Corruption - A Virus? Do we have an Anti-virus for it?

Happy World Mental Health Day

World Mental Health Day (WMHD) is celebrated every year on 10^th of October. This was started in 1992 by World Federation for Mental Health (WFMH). This year, the theme is “Young people and mental health in a changing world”.

Let us now separate the words in WMHD to understand it better.

Health

If we ask someone how is his/her health, it is presumed that he/she was suffering from some illness. Health is always attributed as connected to illness in the background, which has some negativity. The moment we ask someone how is his/her health, the other people around will immediately ask what has happened to him. On the contrary, we say “Health is Wealth”. If it is so, why people have a negative feeling in the background. The perception towards health earlier was simply it was just the absence of disease. Let us now see the latest WHO definition, which clearly added positivity to it.

As per WHO (World Health Organization, “health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity." There are two important things in it. One is the word “well-being” is the most powerful word added intentionally to bring the positivity to the word “health”. The second is in addition to “physical” word, “mental and social” words are used for ensuring the complete well-being of a person. This holistic perspective of health everyone needs to understand and strive for the complete health of self and society at large. Social well-being is basically dependent on the reciprocity of the values, ethics and morals in the society and how we follow them.

Mental Health

Mental health is defined by WHO as “a state of well-being in which every individual realizes his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community”.

If we see the definition carefully, out of four aspects

1. Realizing his/her own potential
2. Coping with the normal stresses of life
3. Able to work productively and fruitfully
4. To make a contribution to his/her community

except “Stresses”, remaining all the words are positive. Thus, the perception of looking at “Mental Health” as a negative thing should change. Moreover, the definition itself starts with a positive term “well-being”. Sometimes, “Mental Health” is confused with “Mental Illness” and both the words are used interchangeably. But both are different words. Both are not antonyms also as from the very definition of health itself we understood that it is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Mental Health Day

Is “Mental Health Day” different from “World Mental Health Day”? Yes both are different.

Wikipedia says “a ‘mental health day’ is the day when an employee does not come to work and takes a sick day for reasons other than physical illness”.  “Mental health day” thus, represents lack of mental health.

World Mental Health Day

As per WHO, World Mental Health Day is observed on 10 October every year, with the overall objective of raising awareness of mental health issues around the world and mobilizing efforts in support of mental health.

The Day provides an opportunity for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work, and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.

Thus, World Mental Health Day is different from Mental Health Day.

Happy World Mental Health Day

“Happiness” is the main goal of life. Let the awareness about mental health converts into the reality of maintaining mental health, thereby complete “health” which brings “wealth” to all of us.  Please go through my posts on Happiness - The Main Goal of Life & Whose Wealth is our Health?

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2015/04/happiness-main-goal-of-life.html

https://researchsubbu.blogspot.com/2015/05/whose-wealth-is-our-health.html

Please go through the report of WFMH on this year WMHD-2018 theme-

https://wfmh.global/wp-content/uploads/WMHD_REPORT_19_9_2018_FINAL.pdf

Be an 'Actor' of 'Emotions'

In Bhagawad Gita, it is said that life is a drama and we all are actors. Even Shakespeare reiterated the fact by saying “All the world’s a stage and all men and women are merely players”. These are used in different contexts to explain different concepts useful for mankind. Taking the thought further, from this analogy of life with drama, we can find some more useful concepts….

We should not be carried away by the success or failure. If we see great actors, they are never carried away by the success or failure. They stick to the basics of acting and fulfil the responsibility as an actor to continue to excel in their profession. Not getting carried away by any emotions and having good emotional intelligence is one of the qualities of “Sthithaprajnatha” described in Bhagawad Gita. Some actors who had spent a lot of money on luxuries in their successful days without thinking of future, faced a lot of problems in the days of failure. Thus, always predict the unpredictable and be cautious and save money for future also.

We should not be jealous about others’ roles and charisma. In a movie or drama, many actors act together, out of whom some may be veterans, charismatic and some might be not good at acting. But unless all the actors play their roles properly, the drama can’t be a success. We can observe that they don’t bring in the jealousy at all on the stage while performing. Each individual concentrates on their individual role and performance which adds value to the team performance. 

No blame game. Just imagine if a play is going on and an actor makes a mistake, we often see the other actors nicely manage to continue the play with perfect emotional intelligence and their concentration towards their role. Even they try to cover up the mistake done by the co-actor. It is all done spontaneously and effortlessly on the stage. This speaks of the team spirit and clearly explains we should not do blame game. It is quite often seen that many people blame others that because of his/her fault my work is getting delayed or I could not complete the work etc. This type of blame game has to be changed and mutual cooperation is expected as in the example of the play mentioned above.

