Indian Consul General Faiz Ahmed Kidwai emphasized on the need to lead a balanced lifestyle at a symposium that drew several prominent health experts to discuss how to handle stress in one’s daily life.

“In our daily life, we tend to ignore the importance of health and happiness,” he said, adding the consulate will organize such events regularly.

Organized by the Saudi-Indian Business Network (SIBN) under the patronage of Indian Consulate, the symposium on “Life skills management — Maintaining health and happiness” stressed on maintaining health which has become a major factor for health issues given the modern day lifestyles.

Professor Mohammed Masood Ahmed, group director, Vidya Group of Institutions and an expert on management skills, in his talk on the importance of life skill management to lead a happy and healthy life, said: “Most important is a healthy life as health is wealth. It’s very important to give attention to one’s lifestyle since it has an impact on life,” he said.

Citing examples of many successful businessmen and doctors who died at an early age because of poor health and stress, Prof. Ahmed pointed out that 66 percent of all diseases are direct results of our lifestyle choices, according to the National Institute of Health.

“Lifestyle is the way a person lives, including consumption of food, sleeping habits, physical activities and relationship. The phenomenal acceleration in global competition — both in education and employment — requires use of higher levels of technology, more particularly computers and Internet and retaining large volumes of information exploding every second needs both mental and physical effort, he said.

Stating that ignoring the negative effects of this kind of high-tech lifestyle, coupled with long hours of work, eating at wrong time and other deviations can have disastrous effect on one’s health he said, adding that high levels of stress generated can lead to heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, anxiety, clinical depression, sleep disorders, weight gain due to irregular eating, muscular pathology and more.

Pointing out that professions nowadays hardly have any time for family, social, religious and spiritual which serve as “natural vents” for release of stress, he said: “Family, social, religious, professional and spiritual lifestyle — these five areas are very important if we want to have a balanced lifestyle. Besides, sleeping on time, time management and giving attention to our life partners and relations can solve 90 percent of the problems.

He also said that according to his personal experience, there should be a balance between the five areas for us to lead a healthy life. The Qur’an also states that it’s important to manage personal life with health, finance, time and friends, he said, adding that managing social life helps in nation building, career guidance, social work and rural development,” he said.

“Bhutan enjoys the highest rate of happiness in the entire world, so people should focus on a happy lifestyle,” he said, adding that it’s the responsibility of everyone including parents, teachers and friends to ensure deal with stress. Parents should not put pressure on children and should not have too many expectations from them, and should not to be over-ambitious, he said.

Memon AK Sait, general secretary and head of Indian Investment Committee SIBN extended the vote of thanks.