To help people deal with the pandemic, Sanjana started a mental health campaign titled Here To Hear. She has teamed up with Save The Children offer support in remote parts of India with the mission “Protect A Million”…writes Anjuri Nayar Singh.
Pandemic has affected the lifestyle and routines of every individual in society including the stars of the film industry. Actress Sanjana Sanghi says trying to concentrate on work has been challenging at a time when the country battles the second wave of Covid-19. Work, she adds, is not top priority in her mind and focusing has been a challenge.
“Creatively, to zone in has been a challenge. Reading a script while I am pivoting programmes and trying to get oxygen concentrators to a tribal area has been a challenge that I haven’t experienced before. So, the focus has been shifty for sure,” she told.
She adds: “Luckily, somehow the last lockdown taught us a lot, that was the first time that we from our relentless hectic schedule from being in different cities and being on set all the time, we experienced what it’s like to be how to be locked in at home. That was tougher. The second wave came out of the blue to a degree that somehow the work aspect of it has not been the predominant thought. All my actor friends are focusing on making sure that family is safe, they are safe and it’s one of those times when you know you will get back up when time is right. Taking on anxiety on that is no benefit because it’s our responsibility to get back to work only when it’s absolutely safe.”
To help people deal with the pandemic, Sanjana started a mental health campaign titled Here To Hear. She has teamed up with Save The Children offer support in remote parts of India with the mission “Protect A Million”.
“When the second wave hit, it felt completely natural to pivot into figuring out how to extend and contribute. I saw that everyone was coming together and doing incredible work. Hear To Hear was to fill this gap. I felt that amidst all this, we were being able to help with supplies, but the emotional aspect will be devasting in the long term. With this programme, we have been able to achieve that,” says Sanjana, who starred opposite Sushant Singh Rajput in the actor’s last film “Dil Bechara” last year.
She adds: “There are stigmas associated with psychological help or even anxiety. The response to the programme was overwhelming. Within three to four hours, the slots filled up and we had to double up on manpower. It hit where it was intended to. With Save The Children, it’s a grander mission, over a period of time. We are focussing on cities and there is chaos in the interiors of India. We don’t know the extent of their misery. These are communities where basic food, shelter is tough in normal times. So, with the virus has made it worse.”
8 ways to sleep better during COVID-19 stress. (Photo Courtesy: Pixabay)
80 per cent of the respondents said they do not sleep on time due to mindless scrolling on smart phones. The ideal sleep time would be around 10 p.m….writes Puja Gupta.
Sleep apnea is a common disease in the modern era of technology. Sleeping post 10 p.m. is clinically declared as an inappropriate time to go to sleep and it triggers a change in the sleeping pattern that leads to sleep deprivation. This is irrespective of the number of hours of sleep. However, a recent study has revealed that although a majority of Indians are aware that sleeping at 10 is an ideal time, they tend to give excuses when it comes to actually following it.
A study conducted by Godrej Interio across 1,000 Indians living across the metros found that seven out of every ten respondents cites ‘binge watching’ as an excuse to not sleep on time.
Around 56 per cent of the respondents admitted that “work for home” which includes the household chores could be delaying their sleep time while 80 per cent of the respondents said they do not sleep on time due to mindless scrolling on smart phones. The ideal sleep time would be around 10 p.m.
Commenting on the findings, Anil Mathur, COO, Interio Division, said,”We at Godrej Interio are committed towards health of the nation and ‘Sleep at 10’ is an initiative which promotes right sleeping habits which is beneficial for overall health and productivity. The study was conducted to emphasise on how health is becoming more important and how sleeping on time is quintessential to leading a healthy life.”
According to the sleep data, collected by the survey 20 per cent respondents indulge in mindless texting on smart phones. Similarly, 29 per cent cites ‘pajama partying’ as an excuse to not sleep on time. Also, 44 per cent respondent’s mentions “work from home” which includes the official work as the primary reason to not sleep on time.
While snacking may help in keeping your energy levels up, in a sedentary environment it also aids your body in storing unnecessary fat…writes Puja Gupta.
