• At just 27, Vidhi Gupta is burnt-out. She’s taking a break from her job at a New Delhi-based media house because of chronic carpal tunnel syndrome. (WHO says 1.6 million deaths annually can be attributed to insufficient physical activity)
• 31-year-old Himanshu Joshi has been on anti-depressants for sometime despite a plush MNC job in a bustling metropolis and is moving back to Tirthan. (A NIMHANS survey points out that the incidence of depression is 1 in every 20 Indians)
Both Vidhi and Himanshu belong to the internet generation that will “change the world” according to Alibaba founder Jack Ma’s 30-30-30 formula, and companies, he feels, need to “pay attention to the 30 year olds who will build a new tomorrow.”
But HOW, is the question, when their generation is already gripped by muscular-skeletal disorders, respiratory diseases, the Sick Building Syndrome, endocrine malfunction, neurological and heart problems.
The recently-released India State-level Disease Burden Report confirms that the leading individual cause of death in India in 2016 was Ischaemic heart disease. The culprits? Long commutes, junk diets, low levels of life satisfaction, odd work hours and a sedentary life style.
Now what?
“Office Yoga,” says Apurvaa Saxena of www.fitnessgroovee.com “is the new lifestyle tool to help employees tackle daily stresses.” Having successfully conducted healing and chair yoga sessions, for India Bulls, Hindustan Unilever, Pepsi Co., Star Network, Del Monte, Kotak Securities and Myntra, she sure knows what she is talking about.
Taking a cue from that, a Gurugram-based global food giant has started regular yoga sessions in its cafeteria from 4-5 pm to promote “employee wellness” in combination with a healthy food counter. Yoga guru Nandini from the Dhyan Foundation conducts these classes free of cost to encourage employees to embrace yogic healing.
Marketing professional Idi Srinivas Murthy, who co-founded KarmaSpark, along with yoga guru Dr Runvijay believes, “employees need to understand that health is the only responsibility that cannot be delegated to someone else.” His Clinical Yoga Therapy (CYT) clients include PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PwC), Ernst &Young (EY), KPMG, American Express, Swarovski, Manpower Group and AirCel.
The office yoga routine, says Dr Shubhra Arora, who conducted the International Day of Yoga session at Cyberhub for over 600 fitness buffs, “starts with warm up drills, basic stretches and breathing exercises; followed by balancing poses, basic asanas, spine twists and leg raises interspersed with the relaxing child pose and shavasana culminating in a cleansing pranayam.” To this, Apurvaa adds facial yoga and Trataka detox for eyes, along with Attahas. Her guided meditation sessions are so relaxing that “employees often fall asleep within minutes of starting meditation,” she laughs. No wonder the mindfulness industry is worth over a billion dollars today.
Interestingly, a “how fit is India” survey across eight cities, showed that 70 per cent respondents regularly practiced yoga to reduce stress and anxiety.
In his bestseller Inner Engineering, Sadhguru writes “you arrive at yoga only when you realize that your desire is essentially for the limitless, and that absolutely nothing else will settle for you” — looks like corporate India has a new KPI: the Office Yoga Metric.