Friday, July 29, 2016

Happiness Coach, Yoga Teacher & Laughter Yoga Master Trainer


Four life skills that you must learn are:
·       Happiness and Well-being
·       Laughter Yoga
·       Meditation
·       Yoga

LifeSkills provides you all the four at one place.

Between them, the founders of LifeSkills, Jagat Singh Bisht and Radhika Bisht, have a rich experience of life, yoga, meditation, laughter yoga, behavioural science and positive psychology; established numerous laughter clubs and served as Skype laughter club leaders.



Jagat Singh Bisht is a happiness coach, laughter yoga master trainer, author, blogger, keynote speaker and behavioural science trainer. He was a corporate trainer with a Fortune 500 company and laughter professor at the Laughter Yoga University. His areas of specialization are behavioural science, positive psychology and laughter yoga.




Radhika Bisht is yoga teacher and laughter yoga master trainer. She was associated with the Laughter Yoga University as a yoga teacher and laughter yoga master trainer. Her areas of specialization are yoga, meditation, laughter yoga and fun games.


Phones:+91 7389938255/9893262333/7314062333


Sunday, July 24, 2016

The Art and Science of Happiness



I teach what everyone seeks but finds it difficult to achieve. It remains more and more elusive as one chases it. Everyone believes he knows everything about it but is, in fact, ignorant and often misguided. I am talking about happiness and well-being.

According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside, “One of the greatest obstacles to attaining happiness is that most of our beliefs about what will make us happy are in fact erroneous. Yet they have been drummed into us, socialized by peers and families and role models and reinforced by the stories and images ever present in our culture. Many of the presumed sources of happiness seem so intuitive and commonsensical that all of us – even happiness researchers! – are prone to fall under their spell.”

The happiness myths need to be understood and overcome. You can teach yourself to be happy. The art and science of happiness and well-being can be learned and taught.

At LifeSkills, we have gone deep to blend the best of the modern science of Positive Psychology with the ancient wisdom of Yoga and Meditation. We have added a dash of Laughter Yoga into the cask to make it sparkle. Our programmes show the pathway to authentic happiness, well-being and fulfilment. We help you to flourish!


Jagat Singh Bisht
Founder – LifeSkills
+917389938255



LifeSkills for Happiness and Well-Being




LifeSkills is a Pathway to Authentic Happiness, Well-Being and a Fulfilling Life!

We draw upon the wisdom of Aristotle, Buddha, Confucius, Dalai Lama, Matthieu Ricard and Swami Satyananda as well as Martin Seligman, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ed Diener, Jonathan Haidt, Sigmund Freud and Abraham Maslow.

Our programmes help you to
• Dispel the myths surrounding happiness
• Discover your signature strengths and virtues
• Learn skills that make life happier, fulfilling and worth living
• Achieve your potential to be a winner - an authentic, alive, responsive, fulfilled human being
• Benefit from the wisdom of ancient sages and research findings of modern day scientists to transform your life.


Basic Pillars on which our programmes are founded:

Positive Psychology
Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.

Positive education
Positive education is defined as education for both traditional skills and for happiness. The high prevalence worldwide of depression among young people, the small rise in life satisfaction, and the synergy between learning and positive emotion all argue that the skills for happiness should be taught in school. There is substantial evidence from well controlled studies that skills that increase resilience, positive emotion, engagement and meaning can be taught to school children.

Positive Health
The field of medicine has long focused on the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of disease. But health is more than the mere absence of disease. The emerging concept of Positive Health takes an innovative approach to health and well-being that focuses on promoting people’s positive health assets, which might include biological factors, such as high heart rate variability; subjective factors, such as optimism; and functional factors, such as a stable marriage—strengths that can contribute to a healthier, longer life.

Yoga
Yoga is not an ancient myth buried in oblivion. It is the most valuable inheritance of the present. It is the essential need of today and the culture of tomorrow. All of us have potential which is beyond even our wildest dreams, but most of this potential remains untapped. Each person has the capacity to experience different planes of consciousness, yet most of live in the lower planes, without experiencing higher levels of existence, or even believing they exist.

Meditation
Meditation is a practice that makes it possible to cultivate and develop certain basic positive human qualities in the same way as other forms of training make it possible to play a musical instrument or acquire any other skill. The primary goal of meditation is to transform our experience of the world but it has also been shown that meditation has beneficial effects on our health. Scientific experiments have shown that twenty minutes of daily practice of meditation can contribute significantly to the reduction of stress, whose harmful effects on health are well established.

Laughter Yoga
Laughter Yoga is a combination of laughter exercises and yogic breathing that strengthens our immune system and generates feel good hormones in the body. Laughter is triggered with the help of exercises which soon turns into real and contagious laughter with eye contact and childlike playfulness. It is a simple yet profound method of busting physical, mental and emotional stress in one go.

