Every individual has different ways of coping with tough situations in life. For some, meeting friends is a way of managing their mental health while for others, being all by themselves is the best strategy.

At this time, when most people are working from home, adjusting to a work from home routine can be challenging. While people are adjusting to this new way of working, in the absence of certain factors like workspace, colleagues; it is important to minimize the amount of pressure we take on ourselves to be as productive as we used to be.

This is the time when everyone should focus on self-care and should set realistic goals and expectations.

Here are 5 tips on taking care of your mental health during COVID-19 anxiety:

5. Separate what’s in your control from what’s not:

Everything currently is not lost. We can focus on things that are under our control. We should remain calm and routinely wash our hands, take precautions. We surely can control our response to any given situation.

4. Limit the consumption of news:

An important point is to try and focus on news that spread positivity and encourages us to hope for the better. We should minimize watching-reading and listening to news that causes anxiety and make us feel hopeless. Seeking information from desired and trusted sources can help us protect oneself and our loved ones.

3. Ensure Self-Care:

There are several things one can do to ensure this step. It’s the best time to tap your creative self. One can keep oneself occupied by working from home, doing household chores, reading books, listening to music, exercising, etc.

One should focus on improving one’s own physical and mental health. Ensure that you’re eating, sleeping well and exercising. All this helps build immunity, keeps stress at bay and ensures mental peace.

2. Stay connected:

This lockdown and the current scenario is the best time to keep in touch with family and friends. One should use technology smartly and should video call or make telephonic conversations with their loved ones.

1.  Be aware and stay in the present:

Everyone should focus on what’s happening presently and should not worry much about what’s going to happen or what hasn’t happened.

If someone’s worry is compounding, notice the sights, sounds and other sensory experiences in your immediate surroundings and concentrate on them. Engage in mindful activities and stay grounded to be in the present.

To conclude, everyone is fighting this situation and is in this together. So, don’t worry and share what you are experiencing with others. Follow these 5 tips on taking care of your mental health.

It is important to acknowledge your evolving emotional needs right now and to take care of yourself and your loved ones.

Ritika Sachar

Ritika works as Talent Sourcer for HR Monks. She is very focussed about what she wants to achieve in her life. She is in a mission to help career aspirants achieve their dreams. Apart from taking care of sourcing talents, she helps in carrying out different assignments of the Monks Team.

When she is not working she loves exploring the city of Kolkata with her friends and family. She enjoys life. She loves to spend time by the pool in her leisure time.

The post COVID-19: 5 Tips on Taking Care of Your Mental Health appeared first on The HR Monks.

We all have been discussing with each other that by when all these are going to get over. We don’t know anything and honestly, nothing is in our control, we can just hope and pray that things get better as soon as possible.

Between all these uncertainties, this current lockdown situation has taught a lot of things to me and some of the positive takeaways are noted below.

6 things that I have learned from this lockdown:

6. Work from Home is not only for the IT industry:

Earlier work from home was mostly for the IT people. Working from home was always challenging for most of the industries and people, but because of the current situation mostly everyone from different industries has started working from home.

It is no more a challenge. We have learned that a person who wants to work can work from anywhere it is not necessary that only from the office we can be productive. In fact, schools have also started teaching online.

So now a student of class 6 knows how to connect and operate on Zoom & Skype. There are some technical job roles that require physical presence, otherwise, apart from them, work from home is possible.

5. We became more healthy:

People like me who use to survive on fast foods eating all unhealthy stuff and becoming unhealthy day by day, but with this lockdown where there are no fast foods available we all have been happily enjoying home-cooked foods.

We all are getting habituated with simple foods and getting more time to do exercise

4. Our Air Pollution has reduced:

Growing up in a hill station where the sky has always been beautiful, clean and clear but after shifting to this city I have always seen hazy skies but again I get to see clear blue skies every morning. With the low movement of cars, our environment has become clear.

3. We are Getting to spend time with loved ones:

Apart from any occasions we hardly use to get time to sit down and have a normal chit chat with our loved ones. Every one of us was so busy with our regular routine that we forgot what family time is.

Now since we don’t have anywhere to go so all of us are getting a chance to spend some quality time with our loved ones. We are also getting time to relive our childhood memories by playing games like Ludo, chess, cards, etc.

