What really defines you and pigeon-holes you in society’s memory bank is your skin. More accurately, your colour — black, white or brown — is your most visual characteristic; it profiles you in the mental folder. Most often, your reference is not your facial features. It is the more obvious colour of your skin, and this, consciously or unconsciously, becomes your identity card. Beauty is not just skin deep. Because the skin stands for so much more…

Stress is spread over our daily bread. Office work stretches beyond the eight-hour shift quite naturally. Because the sun doesn’t rise or set on it because service industries, in particular, can seldom be conveniently compartmentalised into global time zones. Back-office stress stalks the post-Covid back-to-office routine as increasing globalisation goes loco. For example, a male employee in Mumbai addresses the clients’ requirements in a Manhattan-set timeline. The man from Matunga now competes with someone from Madurai, Madrid or Mexico. Outsourced work crosses geographical borders and time zones. And the red-eyed corporate traveller catering to the western multinational corporation (MNC) is accompanied today by the India-based, blurry-eyed work-from-home/call-centred colleague. This trend is entrenched and extended as shrinking western economies seek new bases and bigger markets in Asia. And India.

Those who don’t learn from history are condemned to repeat it. That most times we learn more from mistakes than from success is a well-known fact. Here is a unique lesson from Larsen and Toubro (L&T) which tells us that one can simply be too good for the given task.

Darwin’s ‘survival of the fittest’ is the default option, or rather compulsion, dictated by life’s evolutionary nature. Simply put, fitness is mainly about man’s adaptation to his environment. Unlike the rest of the animal kingdom or species that dwell on earth, man alone has the ability to think.

Swedish sweat in the 19th century is the fountain-head of modern calisthenics — the prime source and course of western exercises today. It is believed that Swedish landlords were aghast when they saw the stooped and sagging peasants’ shoulders at work. The landlords wanted their subjects to be soldier-like in bearing. And hence, devised drills and movements on militarist lines. Erect spines and square shoulders were sought and taught through calisthenics.

At some stage in almost everybody’s life, comes a time when she feels insecure. Though the sun in her life is at its zenith, she is more conscious of the twilight over the horizon.

Preservation begins with proper preparation. The principle is to live young as long as possible. Internally, there can be a 20-year difference between our chronological age and our chromosomes. For example, a 40-year-old could be 60 or 20 within himself or herself. Inherited genes and a gainful lifescape make the vital all-important difference.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines a healthy body as one that is in a ‘state of complete physical and mental well-being… By health we mean the powerful force to live a full, adult living, breathing life in proximity with people and things that you love. For you to realise all that you are capable of being and doing.’

Great people don’t do different things. They approach the same things differently. Their success stories are a series of small steps. Their rehearsal is the real thing. They practise their required ABCs to perfection to produce that X factor — they know that to write an essay they have to first master their grammar. The drill of their routine is done to death. Repetition after repetition until it sinks and syncs with the subconscious.

Do we consume food — or does fast food consume us? This might seem like serving paranoia on a platter, but all. this business buzz around ultra-processed food (UPF) causes brain-fade or brain fuzz. Your resistance caves in to the hounding TV commercial and newspaper ads and advertorials. Welcome to the club that believes “Dieting is easy. I have done it a hundred times.”

We have written about holistic health and aerobics at some length in our recent columns. The cynic and the couch potato may dismiss this as a good-in theory-but-does-it-actually-work in practice? Time then to take our Fitness-for-Life approach from the library and test-run it on the killing fields of real life. Pit it against the arguably Enemy Number One, ­Cancer. Cancer is a fatal disease if it runs its course. But the good news is holistic health and lifestyle can nip cancer in the bud (read cell) if treated at an early state and stage. Aerobic exercise is both a shield and sword in this ancient all-pervading perennial disease. And aerobic exercise is the missile to launch and target a preemptive strike on cancer. Prevention is the best cure.