Laughter is a matter of perspective......

Oops! I poured diesel in the gas tank of my lawn mower. What did I do? The engine seized and it wouldn’t start. Called up for the technical help and the guy was asking me questions I had no clue about. I never tried to figure out the intricate details of these kinds of machines. I felt ashamed and embarrassed. I was looking for ways to shield myself. Then suddenly I saw a kid playing outside my house who bumped himself onto something he could have easily avoided, his friends laughed loud, the grown ups ran to find out if he was ok but that kid got up and joined his friends in laughing at himself. His laughter was a shield for him. He wasn’t embarrassed or ashamed for his mistake, his face was radiant with laughter and the kids were cheering him by calling him cool, funny..

The biggest ability a person can have is to be able to laugh at oneself. That laughter and that smile can do wonders to pull you out of that stressful situation and can invigorate your mind. Whenever I get stressed out I choose to laugh. And the funniest thing is, when I choose to do so, there are a millions of things that I can find to laugh about and they all happen to be mostly about me or about my own situation. The goof ups , the mistakes and sometimes the blunders I commit, they all look funny if I choose to look at them that way. I laughed out loud at what I did with my lawn mower and felt really good. In fact things look a lot easier, the answers start popping right in front of you because the mind is so relaxed. It is all a matter of perception.

Substantial research indicates that humor and laughter play a role in exercising the internal organs, getting more oxygen to the brain, boosting endorphin level, strengthening the immune system, and improving the optimism and outlook about his or her overall well being. We all read that and move on and start wondering but how can I be happy under these circumstances? I am not upset for no reason ? It's my horrible situation which makes me feel like that! Although, talking helps, no doubt about it. But that is a temporary stress buster. Just letting the steam off your shoulder does not put off the fire burning inside you. You have to pour the stream of positivism to extinguish that fire to ashes. And that can only be possible when we have the perspective to look at things in the lighter way and be able to laugh at ourselves. Being able to do so have the power to pull oneself out of any rut. “Don’t we have enough worries and tensions already due to the high stress life we are living in? But if we had the ability to laugh then we didn’t have to falsely intoxicate ourselves to pretend to move on and to put our past behind.

Nothing lasts forever.. but if we didn’t have the ability to be happy and enjoy the things around us then I believe we lost an opportunity to seize a moment from that passing phase and make it memorable for the rest of our life.
Laugh and the world will laugh with you…That’s the biggest gift you can give to yourself!

Fit Body, Fit Mind.......

The biggest selling magazine and most popular sites that you might inadvertently stop by while surfing through the net, is regarding the fitness of the body. Shape up your body for summer, tone those flabs, loose 10 lbs in 5 weeks are the most popular headlines that we come across. Are we getting obsessive about our looks and features? Is it because of this burgeon fitness industry? Well, even if that be the case, it sure does have one big advantage to it’s credit! It’s making us conscious about our health and appearance these days. Its making us go toward living a life which is enriching for our mind as well as for our body. And that according to me is a very positive change. Fruits and vegetables are in and the junk food is out. Preference toward more natural, environment friendly products are in, which also happen to be fuel and energy efficient, and products which are high in energy and fuel consumption are loosing ground. And the timing cannot be any better than this when Going Green is the new mantra of this age.

The western countries always paid a lot of importance to the physical attributes of people, sometimes to the point of becoming anorexic(the rate of obesity still pretty high nonetheless), but it feels good to read and hear that countries like India where until sometime back it was ok for people to be a little on the heavier side, married men and women especially never really cared how they look , in fact they do end up expanding their midriff after a while, have started becoming conscious, and in effect are paying a lot of attention to this new phenomena of taking care of their physical appearance! The reason for this change can also be attributed to the flourishing fashion industry that’s making a big headway. Gap, Dockers, Gloria Vanderbilt, Gucci, Tommy Hilfiger, Izod and many more…..are all pompously flashing their brands in the big cities these days. During my earlier visits to India, I would never buy jeans from there, coz regardless of the brand, the fittings were typically suited for the mass population which to me didn’t appeal so much, as I always struggled to find the right fit. But its not the same anymore, the boot leg with slender waists have found their way in India, thanks to the fitness conscious nation that they are trying to become.

Pilates ,Yoga, racquet club, pool house, meditation classes, swimming lessons are springing up in every nook and corner. Every time I step up on the scale, I shriek, albeit in excitement, to see that I have lost another 5 lbs and my BMI is pretty much in the range of where it should be! As per the dietician, a person should not loose more than a pound per week, sounds easy right? Well not really, unless and until one is really consistent and disciplined with the exercise and diet routine, it would be very hard to shed off those pounds off of our body.

Other than the obvious benefit of feeling good after the exercise session, there is growing evidence, including a new study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine that shows maintaining aerobic fitness through middle age could delay biological aging by 12 years. And it doesn’t stop here. It has it’s benefit in much wider ramifications too. As the saying goes, “an inflexible body is the cause of an inflexible mind” . Many body-mind experts believe that developing a flexible body helps to develop a flexible mind (and vice-versa). They believe that when the body learns how to be flexible, that the mind also becomes more flexible and creative, open to news ways of solving problems and enhancing creativity. This helps maintain a youthful body and a youthful attitude. The best answer we could find to substantiate this, lies in our own social surrounding. The moment we start aging and our bodies start loosing the vitality of youth, it starts reflecting on our attitude as well. Have you noticed that more often than not, its always hard to argue with an older person as compared to someone in their 20s or 30s? How very well linked the inflexibility of their body is to their mind? Trying out something new and showing interest in learning new skills seems bothersome to them. They are happy in their set own set up justifying the cliché, “you can't teach an old dog new tricks”, referring to the inflexible thinking sometimes associated with stiff body.

Hence while our waistlines are shrinking to fit into sizes 4 or 6, and may be in the process making our wallets feel a little lighter too by helping the economy in spending on newly launched brands in the market, the good thing that’s happening at the hindsight: we are keeping a tight check on our level of cholesterol and trying to make sure that our midriffs are not expanding beyond proportion .....………..

What say?????