2. No one is in a Hurry:

I have always seen everyone including me in a hurry. Sometimes in a hurry to reach office, sometimes in a hurry to submit projects or sometimes in a hurry to reach home. We all have been running all these years, now we got some time to relax and not be in a rush.

1. Better Connect with Self:

Well with our regular schedule mostly all of us have lost the connection with self. We have forgotten what we like and what we enjoy.

The time we got now where we are not in a hurry, we are getting time to connect with ourselves, listen to our inner voice and understand how we want to go ahead from here. We all got a chance to revisit our goals and find out where we are going wrong.

Of course, this is a difficult time where people are in fear and trouble. But most of these are not in our control, So, probably seeing some positive aspects to it can let us pass this time with more ease and happiness. Stay Safe!

Polly S

Polly is part of the great old monks family, from where The HR Monks has grown into a big family. She has witnessed the birth and growth of this organization and supported the organization in all seasons.

She loves painting, and she is greatly influenced by ZIg Ziglar. Currently, she is busy in sketching the destiny of The HR Monks, which is striving to be into the league of Top 10 Executive search firms in the SME sector. She loves innovation and experimenting with things, and dreams of touching all the corners of the Globe one day.

She has another mission, which is helping the specially privileged children getting the proper education. This is one of her dream projects.

The post 6 Things I have Learned from this Lockdown appeared first on The HR Monks.

When we’re hand washing, stockpiling and practicing social distancing like anything, it’s also important for us to remember our mental health matters. Let’s not put ourselves in the panic mode and make it a mental pandemic.

Here are few strategies from experts which are practical solutions to remain positive and accept any situation. These practical tips will help you to relax, take positive actions and put things in perspective.

Follow these 7 ways to overcome your coronavirus stress and ease anxiety:

7: Practise Social Distancing but Be Connected Virtually:

Social distancing and nationwide lockdown may require us to stay in our homes, but that doesn’t mean we have to lead an isolated lonely life. It’s important now to stay in communication with family, friends, neighbors and anyone who matters to you.

Use the phone, text, social media, email, video chats— all means possible to stay connected with everyone and spread positive vibes and factual news only. When you spread positivity and give hope to others, your mind too gets mental support to carry on with hope. This will ease your stress and anxiety.

6. See the Pandemic in Perspective:

A similar blog on this topic suggests an important component of putting the pandemic in perspective is balancing what we should and should not do.

Few things are out of control, but it’s in our control how we react. We can’t at this present moment get rid of the crisis. But we can observe government orders, we can donate to funds which are fighting this disease, we can share the load with our family members and be good to them at this crisis. At least we can smile so that others in the family don’t lose hope.

5. Practise Self-Compassion and Self-Care:

Fear is natural. So, don’t feel guilty when you are afraid. Accept your fear and try to trace the source of your anxiety. Write down your fears on a piece of paper – and then try to write down what you can do or how you can cope with it. This will take care of your present stress and anxiety.

Slow down, have a pause and engage in healthy practices and try to sustain regular routines that bring comfort and keeps you good emotionally. Conversation with positive people, exercises, yoga, meditation, and religious and spiritual practices are good starting points.

Try considering the healing impacts of making art, reading uplifting books, listening to happy songs, journaling and being useful to others.

4. Keep away from False Rumours:

At this present moment, there is a lot of misinformation, negative content in social media and digital media. Don’t focus on this negativity. It’s essential in this present moment to consume facts only, news which is true. This will prevent you from succumbing to coronavirus related anxiety.

For regular authentic updates around the globe on coronavirus, you may visit the WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub at whatsapp.com/coronavirus, and click on the WHO link on the homepage to open up a chat with the WHO Health Alert if you have WhatsApp installed.

The WHO Health Alert will provide official information on topics such as how to protect yourself from infection, travel advice, and debunking Coronavirus myths.

For factual information about the present situation in India and important helpline numbers, you may visit this Government of India website.

3. When you feel overwhelmed, Move the Finish Line:

A recent blog from the Fast Company suggests: “Being overwhelmed is the consequence of trying to juggle too many mental operations at once, which makes it impossible to design or execute a good action plan. By reducing the set of operations, you relieve the load placed upon your frontal cortex (the region of your brain responsible for planning and action) and reduce the corresponding sense of panic.”