Yoga Nidra
Yoga Nidra is a systematic method of inducing complete physical, mental and emotional relaxation. During the practice of yoga nidra, one appears to be asleep, but the consciousness is functioning at a deeper level of awareness. A single hour of yoga nidra is as restful as four hours of conventional sleep.

Surya Namaskara
Surya Namaskara is a well-known and vital technique within the yogic repertoire. It is almost a complete sadhana in itself, containing asana, pranayama and meditational techniques within the main structure of the practice. Surya namaskara can be easily integrated into our daily lives as it requires only five to fifteen minutes’ practice daily to obtain beneficial results remarkably quickly.

Our Founders

Between them, the founders of LifeSkills, Jagat Singh Bisht and Radhika Bisht, have a rich experience of life, yoga, meditation, laughter yoga, behavioural science and positive psychology; established numerous laughter clubs and served as Skype laughter club leaders.


Jagat Singh Bisht is a happiness coach, laughter yoga master trainer, author, blogger, keynote speaker and behavioural science trainer. He was a corporate trainer with a Fortune 500 company and laughter professor at the Laughter Yoga University. His areas of specialization are behavioural science, positive psychology and laughter yoga.




Radhika Bisht is yoga teacher and laughter yoga master trainer. She was associated with the Laughter Yoga University as a yoga teacher and laughter yoga master trainer. Her areas of specialization are yoga, meditation, laughter yoga and fun games.


Contact:

Phones:+91 7389938255/9893262333/7314062333

Monday, July 18, 2016

Remembering My Gurus On Guru Purnima

Today is Guru Purnima.
Guru is the one who shows you the path and takes you from darkness to light, from ignorance to knowledge and wisdom. Purnima is full moon.
Today is a special day to remember and revere our Gurus.
I pay my regards to five thinkers and influencers who have been revolutionaries in their fields.
They are my Gurus and have shown me the path to authentic happiness, well-being and fulfilment in life:


MARTIN SELIGMAN is known as the father of the new science of Positive Psychology. He has applied his wisdom and experience to the task of increasing wellness, resilience, and happiness for everyone. No psychologist in history has done more than him to discover the keys to flourishing and then give them away to the world.


 “I have been part of a tectonic upheaval in psychology called positive psychology, a scientific and professional movement. In 1998, as president of the American Psychological Association, I urged psychology to supplement its venerable goal with a new goal: exploring what makes life worth living and building the enabling conditions of a life worth living.”
Flourish, MARTIN SELIGMAN




MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI is the leading researcher into ‘flow states’. He has explored a happy state of mind called flow, the feeling of complete engagement in a creative or playful activity. The manner in which Csikszentmihalyi integrates research on consciousness, personal psychology, and spirituality is illuminating.



 “The wisdom of the mystics, of the Sufi, of the great yogis, or of the Zen masters might have been excellent in their own time – and might still be the best, if we lived in those times and in those cultures. But when transplanted to contemporary California those systems lose quite a bit of their original power.”
Flow, MIHALY CSIKSZENTMIHALYI







SWAMI SATYANANDA SARASWATI gave us the gift of Yoga Nidra – a simple yet profound technique adapted from the traditional tantric practice of nyasa. Realizing the need of the times as scientific rendition of the ancient system of yoga, he founded the International Yoga Fellowship in 1956 and the Bihar School of Yoga in 1963 and authored over 80 major texts on yoga, tantra and spirituality.



 “Yoga is not an ancient myth buried in oblivion. It is the most valuable inheritance of the present. It is the essential need of today and the culture of tomorrow.”
Asana Pranayama Mudra Bandha, SWAMI SATYANANDA SARASWATI





MATTHIEU RICARD is a Buddhist monk who had a promising career in cellular genetics before leaving France to study Buddhism in the Himalayas over forty years ago. He is an active participant in current scientific research on the effects of meditation on the brain. Through his experience as a monk, his close reading of sacred texts and his deep knowledge of the Buddhist masters, he demonstrates the significant benefits that meditation, based on selfless love and compassion, can bring to each one of us.




 “Meditation is a process of training and transformation. It is important to devote time to meditation. Especially if you practise in the morning, meditation can give your day an entirely new ‘fragrance’.”
The Art of Meditation, MATTHIEU RICARD







MADAN KATARIA, a medical doctor, founded the first Laughter Club with just five members in Mumbai in the year 1995. Today there are thousands of laughter clubs all over the world where laughter is initiated as an exercise in a group but with eye contact and childlike playfulness, it soon turns into real and contagious laughter. It’s called Laughter Yoga because it combines laughter exercises with yoga breathing. This brings more oxygen to the body and the brain which makes one feel more energetic and healthy.




