmon), walnuts, and canola oil, these essential fatty acids play a role in keeping brain cells healthy and helping you feel mentally alert.
• Stay hydrated. Water makes up the majority of your blood and other body fluids, and even mild dehydration can cause blood to thicken, forcing the heart to pump harder to carry blood to your cells and organs and resulting in fatigue.
• Watch caffeine intake after noon.. But when caffeine is consumed in large quantities — or anytime in the afternoon or evening — the quality of your sleep that night can take a nosedive, leaving you with heavy eyelids the next day. One caution for those who are highly sensitive to caffeine:

Energize Your Spirit

• We’re all familiar with physical exhaustion, but mental strain — sadness, boredom, worry, anger, and general stress (the biggie) — can take an even heavier toll on vitality, completely wearing you out. Life happens, and these difficult emotions will, too. But if you react wisely, your brain and body will rebound — along with your vim and vigor.
• Splash some water on your face or take a shower when you’re feeling burned-out. Some 55 percent of study participants reported using these types of “water therapy” to successfully increase their energy
• Suit up in a “power” outfit to beat the blahs. Fight the tendency to throw on sweats when you’re feeling sluggish.
• Vent your feelings. Keeping fear, anxiety, and stress pent up inside may seem like a grown-up way to deal with these emotions. But discussing negative feelings with another person can ease them far better than keeping them bottled up; by airing them, you reduce their ability to sap your stamina
• Turn on some tunes. Listening to music is one of the most effective ways to change a bad mood, decrease tension, and increase energy.
• Let go of grudges. Nursing a grudge prompts your mind and body to react as if they’re under chronic stress, increasing your heart rate and blood pressure and potentially resulting in an impaired immune system and exhaustion over time
• Take belly breaths. When we’re under stress, we’re prone to take “chest breaths” — short, shallow ones,
• De-clutter a corner. Go through that teetering pile of papers or overflowing closet and clear it out. Clutter can make you feel out of control and overwhelmed
• Do some good. Acts of altruism can lend a little pep to your step 

Sleep Well

When you have a lot to do (um…always), usually the first thing to get squeezed off your agenda is sleep. But miss out on shut-eye and your energy, positivity, productivity, and memory are sure to suffer.

• Cut back on TV and computer time after 8 p.m. If you’re already a night owl (you go to bed late and sleep in on weekends), the bright light emitted from television and computer screens can make falling asleep at a decent hour even harder.
• Skip the nightcap. Alcohol depresses the nervous system — the system of cells, tissues, nerves, and organs that controls the body’s responses to internal and external stimuli. So while sipping a glass of wine before bed may help you nod off, the sedative effects wear off as your body metabolizes the alcohol, which may cause you to wake up in the middle of the night and have trouble falling back to sleep.
• Get your exercise. While scientists don’t yet understand why, aerobic exercise has been proved to help you fall asleep faster at bedtime, spend more hours in deep sleep, and wake up less often throughout the night,
• Follow the 15-minute rule. If you can’t fall asleep, or if you wake up and can’t get back to sleep within about 15 minutes, get out of bed and do something relaxing that will help clear your head, such as reading, meditating, or knitting (but not watching TV or surfing the Web). Then, once you feel sleepy again, go back to bed.
• Write down your worries. During the day, jot down any stressors that are weighing on you

Adapted from WebMd.com  – http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/your-guide-to-never-feeling-tired-again?page=2&print=true

Will you ever eat on your desk again?

And you thought you are alone in office on those late nights.

According to a study by University of Arizona germ guru Dr. Charles Gerba. You have plenty of bacteria keeping you company. Where? On your desk!!!

The study, found that paper isn’t all that’s piling up on workstations. In fact, the average desk harbors 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet seat!!! Yuck!!!

The study found surfaces in personal work areas such as telephones came in as the #1 home for office germs, followed by desks, water fountain handles, microwave door handles and computer keyboards. The area where you rest your hand on your desk has — on average — 10 million bacteria. Surprisingly, toilet seats consistently had the lowest bacteria levels of the 12 surfaces tested in the study.

“We don’t think before eating at our desks, even though the desk has 100 times more bacteria than a kitchen table” Gerba said. “Without cleaning, a small area on your desk or phone can sustain millions of bacteria that could potentially cause illness.”

With more people spending more time at their desks than sleeping on their beds – bacteria has really good company.

Study Highlights

For the study, Gerba and his team separated office workers into two groups. One group used disinfecting wipes to clean their desks, phones and computers; the other did not. Within two days, the wipes users were found to have a 99.9 percent reduction in bacteria levels.

The study team evaluated a variety of office locations, environments and surfaces. Study sites included private offices, cubicles and common work areas in offices located in New York, San Francisco, Tucson and Tampa. A total of 7,000 samples were collected nationwide and analyzed at the University of Arizona laboratories.

Other study highlights: Bacteria levels decreased drastically (99.9%) if surfaces were treated with disinfecting wipes once a day.

Among people who did not use wipes, bacteria levels increased an average of 19-31% on their telephone, computer mouse, keyboard and desktop surfaces throughout a typical workday.

So how do you control this??
So how can workers control the spread of illness-causing bacteria? “One good way to kill bacteria and help stop the spread of germs is to regularly clean your personal workspace,” offered Dr. Gerba. “During the study, we found that using disinfecting wipes can dramatically reduce that number and therefore help reduce your chances of illness.”