When anxiety and stress take over, focus on one thing you know you can accomplish in 10, or even 5, minutes rather than dwelling on what you need to accomplish over the entire day. Keep yourself busy by focusing on just cooking the meal for the present, having a cup of tea for the next five minutes and focusing on that, concentrating on a part on your work from home assignments for the next 15 min and so on. This will help you put off your stress.

2. Act when you feel powerless:

When we perceive we don’t have control over anything we feel helpless. When you panic, which is your default when you feel a loss of control in each moment, it impedes dopamine release, which leads to an even greater sense of powerlessness.

To stimulate the dopamine release and regain your sense of possibility, you have to take actions as simple as listening to your favorite song, making a cup of coffee, texting a friend, helping and chatting with your partner in the kitchen, etc. Then look for the next positive action step. These steps will help you overcome stress and ease your anxiety.

By doing this, you can “shift your mindset from one of powerlessness to one of resolve.”

1. When you feel alone, help someone:

From a neurological perspective helping someone in need, whether by phone, text or even donating a little fund to those who need, infuses positive vibes in your mind. Giving gives you a sense of happiness and gratitude, and it stops the anger and fear.

Helping others changes the chemical composition of our neurons. Those chemicals positively change our brain’s assessment of self and our place in the world. It makes us reassured that we can control things that we perceived not in our control minutes ago.

If you’re following the advice of public health officials and staying home to slow the spread of coronavirus, these are the 7 ways to overcome coronavirus stress and ease your anxiety and take care of the mental health wellbeing.

Sayak

Sayak takes care of both recruitments and assessment projects of The HR Monks team. He loves helping people finding their dream job.

He started his journey in career leaving the shores of Waiting for Godot and found The HR Monks a better place, where he can change the lives of people by helping them achieve their dreams.

He has been to quite a fewer place across India and loves to travel. He loves two books, in particular, one Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and the other The Shift by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

The post 7 Ways to Overcome Coronavirus Stress and Ease Your Anxiety appeared first on The HR Monks.

But what is in our hands is to abide by the safety guidelines provided by the government and stay alert and prepare ourselves to overcome this crisis-like situation. To be able to face this crisis proper financial planning is something we all can do to save ourselves from some last moment hardships.

Here are 3 practical tips on how to do financial planning during a crisis:

 3. Start with a Budget:

If you are someone who has not kept a budget till now it is high time now you would require keeping a proper track of the income and the expenditure that is taking place in your daily life.

A budget is a tool with the help of which you can keep track of overspending on your monthly expenditure. In a crisis like situation, you must try and save as much as you can to support you through tough times.

2. Increase Your Savings:

 After you have made a fixed budget try to increase your savings at least a few percentages more than before. Try to curb on unnecessary expenditures and pool in money from such transactions to your savings account.

This is necessary because, in times like these, the future is unpredictable; so it’s highly necessary to keep in control your expenses as much as possible.

1. Minimize your Monthly Expenses:

To survive situations like these we need to prioritize our necessary expenditures. We need to differentiate between what is necessary and what can be left behind at least for this particular moment.

Prioritize your expenditure on a long term and short-term basis to have an idea on which expenditure will give you long term and short term benefits, and according to the priority make a decision of spending your money.

These are a few of the tips that can be helpful at the time of doing financial planning during this crisis.

Mayuri Mazumdar

Mayuri works as a Talent Sourcer for HR Monks. She came from Assam to explore the hustle of Kolkata and has quietly joined a mission to change lives. She has joined HR Monks and slowly transforming lives of career aspirants with the ethos of the HR Monks.

While she is not at work she loves cooking and chilling with friends. She is turning a new leaf in a new city.

The post 3 Practical Tips on How To Do Financial Planning During a Crisis appeared first on The HR Monks.

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

― Neil Gaiman, Coraline

As a child, we must have read fairy tales. And we must have enjoyed that. Because some books are like magic – they lift our soul and make us happy. They can be our best friends too at times of loneliness. They can be the best teacher, philosopher, and guide to find positivity in life.

When we are at uncertain times, or our career is taking a downturn, or we face personal loss – we question the meaning of our life. We stop having faith in our destiny. So, it may be the perfect time to dust a few time-tested old books which may light our way.

Happiness and positivity in life come from peace. It comes when you lockdown from the outer world and listen to silence, understand the meaning and light of life. There are many books which can shift your life. But these 3 most significant books can help you to find positivity in life.

