Consensual flirtatious relationships: Yoga for restrain

We live in illicit times. 

Even if the job we are doing is paying enough for what we do, we want more; even if the car we have been driving around for years is enough for our purpose we want a bigger and swankier one; even if we can maintain excellent health doing inexpensive home workout we want to join a techno gym, maybe to flaunt; even if we have some or one excellent friend to share our privacy, philosophy and look him up for guidance on matters of life, we want to hook up for MORE to the social networking on internet.

We are living in the times of fast shifting loyalties, as a result. 

We are not only not sure if shall live with a thing or a person for long, we actually are looking for more (or heck, some change) as a matter of fact. Our obsession with the more (what a so-called hap world would call natural) or desire to "move on to other" has crossed decent limits, be it things inanimate or our fellow beings.

David Davidar, ex-CEO of Penguin Canada, has been in news, more for how he has described and thus defended his relation with his ex-colleague, who has sued him for sexual harassment, than the affair itself.

David expresses remorse for causing hurt to his wife as a result of his affair which he calls a "consensual flirtatious" relationship. The latter, as David describes, got him pay her more than a friendly attention and brought them together in an intimacy when they "kissed on two occasions"...the world debates if it meant more than that- one wonders if it is important and is of any value except titilation. Isn't it enough to know that he admits to have been involved and that he never forced himself on her.

While the defense of consensual flirtation could be strong enough to put up against the charge of sexual harassment, David may have lost his face to his wife (and the world) on strictly moral grounds.

What I am trying to raise here, in this typical situation of infidelity, is that one's unbridled and unrestrained self drives one to distress. A society that has lost its basic fabric of social and moral discipline and wherein its fellow beings have no scruples about traditionally avowed dos and don'ts, and have in their milieu no consideration or respect for the values which once endured, unpleasant consequences are natural.

Hence, even if one has a steady married life, one goes forward to get that 'kick' of an extra-marital fling, as the new value dictates- it's alright to do this, so 'just do it". 
We have gone even a step forward in our quest for propitiation of lust. Multiple partners (read, sexual) now are acceptable and in some strata of society are an 'in' thing. 

The breakdown of values, the once the society stood by, is complete in several sections of the society and it is catching on in others.

An effective, complete restorative program to set right the social fabric is the need of our times. Yoga and yogic lifestyle pack up the recipe for social and emotional disaster management. Yoga restores and reinforces our love and respect

for socially straight behaviour to begin with. And then it takes us to equip ourself with the values of restrain and acceptance of our circumstances as they are. So that we could rise over and above the muck and mire of unceasing desires.  

Yoga certainly is about checking unbridled and misplaced emotions and hence infidelity. 

Is polypill for heart disease a single magic bullet?

The much-touted polypill for heart disease is a blood-pressure-lowering drug, a cholesterol-knocking statin, and aspirin, all rolled into one. The pill may work for some, according to a session of American College of Cardiology, Orlando. Also heart experts are of clear opinion that polypill is no magic bullet for most with heart disease as the low dosages of its ingredients may not suffice individual needs.

However, the pill showed encouraging results in an Indian study comprising 2000 people. It was better only when compared to the other approaches. Yet, the side effects remain similar to what one has when any one or more ingredients are taken.

The pill has been received with excitement for its possible ability to address multiple cardiovascular risk factors.Apart from its possible benefits to heart patients, the pill has been talked about as a preventive, notwithstanding its side effects. The latter are known to be similar to those one has with one or more ingredients taken individually.

Reading about the pill one would imagine that every such modern medicinal invention is fraught with the unseemly benefits-versus-harms phenomenon. The extent of the latter often cannot be understood over short period of its usage, the fact well known to both men of medicine and commoners. Often the potential harm would go unnoticed or unproved besides the possibility of its being lost in statistical jugglery.

The hype about such inventions- the polypill is being called a magic bullet- thus often (read, invariably) is misplaced. The marketing hype, to sell the product, which follows later, in no uncertain terms could be even disastrous- the common use of morning-after pills to rule out an unwanted pregnancy, meant to be used in rare situations of unprotected sex, is a handy illustration on the point.

Medical science would do good and earn itself a better name if it just investigated the gains of yoga and ayurveda. Yoga is now routinely prescribed to heart patients by the top cardiologists and cardiac surgeons while ayurveda's effectiveness has surpassed the best favourable statistics one would come across in case of modern medicine. The dietary fibre in bottle gourd is now known to set right the cholesterol, successfully ruling out the need for bypass or any other procedures.

Would anyone rise over the din of modern medicine and pay heed to this?

Yoga helps increase productivity at work.

