Column: The Good Life: for Mint Lounge
Listen to your body
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Dec 08 2016. 05 27 PM IST Listen to your body Don’t assume that the external world can cure your internal problems. Your body will give you clues about its current state and where it is headed Shoba Narayan Photo: iStock My mother always says, “Listen to your body”. Every time my mother feels under the weather, she does not go to the doctor or even take medicine. She says things like, “The heat in my body has increased, which is why my eyes are dry. I think I’m going to make a soup out of [...]
Work out during your commute
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Sep 22 2016. 04 40 PM IST Work out during your commute Engaging your core while in the car, bus or autorickshaw is simple. All you need to do is make sure that your back doesn’t lean against the backrest Shoba Narayan Try sitting upright in your car rather than slumping back into the seat. Photo: iStock There is a great scene in The Other Guys, where Mark Wahlberg pumps his arms up and down and shouts, “I want to be a peacock.” His chicken-like pose works for the movie, but would be totally wrong [...]
Pandiculation is no gobbledygook
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Sep 29 2016. 05 54 PM IST Pandiculation is no gobbledygook A pandiculation is a constriction of muscles followed by a stretch. Constrict, release, relax—that’s the sequence Shoba Narayan Try pandiculating to relax your body. Photo: iStock Think of the time you wake up. What do you do? You probably constrict or tighten your muscles for a second before stretching—arms above your head, feet stretching downward. After engaging in this stretch, you probably relax. Think of how your pet dog or cat wakes up after a nap: feet forward, belly down, back arched upwards, [...]
The link between dance and memory
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Oct 06 2016. 05 43 PM IST What’s the link between Indian classical, folk dance forms and enhanced memory power? Horizontal saccades—when eyes move from side to side in rhythm with the legs—in classical dance forms such Bharatanatyam improves human memory, studies show Shoba Narayan Kathakali involves saccade, or when the eyes move from one fixed point to the other. Photo: Reuters I could be wrong but no other culture has dance forms that incorporate as much eye movement as the Indian classical and folk forms do. Not the Japanese kabuki and noh dances, not the Chinese folk and [...]
Squat and curl
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Oct 20 2016. 05 25 PM IST Squat and curl Squat and curl during your spare time. It won’t seem onerous and will actually benefit you in the long term. Shoba Narayan Regular squats help people adapt to ageing better. Photo: iStock I asked a bunch of experts for one exercise that would offer the greatest value for time spent. I was hoping they would say, “Eat chocolate, in moderate quantities, throughout the day.” Instead, they said, “Squat.” So I do, and so can you. Squats don’t require specialized equipment. They can be done anywhere: [...]
Time to use your non-dominant hand
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Oct 13 2016. 05 38 PM IST Time to use your non-dominant hand Using the non-dominant hand not only improves willpower and self-control, it opens up aspects of the brain we are not in touch with Shoba Narayan Be hands-on. Photo:iStock Like over 90% of the world, I am right-handed. Actually, I am a suppressed lefty, not in the ideological sense but in the physiological. There are many theories on why the human race is overwhelmingly right-handed. Some say it is based on how we were positioned in the womb. If the right side [...]
Health at your fingertips
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Oct 27 2016. 05 14 PM IST Health at your fingertips In mudras’ (hand gestures, used in most Eastern religions) ease lie their beauty and healing qualities Shoba Narayan Photo: iStockphoto It is the end of the day. You are tired. You don’t want to stretch; you don’t want to squat. You just want to vegetate in front of the TV. How do you optimize this experience? An easy way is to learn some mudras. Mudras are hand gestures, used in most Eastern religions. As Ramaa Bharadvaj, a dancer and teacher with the Chinmaya Naada Bindu gurukul in Pune, [...]
How to stay active all the time
How to stay active all the time Walk while on conference call, or do butt crunch while waiting at the bakery counter—some ways to exercise Shoba Narayan Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Nov 03 2016. 05 00 PM IST Any activity done in an intense way, offers benefits similar to those you get when you exercise on a treadmill for 45 minutes. Photo: iStock A growing number of studies point to the benefits of HIIT, or High-Intensity Interval Training. A study, published in 2014 in the journal PLOS One, highlights the benefits of shorter but intense spurts of exercise. Apps [...]
Sujok Seed Therapy
Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Thu, Nov 10 2016. 05 11 PM IST The healing power of ‘desi’ seeds Seeds have pure potential—they are holders of the life force Shoba Narayan Pressing seeds—mustard, fenugreek, peppercorns—over the ‘third eye’ point helps stimulate the master gland, according to the ancients. Photo: iStock The star of this week’s column is the humble fenugreek, or methi seed, famed in Ayurveda for improving lactation among new mothers and hair quality among women and men. This is why your grandmother ground up the seed and slathered it on your hair as a child, so that you could [...]
Lunges in the elevator
Lunges top me time in elevator Or, if you are a start-up entrepreneur, practise your elevator pitch Shoba Narayan Home » Leisure » The Better Life Last Published: Fri, Nov 18 2016. 12 26 PM IST The best thing to do in an elevator is to lunge In 2010, technology firm IBM surveyed some 6,500 employees across 16 cities in the US to find out how much time they spent waiting for elevators and inside them over a 12-month period. Turns out that New York workers spent a cumulative time of 92 years waiting for them and 5.9 years inside them. Readers of this newspaper [...]