Today I shall discuss 3 most significant books that changed the outlook of my life. I have seen many negative moments in my life, where I almost lost hope and faith. But these are the three books that set me free from my fear always and made me accept the situations calmly. And the storm passed.

3 most Significant Books that can help you now to find positivity in life:

1. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank:

“I don’t think of all the misery, but of the beauty that still remains.” – Anne says in this book. It’s a beauty of positivity. It’s a hope of hope. You need to hold on when things are dark and wait for the oranges to come on the blue horizon.

In the same book she tells: “In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” This book was published on 25th June 1947. After 73 years when we almost lost faith in all the good things in life, we see we all have not lost our goodness of heart. We are helping each other now selflessly.

“Whoever is happy will make others happy.” Your happiness can give hope to others.

Though everybody knows Anne Frank, for those who have forgotten her, she “Annelies Marie “Anne” Frank” was a German-born Dutch-Jewish diarist. One of the most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust, a hope for many lockdown moments.

2. The Shift: Taking Your Life from Ambition to Meaning by Wayne Dyer:

If you are finding this uncertain period making you question your existence and you think you are failing in life, read this book:  “Becoming the observer (step back) you begin to live in process, trusting where our source is taking you. You begin to detach from the outcome. That detachment allows you to stop fighting and allows things to just come to you; you no longer make things happen but allow them to show up. The fight is gone!”

This book will give you peace and find the inner happiness of the passage of your existence. Here is a long excerpt from the book I am sharing:

“As we become one with our Source, we begin the realignment process, thinking and contemplating more like God. We gain the wisdom necessary to understand these words written by Thomas Troward: “If you contemplate with thoughts that match originating Spirit, you have the same power as originating Spirit.” This idea is anathema to the ego. But the wholeness, the oneness, that we truly are, is revealed as we begin trusting the wisdom that created us.”

Wayne Walter Dyer was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker. His first book, Your Erroneous Zones, is one of the best-selling books of all time, with an estimated 100 million copies sold to date.

3. The Power of your subconscious mind by Joseph Murphy:

In this book, ‘The power of your subconscious mind’, in this book you can find spiritual wisdom and scientific research that brings to light how the sub-conscious mind can be a major influence on our daily lives.

“The only path by which another person can upset you is through your own thought.” – this can be vital learning for you from this book. You are the pilot of your positivity in life.

How to find positivity in life in harsh times? “Busy your mind with the concepts of harmony, health, peace, and good will, and wonders will happen in your life.” – there is this solution. This valuable book helps to understand an reaffirm the healing power of our daily prayers, “Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire. Your desire is your prayer. It comes out of your deepest needs and it reveals the things you want in life.”

This is one of the most significant books than can help us to find positivity in life, – “Never finish a negative statement; reverse it immediately, and wonders will happen in your life.”

I am sure in this newfound break; you shall be reading a lot. And I hope these 3 books will be a treasure trove for your faith and happiness in your life. Embrace positive thoughts to take care of your happiness.

Sayak

Sayak takes care of both recruitments and assessment projects of The HR Monks team. He loves helping people finding their dream job.

He started his journey in career leaving the shores of Waiting for Godot and found The HR Monks a better place, where he can change the lives of people by helping them achieve their dreams.

He has been to quite a fewer place across India and loves to travel. He loves two books, in particular, one Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and the other The Shift by Dr. Wayne Dyer.

The post 3 most Significant Books that Can Help You now to Find Positivity in Life appeared first on The HR Monks.

Whatever we plan, we focus or whatever our goal is, the ultimate reason behind achieving the desired outcome is to gain happiness, the context or definition of happiness can be different like for someone the goal is to become the CEO of a company for someone else the goal is to open a chain of a bakery shop.

Happiness is a simple word but to be happy and to stay happy is a very difficult thing we all keep on struggling every moment to become happy and to stay happy.

In today’s world where everything is moving so fast, people are so focussed on their goals, – we all are in a race. Staying happy is not difficult but we have made it complicated.

Following are some of the small things we can do to stay happy:

1. Sit and talk with your loved ones:

Nowadays, we all have become so busy with our lives that we got how it feels to sit and chit chats with your loved ones over a cup of coffee/tea. We all do a lot of discussions but it is only to the point but sometimes just sitting with your loved ones and discussing something out of work will be fun. It will make you feel relaxed and happy. It feels great to share a laugh with our loved ones.