Snacking while working is a habit for people. Amongst the zillion other things that this pandemic has changed in our lives, it has changed the way we eat. This means different things for different people.
While many of us used the time at home to turn to cooking and baking and completely did away with ordering in and takeaways — thereby eating cleaner and healthier; there were also those who had to juggle WFH and household chores and didn’t find time to streamline their diets.
On the contrary their lifestyle became more sedentary and eating habits more disorganised. Not to mention the physiological reasons for turning to food when the world has turned upside down.
In short, people are struggling with their eating right now and probably in different ways than they’re used to. An expert on Tata Sky Family Health, Mona Johar, Functional Integrative Nutrition and Co-Founder Mechanism Wellness, lists down ways of mindful eating in the time of Work from home.
Structure your day
Not having the usual comfort zones like socialising, travelling to work or spending time outdoors in nature, has pushed us towards eating disorders in the last one year. And of course, the havoc caused by the absence of a routine. It is important for people to carry on with a schedule, to try to wake up at set times and go to sleep at certain times. This will give them a purpose and do away with ‘pandemic boredom’. Once there is a structure, things like diet, exercise and sleep will automatically fall into place.
Desktop diet
Nutritious snacks.(pixabay)
When life revolves around a table and chair for most parts of the day, thanks to homeschooling and WFH, the obvious conclusion is meals on the desk (read more snacking)! While snacking may help in keeping your energy levels up, in a sedentary environment it also aids your body in storing unnecessary fat. One should have a combination of either low calorie and high protein snacks or low calorie and high fiber snacks. Plan your meals in advance and keep them as fresh and organic as possible.
Eat mindfully
Mindful and intuitive eating practices are not diets. They are mindsets that require you to trust your natural instincts and listen to your body’s hunger and fullness cues. Mindful eating is about rethinking food choices and practices; going back to traditional ways of eating and engaging your senses by noticing colors, smells, sounds, textures, and taste. Work your way up to eating mindfully every day and forgive yourself when you don’t. It can take weeks, months so be patient with yourself, and enjoy the process of building a stronger mind-body connection and improving your relationship to food.
Start an intuitive journey
Honour hunger: Keep your body biologically fed with adequate energy and carbohydrates. Once you reach the moment of excessive hunger, all intentions of moderate, conscious eating are fleeting and irrelevant.
Don’t eat for the wrong reasons: Get in touch with your feelings and don’t let food become an excuse for not dealing with emotions such as anger, anxiety, or loneliness.
Make peace with food: Buy food you feel like eating. Listen to your food cravings, it is alright to indulge every once in a while.
Stop when full: Listen for the body signals that tell you that you are no longer hungry. Observe the signs that show that you’re comfortably full.
Don’t over-exercise: Check in with your body, do not exercise hard when exhausted, opt for a gentler routine. Have a variety of workouts at your disposal and pick and choose based on how your body’s feeling.
Exercise and move for enjoyment: Not expressly for weight loss or calorie burning.
Eat nutrient dense food: Notice how you feel when you choose healthy, high-quality food. Take stock of your physical, mental and emotional responses.
Writing, designing, creative visualising and ideating aren’t functions that can be dictated to work for 12-hour stretches…writes Puja Gupta.
Work life has entirely changed after pandemic and India Inc has joined the global chatter on the four-day workweek. A recent announcement about the much-talked-about new labour code suggests that organisations may be allowed to offer the option to employees. However, the ministry keeps the 48-hour cap on the workweek “sacrosanct”.
Much before the pandemic, remote work and flexible work policies became a part of our lives, companies around the world had begun litmus testing a three-day weekend for employees.
Zahara Kanchwalla, co-founder & COO, Rite Knowledge Lab, lists down a few things to consider if you’re giving the four-day workweek a thought for your workforce:
More hours in exchange for extra off
One of the primary arguments in favour of the four-day workweek is that the extra time off leads to better productivity at work. However, look closely and you find that it’s only when a four-day workweek is accompanied by reduced weekly work hours that the concept bears fruit.