Be passionate about our work. We can observe the amount of passion and dedication they show towards the art on the stage. So much of hard work they put in and many rehearsals to perform with perfection. We should get inspired by it…They respect their profession as God.

Teach the skills to the future generations to save the art. The sustainability of some forms of the art is missing already as those have not been transferred to the next generations. Thus, sharing the tacit knowledge and skills including the trade secrets to the next generations is the only solution to ensure the sustainability of the art of working.

As we are termed as actors, let us try to learn how to deliver different emotions with high emotional intelligence as per the scenes and situations of the drama….

Know the Numbers and Optimize the Blood Pressure...

Knowing the numbers first is the most important thing before doing additions or subtractions… The same thing applies to blood pressure also…

The blood pressure should be neither too low (Hypotension) nor too high (Hypertension), should be maintained at the optimum. What is the desired level of blood pressure? Let us “know the numbers first” before doing additions or subtractions.

17^th May of every year is celebrated as World Hypertension Day- An initiative of World Hypertension League (WHL) affiliated to the International Society of Hypertension (ISH). For the period 2013-2018, the theme is “Know Your Numbers”.

The blood pressure of the body is measured in mmHg by using the device called Sphygmomanometer/Blood pressure meter or monitor. It gives two values systolic pressure (peak pressure of the arteries during cardiac cycle-when the heart beats) & the diastolic pressure (the lowest pressure during the resting phase of cardiac cycle-between the heartbeats). The difference between these two pressures is the pulse pressure.

The normal Systolic/Diastolic pressure is 120/80 mmHg for a healthy person. Please go through "Understanding Blood Pressure Readings".

By now, it would have been clear that unless we measure it, we can’t know the blood pressure as the symptoms may come at very high or low values. So, always it is better to check the Blood Pressure periodically so that corrective actions may be taken to avoid further raise or fall in case any deviations are there.

As there is a famous saying, “Unless you measure it, you cannot control it”, blood pressure control may be effectively possible with consistent monitoring and corrective actions. Please go through my posts 'Test' for the 'Best', Whose Wealth is Our Health?, King’s Habits, Dynamic or Diabetic?.

Improvement in Workplace Safety

Is only zero accident the main aim of Safety? Is continual improvement possible in Safety also?
Let us see...

Firing the Fire - From God to Ghost

In Indian culture, Fire is considered to be God and is worshipped. The fire under control is truly Godly as it gives heat for cooking, protection from cold wave, in the boiler to generate steam and thereby electricity etc. But once it goes out of control the damage it causes is unimaginable as it becomes a Ghost and the losses are irreparable, irrevocable and irreversible. Thus, understanding the basics of fire, the fire safety measures, the fire fighting methods are very important for one and all.

To commemorate the loss of lives in the fire accident took place at Victoria Dock in the Bombay Port on 14th April, 1944, every year April 14th is observed as Fire Service Day and under the guidance of the Fire adviser, Ministry Home Affairs, Government of India, all the organizations observe the Fire Service Week (FSW) in all the industries.

My views on the topic " Fire Loss is National Loss - Let us adopt Fire Safety Measures" are herewith shared...

All the Credit goes to You...

We find the term “Credit” in finance (Taking the credit from a bank or financial institution) as well as in HR (Taking the credit for some work or achievement).

Some analogies—

Giving credit/Taking credit always pays good returns only if it is given to/taken from the right person at the right time.

There should be a balance between the assets (efforts) and liabilities (credits).

Effort=Asset, Credit=Liability

Considering above aspects 4 categories emerge-

1.Effortless Credit   Effort=Asset=0, Credit=Liability   Outcome=Liability

Effortless credit means without efforts taking/giving the credit. If a person takes the undue credit without efforts the outcome becomes a liability. So it is not desirable to give/take undue advantage of something in which no efforts are made.

2.Effort less (minus) Credit          Outcome= Asset-Liability

Putting efforts but not taking credit/Putting efforts and giving credit to others/Motivating for further efforts by not giving credit is this category. This always maintains continual improvement with sustainable competitive advantage for good managers.

3.Effortful Credit       Outcome= -Asset+Liability=Liability-Assets

In this all the efforts are put for taking/giving credit. It is not desirable as the resources are getting drained in taking/giving credit.

4.Effort full (plus) Credit   Outcome= Asset+Liability

Putting efforts and taking the credit for it. The moment we take/give the credit, the feeling of achieving the goal may come. People may get satisfied with the short term goal achievement. It may lead to complacence. But some people may take it as a motivation for achieving the long term big goals.

Let us put all our efforts to be in the 2^nd category or at least in the 4^th category.