2. Do something crazy :

Remember, the childhood days where we all must have done so many crazy things and I am sure thinking about those moments still makes us laugh. We all have become so busy with our day to day work, that we forgot to have fun. So take out some time from your busy schedule and do somethings that is crazy or maybe something that gives you happiness, like playing cards or maybe cooking it can be anything but do something that makes you happy.

3. Listen to your all-time favourite songs :

Music always helps us to connect with ourselves and to be happy we must listen to our inner-self. Whenever I listen to my all-time favourite songs no matter in what mood or situation I am it always makes me happy and relaxed. It brings back so many beautiful and happy moments of my life. So create a playlist with all your old-time favourite songs and spend some time alone and listen to your favourite songs and get connected with yourself.

4. Feel your breath :

Breathing is a part of us but it can also make us happy. Sometimes go out and feel some fresh air and you will see you will become energized and happy. Feeling the fresh air within you will make you fresh and clean.

Staying happy is not difficult, we can always stay happy once we start enjoying and cherishing the small moments of our life.

Polly S

Polly is part of the great old monks family, from where The HR Monks has grown into a big family. She has witnessed the birth and growth of this organization and supported the organization in all seasons.

She loves painting, and she is greatly influenced by ZIg Ziglar. Currently, she is busy in sketching the destiny of The HR Monks, which is striving to be into the league of Top 10 Executive search firms in the SME sector. She loves innovation and experimenting with things, and dreams of touching all the corners of the Globe one day.

She has another mission, which is helping the specially privileged children getting the proper education. This is one of her dream projects.

The post Staying Happy is not Difficult appeared first on The HR Monks.

Professional life includes career, business life, etc which we are trained whereas personal life is the sum of every individual choice contributing to one’s personal identity.

In this productivity-driven society conflict between work and family life is one of the most common sources of stress. There is always one that is given more priority than the other resulting in some dysfunctional outcomes such as poor physical and mental health and also inefficiency in work.

Basically, a balance between work and family occurs when a person can sufficiently meet family commitments and adequately perform responsibilities at work.

Few suggestions that can be followed to balance work versus personal life conundrum:

• It’s important to create imaginary lines of protection between work and family. These boundaries hold the line to protect our works from the distraction of family and family involvement from obligations at work.

• To get things right it’s necessary to involve people we can trust and discuss with them their perceptions, opinions, and objections of the actions associated with work.

• Sometimes being partial is unavoidable. For example, if a family member is sick we need to skip a work event or when an important deadline has to be met we might need to miss an important family function at home.

It’s never wrong working hard to achieve some finer things in life, but it’s really necessary to have the required amount of salt to make the meal tasty, therefore in the same notion to lead a happier life its important to balance both personal and professional life.

Ankita Ghosh

Ankita has recently joined The HR Monks team as a Talent Sourcer. After doing B. Sc in Botany she had quite an eventful career before she came to our Team.

She started her career in Wipro in an Admin role. Then she switched to recruitment and found a new passion for making a match between dream careers of candidates and the challenging organizational needs of various companies in different profiles. In the future, she is contemplating pursuing a degree in Executive MBA.

At The HR Monks, she is now enjoying helping organizations and changing lives by connecting talents with opportunities.

Ankita’s passion is listening to music and traveling across different corners of India. And she is a complete foodie. She loves the taste of India.

The post How to Balance Our Work and Personal Life in this Uncertain Times appeared first on The HR Monks.

When we came to this world, we had no control over our birth process, we had no control over how we will look, what will be the color of our hair, our eyes and so on.

We had no control and it just happened. Similarly, we will have no control over how we will die. It will also come inevitably someday. But, what about the journey in between, that we call our life?

As I was in sales, I had the opportunity to meet lots of people and worked closely with them. I have seen one of the most common factors which stop people from living freely is FEAR.

Fear of losing a job, Fear of not being able to meet expenses, Fear coming out of insecurity and so on.

I read somewhere, Fear is False Evidence Appearing Real. I can clearly say based on my studies, that if we start giving importance to any fear, that fear slowly becomes our reality. And as a result, all our actions and plans are based on that fear.