Perpetual Guardian, a New Zealand-based company, the first to grab headlines for testing the four-day workweek in 2018, asked its employees to work 30 hours a week and paid them for 37.5 hours. Similarly, Spain experimented with the four-day workweek in response to the pandemic, asking workers to clock in 32 hours a week. Finland’s Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, has floated the ambitious idea of 6-hour 4-day work weeks.
In effect, the employee continues to work between 8 to 10 hours on working days and enjoys an extra day off from work. However, in India, the weekly work hours remain 48. Adding the option for an extra day off by stretching out the other four days of work is counter-productive at best and threatens employee well-being at worst. One must consider that it’s adding almost 50 per cent to the average 8-hour workday. It’s a drastic shift for employees to switch into.
Longer hours means less focus
The brain is known to concentrate for 2-hour stretches with 15 to 30-minute intervals in between. Employee focus is usually at its peak at the beginning of the shift with concentration levels gradually dipping as the hours pass. By the 8th or 9th hour of the workday, workers are fatigued and unlikely to be at their productive-best for the additional hours they now have to clock in. It also raises the likelihood of mistakes, errors and accidents.
Just like one can’t make up for sleep lost in the week by sleeping for 48 full hours, the additional day off may hardly matter when one works a 12-hour shift for four consecutive days. Add to that an average of three hours of commute to and from work, makes it a total of 15 hours a day that the employee is out of their home for work.
Creativity can’t be clocked
In a digital agency where a majority of the roles are of a creative nature, twelve-hour workdays are impractical. Sure, pulling a caffeine-fuelled all-nighter a day before an important pitch may get those creative juices flowing but that’s just the pressure of the deadline in action on a creative brain.
Writing, designing, creative visualising and ideating aren’t functions that can be dictated to work for 12-hour stretches. Besides, one can only focus on the same project for so long before mental fatigue and the infamous creative block sets in.
To be able to look at the same problem afresh, taking breaks at regular intervals throughout the day is a crucial part of the thinking and ideating process. It cannot be crammed into four days and switched off for the other three.
Always connected
Beyond the creative functions of a digital agency, the nature of the business itself is interdependent on many external factors and stakeholders. As a digital agency, by default one has to be connected to what’s happening in real-time and be of service to clients. Twelve hour-long shifts can be demanding on those in customer-facing roles too, with the possibility for poor judgements and reactions graver in the final hours of the shift.
In addition, like the rest of the services industry, in these hyper-connected times, one is also expected to be available to clients at all times. A company may put a rotational system in place but that means a further restructuring of the workforce. Work from home inspired many organisations to finally embrace flexible work policies. If your company already allows its workforce to tailor their work schedules around their personal lives, a four-day workweek may not add further value.
A long break is priceless
Having said that, a long break away from work is indeed priceless. Employees have long grumbled about the two-day weekend passing by in a blink. On the flip side, a four-day workweek could prove as motivation for the long weekend. Knowing that the workweek is now shorter may encourage employees to complete tasks faster. The promise of three full days to oneself may inspire employees to focus fully while at work.
Besides, a three-day weekend allows one to plan longer holidays out of the city. It may also open up opportunities for employees to engage in long-forgotten hobbies, sign for an upskilling program or take up gigs on the side!
Long weekend or mid-week break
While some companies may make Thursday the new Friday by giving employees a three-day weekend. Some may place the extra day right in the middle of the workweek, on a Wednesday, for employees to return afresh to face the latter half of the week. Companies that want to stay available to their clients and customers through the week will put their employees on a rotation system.
As long as the length of the workday remains the same, the four-day workweek seems to bear sweet fruits. So, you may think announcing a three-day weekend may position you as an attractive employer but giving an extra day off by adding lost hours to rest of the workdays may just end up being like repackaging the same thing in a new gift wrapper. Make sure you take into account all aspects of the decision. Ultimately, if your workers are tired, it’s your product and business that will suffer.