 “Laughter Yoga is a unique concept where anyone can laugh for no reason without relying on humour, jokes or comedy. The concept is based on a scientific fact that the body cannot differentiate between real and fake laughter if done with willingness. One gets the same physiological and psychological benefits.”
Dr Madan Kataria, Founder, Laughter Yoga





Jagat Singh Bisht
Happiness Coach & Laughter Yoga Master Trainer
coolbisht@hotmail.com               +91 73899 38255


Saturday, July 16, 2016

Department of Happiness, Government of Madhya Pradesh, India



Madhya Pradesh has become the first state in India to get a ‘Happiness Department’ (‘Anand Vibhaag’ in Hindi) within the state government apparatus, according to a report in the Times of India. The objective of the department is to measure prosperity by gauging citizens’ happiness quotient and not the gross domestic product.

Mr Shivraj Singh Chouhan, the chief minister of the state, has penned his thoughts by way of a blog on this occasion. He says, “I often wonder why despite unprecedented growth in material prosperity and means of comfort, happiness continues to elude and what explains the ever growing intolerance, violence despair and depression.”

The concept of happiness that the government aspires to pursue in Madhya Pradesh, as per the Chief Minister, will primarily be based on time tested India wisdom.

He realizes that the government apparatus has its own strength and limitations. And, rightly goes on to say, “using it for spreading joy in society has its own challenges”.

The initiative to bring cheers to the life of common man is welcome and deserves kudos. Madhya Pradesh can now claim to be in the same league as Bhutan, Venezuela and the UAE.

As the outline of the department of happiness is being formulated, I have a few humble points to make.

Yoga and Meditation, no doubt, are vital pillars of happiness and peace. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Psychologist, in his well-known classic work on happiness, Flow, agrees, “The similarities between Yoga and flow are extremely strong; in fact it makes sense to think of Yoga as a very thoroughly planned flow activity. Both try to achieve a joyous, self-forgetful involvement through concentration, which in turn is made possible by a discipline of the body.”

A gargantuan work has been done in the field of ‘Happiness and Well-Being’ after Martin Seligman, in 1998, as president of the American Psychological Association, urged “psychology to supplement its venerable goal with a new goal: exploring what makes life worth living and building the enabling conditions of a life worth living”.
Positive Psychology should be a strong pillar of any modern day happiness programme anywhere in the world.

Positive Psychology is the scientific study of the strengths that enable individuals and communities to thrive. The field is founded on the belief that people want to lead meaningful and fulfilling lives, to cultivate what is best within themselves, and to enhance their experiences of love, work, and play.

Likewise, positive education and positive health merit mention.

Positive education is defined as education for both traditional skills and for happiness. The high prevalence worldwide of depression among young people, the small rise in life satisfaction, and the synergy between learning and positive emotion all argue that the skills for happiness should be taught in school. There is substantial evidence from well controlled studies that skills that increase resilience, positive emotion, engagement and meaning can be taught to school children.

The field of medicine has long focused on the prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and cure of disease. But health is more than the mere absence of disease. The emerging concept of Positive Health takes an innovative approach to health and well-being that focuses on promoting people’s positive health assets, which might include biological factors, such as high heart rate variability; subjective factors, such as optimism; and functional factors, such as a stable marriage—strengths that can contribute to a healthier, longer life.

Last, but not the least, Laughter Yoga, one of the most effective tools for creating instant joy, should be an integral part of any happiness curriculum.

Laughter Yoga is a combination of laughter exercises and yogic breathing that strengthens our immune system and generates feel good hormones in the body. Laughter is triggered with the help of exercises which soon turns into real and contagious laughter with eye contact and childlike playfulness. It is a simple yet profound method of busting physical, mental and emotional stress in one go.

I am citizen of this state and offer myself, with all humility, as a volunteer consultant, happiness and well-being. Shall be happy to offer my services to the state without any expectation and reward.

Wishing the Happiness Department in Madhya Pradesh all the happiness and a grand success!

Jagat Singh Bisht

(The blogger is a Happiness Coach & Laughter Yoga Master Trainer based in indore, India with a background of Behavioural Science, Positive Psychology, Yoga, Meditation and Laughter Yoga. He is the founder of LifeSkills - The Pathway To Authentic Happiness, Well-Being & A Fulfilling Life! He may be reached at email: coolbisht@hotmail.com and phone: +91 7389938255)



Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Happiness and Well-Being



Each one of us seeks happiness.

Happiness and well-being is not a thing. The modern science of happiness and well-being describes it as a ‘construct’.

For example, ‘weather’ is a construct. Ask any meteorologist, and he will tell you: weather is not a thing, it is a construct - a construct of temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed and a host of other factors.

The elements of well-being include positive emotion, engagement or flow, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment.

A couple of additional features from out of self-esteem, optimism, resilience, vitality and self-determination are required to really flourish.

This means you have to dig a bit deeper to understand fully what is happiness and well-being. It’s not as simplistic as saying: happiness is within us.

Happiness does not come to you on its own. You have to act in order to achieve it.

The good news is that we can learn to enhance our levels of happiness and well-being.




Please stay tuned as we unfold more and more on the subject.

Jagat Singh Bisht
Happiness Coach & Laughter Yoga Master Trainer

+9173899382555