We try to find security in insecurity and anxiety, we live to make everything secure and as a result, sometimes we live paycheck to paycheck, sometimes, we sustain ourselves but forget to live the way we wanted.

Hence, I thought of choosing and writing 3 things among all that can help you to reframe your fear and help you start living freely.

1. Your Expectations:

Our expectations about achieving something, that we call our dreams or goals – these are the fuel of our life. These are what help you to go forward in life.

But you must have a balance in what you achieve and what it takes to achieve that. There is no harm in chasing a big dream but it should be meaningful to you. Every big achievement requires sacrifice, every growth requires pain – there never was and never there will be any shortcut to achieve something big.

It requires time, energy and lots of sacrifices and hard work. So, you must be well aware that what you want to achieve is meaningful. If it’s not meaningful, there are high chances that after achieving that, you might not be happy. There is no harm in lowering your expectations. What matters the most – it should make you happy.

Sit with yourself, think about what you want to achieve and ask why you want to achieve and see if it’s meaningful to you. If it is something that can make you happy and you are ready to give everything that it takes, just go for it! Else, work on the same and fix the missing part!

2. Living Within Your Means:

Your finances, your income, your money – these help you to experience life better. So they are very important in life. But, more important is to live within your means. In true sense, how much money you make is what you are left with after all your expenses.

For example, let person A is earning yearly INR 20,00,000 with yearly expenses of INR 18,00,000. So, A is left with INR 2,00,000 yearly. On the other hand, say person B is earning yearly INR 10,00,000 with yearly expenses of INR 5,00,000. So B is left with INR 5,00,000 yearly. So, B might not have a great lifestyle, may not do frequent parties – but makes more money than A.

Living within means can be done in two ways – by reducing your expenses and by increasing your income. Whatever it be, living within means helps you to live better and with more freedom.

Unnecessary spending, frequent debts, high EMIs, not investing, not donating – these are some of the factors, which can affect your quality of living in the long-term. So, its time to look back and find out if there is anything that you should improve upon.

3. Self-Care:

A good physical and mindful state makes you fearless. Your physical body is the instrument through which the energy flows. A proper physical body will help you experience life better and with more freedom. You can only realize the value of good health once you are not having that.

Self Care is taught in the ancient books of Ayurveda as well. Eating Mindfully, Physical Exercise, Taking Proper Rest, Meditation, Personal Hygiene- these are some of the must-dos when we talk about self-care.

You can get tons of information on these topics. And practicing these doesn’t take much time. If you are not practicing self-care, its time to start that. Make small plans which you can easily do daily and start practicing and slowly scale it.

For example, going for a walk for 10 minutes and meditating for 5 minutes is good enough to start with. You need not focus on the result when you are starting. Rather, you should focus on doing it daily.

It’s important to make your new habits as easy as possible and practice it for a month. Then you can slowly scale this up and improve further.

There are a lot of other factors that help in living freely but I have picked these three as I found these MOST COMMON three things you can do to achieve freedom. Lastly, I thought of sharing one of my favorite lines which I firmly believe in:

The best way to handle fear is by experiencing it!

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

The post 3 Things You Can Do to Achieve Freedom appeared first on The HR Monks.

There are different ways that incorporate plenty of mental, physical and nutritional ways to keep the mind sharp throughout the lifetime.

How to keep our minds active, healthy and happy?

Plenty of mental exercises is required every day:

There are lots of tasks such as thinking through problems or avoiding calculator for simple arithmetic is one way to exercise the mind. Playing scrabbles, solving crosswords, brain teasers and also working with a jigsaw puzzle is a great way to keep our brain thinking. 

Reading books, magazines and keeping up with current events such as in politics, world news or local small-town gossip helps to stimulate our mind. 

Watching a thought-provoking movie can help to exercise the brain and even playing a video game can help to fight diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Physical exercise is a great way to keep mind and body fit:

Physical exercise, gym workout helps to increase the blood flow and oxygenates the brain. There are many great ways of physical work which we can do in our daily life which improves both health and mind. 

Some of them are Swimming, Yoga, Hiking, Dancing, etc. Even playing some popular games like Tennis and Golf helps in mental and physical stimulation.

Learning and experiencing new things is a great way to challenge the brain:

There are few ideas which can give our mind a real chance to exercise our brain. For example, learning new words, learning to play musical instruments, studying different foreign languages, learning the art of photography and painting, playing chess and many more. 