We're hearing that more and more companies, in the light of the recession, are returning to their values and brand promise to re-engage employees and help rebuild their dented morale.

Sue, a pro communicator explains how she'd thought she'd fallen out of love with internal communications only to discover she just needed to change the way she worked to regain her motivation.

"We're all professional enough to be able to focus and produce results even if we don't believe in what we're doing," says Sue. "But, as we so often tell our internal customers, we produce better results if we do."

Lacking any real motivation for work? Try yoga as I did with a number of those who spent their days at work with jaded spirits . Many of us are aware of yoga being offered as a perquisitive by the employers who flaunt it in their placement advertisements.

The traditional Indian system of health and well being is fast emerging as an acknowledged means of enhancing productivity at work. It is proving to be helpful even in tackling minor to major and mostly intractable life-style problems of our times.

From being a diehard sceptic and one of the most unwilling experimenters I have grown into an ardent practitioner.Having practised it religiously for about five years and interviewed and enlightened myself with the experiences of 200 practitioners of yoga over the period, I took to teaching it.

One of my student groups who benefitted from yoga are my neighbours who are employed as corporators. They typically follow a sedentry lifestyle having their "bums pressed against one surface or the other over 22 hours a day," as one of them put it so aptly at the introductory yoga session of yoga program I had conducted with them a year back.

Before starting the fortnight-long program I took down the health profile of the 34 participants. While mid-day fatigue and low levels of enthusiasm for work were among the most common problems, a number of them suffered from high blood pressure, onset of diabetes and arthritis, insomnia and other problems. A few who worked at their best could utilise at best 70% of their official time.

The group was put through the yoga regime with 99% - 100% attendance during the fortnight. And the outcome was for all to see to believe: All participants found their energy levels improving in varying degrees leading to better utilisation of official time from the day one to three. Insomniacs could see improvements in their sleeping patterns leading to better productivity at work. The high BP patients registered improvements they could never achieve through medications prescribed for the purpose.

There was a marked improvement in enthusiasm for work among 98% of the participants. Diabetics reported higher energy levels and arthiritics reported amelioration in pain. 

The  company management where I later worked as a consultant employed me additionally for a yoga program which was compulsory for all the employees. The human resource department lost no opportunity to offer yoga program as an advantage in its advertisements to attract new talent. The corporate yoga is now the choice of many.

In my next trip to my rural development project in central India, I conducted the first ever yoga camp in the area. Not surprisingly, the results of enhanced productivity of my farmer friends in the fields matched with that of my corporate students.  I would share my experience of rural yoga camp in a separate post.

Food by yoga

We have perhaps terabytes and libraries of information devoted to what to eat to stay fit but little is talked about the 'how to eat' what you eat.
An ayurvedic saying goes that you can digest and neutralise even poison if you have strong bowels, eat only when really hungry and moderately. This applies to how we should treat our food after we have decided what we should eat.

The first cardinal principle about eating is that we must not consume when we are not hungry. I would cite here yet another traditional saying, which when translated from Sanskrit reads- eating when hungry turns food into tonic while eating without hunger turns it into a toxin. This is for those who are gulping mugloads of coffee and tea and snacking day in day out in the name of socialising, official business or when they are plain bored.

From yoga perspective, there is no greater torture to your physiology- the metabolic processes that take place in your body- than consuming without hunger or to be precise, hunger pangs- atleast 10 minutes of hunger pangs ensure we have sufficient flow of digestive juices in our stomach, which is when the latter is ready to receive food.

We must understand that thirst and hunger are calls of our biology and that our system just cannot be loaded with food it is not ready to receive. Equally important is the time we spend munching on each morsel of food. Ayurveda is clear about this- chew a solid morsel of food till it is liquid, and roll a sip of liquid with biting movements of teeth like you would do to a solid morsel, before you gulp it down.

It is not difficult to understand that significant part of digestion takes place (read, should take place)in our mouth. And we all know how lethargic we are at keeping a morsel in our mouth and chew long enough, given the fact that our civilisation is infamously pressed for time.

A solid morsel must be chewed 30-40 times before we could call it liquid, as ayurveda would have it. The digestive process in our mouth has to ensure that the digestive enzymes mix well with the well-ground solid food for the system to draw nutrition from and then assimilate it.

Partially chewed and enzymes-mixed food particles in our system rot. Such crumbs of food have to be treated with larger volumes of acid in our stomach than normally needed. The acid ensures disintegration of food and later its assimilation and hence elimination of toxins from our system An acidic system is largely due to this incomplete digestion. It is important to cite here the latest research- prolonged use of antacids takes away much of your bones strength and can cause fractures. So, watch out.