Traveling and exploring different countries and breaking away from routine life is also a great mind stimulant.

Stress relief and relaxation help to improve mental health:

For improving focus and reducing stress levels, meditation is the best option. We should also try some relaxation exercises, deep breathing used during yoga practice, try being happy and having fun in life, try becoming a positive thinker and learn appreciating whatever we have already accomplished. 

A segment of aromatherapy sessions, massages from the therapists helps in releasing out stress and tension from the muscles.

Whether at 20 or 80 it’s always important to keep our mind and brain healthy and happy as it works throughout life and affects our body functions and also helps us to understand and interact with the world around us.

Ankita Ghosh

Ankita has recently joined The HR Monks team as a Talent Sourcer. After doing B. Sc in Botany she had quite an eventful career before she came to our Team.

She started her career in Wipro in an Admin role. Then she switched to recruitment and found a new passion for making a match between dream careers of candidates and the challenging organizational needs of various companies in different profiles. In the future, she is contemplating pursuing a degree in Executive MBA.

At The HR Monks, she is now enjoying helping organizations and changing lives by connecting talents with opportunities.

Ankita’s passion is listening to music and traveling across different corners of India. And she is a complete foodie. She loves the taste of India.

The post 4 Ways to Keep Your Mind Active, Happy and Healthy appeared first on The HR Monks.

 5) REPETITION

Even if you know something, repeating the same will give you a more clear concept. The more you repeat, the more your brain will open up on that topic. Repetition is the mother of all skills.

Even if you know something, if you get an opportunity to learn it again, just go for it. Mastery can only be achieved through repetition.

The best way to understand this can be by taking the example of any sportsperson. They keep on practicing the same thing again and again and then achieve mastery.

Not convinced? Try reading a book again which you have read recently, you will understand the difference in your understanding of the book.

You may know something but repetitions of that bring the mastery out of it.

4) ACCEPTING YOU’RE NOT KNOWING

One of the most powerful statements that can help you become more open to learning is accepting that you don’t know everything about something.

You may not know something – that’s absolutely ok. Not Knowing something doesn’t mean you will be unable to know that thing. There is no harm in accepting you don’t know something and trying to know it further.

The more you become ready to accept that you don’t know, the more open to learning you become.

3) LEARNING FROM EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE:

While books help us learn some concepts, schools and colleges help us learn predefined topics, but our life gives us opportunities beyond all these. 

You can learn from everyone and everything around you. You can learn from everyone including kids and nature as well. A perfect example of what I said can be – you can learn Assertiveness from a kid and Adaptability from Water.

You simply need to be aware of the fact that there’s something to learn from everything and everyone and your brain will be programmed to extract the learning and learn.

2) LEARNING FROM SITUATIONS:

What you call a situation is an incident that occurred. Maybe you have not liked it, or you have simply loved it – whatever it be, those are just incidents. Our life experience is nothing but the addition of those incidents.

With every situation, there lies learning. If you find out learning from each and every situation, two things will happen:

1)You will learn more and 

2) You will control the situation rather than situations controlling you.

1)MAINTAINING DAILY LEARNING JOURNAL

You don’t need to buy a journal. A place to write your daily learning is enough to create a learning journal. At day end, you can mentally revisit the way you spent the entire day, the people you met and I am sure you can find out answers to two questions – 

1) What are the possible things you learned today? and 

2) What you could have done to make it a better day?

By answering these two questions, you can collate all the points and fill up the journal daily.

This daily practice can really change the way you look at things, make you more aware and this can transform and impact your life with a huge change.

Shouvik

“| Minimalist| Strategizer| Explorer| Enjoys Silence| – That’s what I am & What I do |” – That’s how Shouvik defines himself. An avid photographer, a Raghu Rai enthusiast, who also eats, sleeps and dreams the Vision of Steve Jobs, Shouvik has given birth to The HR Monks in a vision to change lives.

Greatly influenced by the passion of service of Mother Teresa and Karmayoga of Swami Vivekananda, he dreams of building an organization of the HR family, who will not only serve the nation by creating India a happy work-home but also creating a monks team who takes work as worship.

In his personal life, he is touched by Dr. Wayne Dyer who believes in a shift.

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