Anshu Bahanda of Wellness Curated: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically Improve Your Wellbeing
An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Be kind to people around you, especially to yourself — this sounds much easier than it is. Very often we’re the hardest on ourselves. It’s OK if you don’t want to exercise one day or if you don’t want to get out of bed. We’re often also our biggest critics — kindness to ourselves goes a long way.
As a part of my series about “5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anshu Bahanda.
Anshu Bahanda’s journey with health and wellness started when her older daughter fell sick at the age of one and a half. Over the years, it has become her mission in life to not just help her family and friends, but to connect as many people as possible with expert knowledge and simple tweaks to aid their journey to wellness through Wellness Curated, the community she founded.
She is the Founder of Aabru Art, an African Art Company and has previously worked with Deutsche Bank, Lehman Brothers and Andersen Consulting. She has a BA in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, India followed by an MA in Computer Science from Boston University, USA.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the story about how you first got involved in fitness and wellness?
In April 1999, my older daughter was diagnosed with leukaemia. She had 2 years of chemotherapy and there were a number of side effects due to the chemo that took 13 years to completely sort out. In those 13 years I sought out healers, experts and practitioners all over the world. I also started helping people with all kinds of health issues, ailments and diseases. That’s how my journey started. In the last 20 years or so, no matter where I am, and what I’m doing, if someone needs help with their health and wellness, I would put everything else on hold to help. Last year I decided to start the podcast and Instagram lives so that I could reach out to people beyond just my friends and family.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
One of the most interesting things that has happened to me in the last year since I started the health and wellness podcasts is that random people will come up to me — people I’ve never met before -since they know me from the podcast and the Instagram chats and start chatting to me about their health situation. They tell me how the podcasts have helped them and that is so very moving for me because that’s what I set out to do — to help people. And to get that validation makes me feel humble and is very moving. It’s amazing to have this instant connection and this common goal of wellness.
Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?
Omg! There are so many…
It wasn’t that far back; a few weeks ago I went to the Mayr clinic in Austria. I have an extremely busy life and love going there to wind down, detox and rejuvenate. I recorded a podcast and Instagram live with Dr Stossier, one of the most senior and well known Mayr doctors today. I was in the middle of a detox, and somewhere in the middle of the Instagram Live my blood pressure dropped and everything started swimming, and I was not able to pull a sentence together. This happened twice during the conversation. I have no idea how that looked for the audience and my guest on screen, but fortunately Dr Stossier and the audience very patiently waited for me to pull myself together and string a sentence together!
Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?
I don’t think I am an authority on health and wellness but I have a profound interest and I believe some useful knowledge and connections that I can share. There is so much we learn every single day. There is so much we don’t know as mankind.
What I do have is an obsession to learn more about health and wellness and a deep rooted desire to help humanity.
For the past 20 years, wherever I go — be it Vietnam or Mexico or Canada or the U.K. or India — I seek out healers and experts — ancient as well as state of the art — people who cannot explain why as well as scientifically inclined experts — and I try out the different therapies and treatments and then share the knowledge as widely as possible.
In my world, there is never a ‘this health issue can’t be sorted’ — there is always always a solution! It’s just a matter of finding the right solution.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
I have had so much help along the way. I don’t think it’s me that’s doing anything here — I honestly believe it’s the Universe acting through me. If I need something, it’s sent to me, whether it’s an expert or a person to chat with for the podcast — my friends, family, acquaintances are all coming forward to help me!
There are so many synchronicities — I’ll share a recent one. I was in Mexico meeting wonderful healers. I got a message from a wonderful teacher that my daughters had when they were in prep school years ago — she loved the podcasts, introduced me to a friend who was an award winning podcast producer and Carmela DiClemente is now helping me with my podcasts!
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, exercise more, and get better sleep etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the 3 main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?
The 3 main blockages that prevent us from integrating valuable information into our lives are -
A. we spend so much time living in the past, that we often lose the moment. So for example if we eat the wrong food one day, we spend so much time and energy feeling guilty about it, that we kind of get stuck in the past
B. We also worry so much about the future — again we lose the moment — and the things that are really important like the present just pass us by. When we get stressed and start focusing on all things that can go wrong, not only are we losing the moment, we are also manifesting all kinds of negative things in our life.
C. We have also gotten used to being busy. Sometimes we need to take a step back and stop, stop to re-evaluate our lives, stop to smell the roses, stop to respond to the message that the Universe is sending us.
Can you please share your “5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”? (Please share a story or an example for each, and feel free to share ideas for mental, emotional and physical health.)
I get asked this a lot. Some of the things may sound very simple but they’re really hard to do -
5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing
A. Be kind to people around you, especially to yourself — this sounds much easier than it is. Very often we’re the hardest on ourselves. It’s ok if you don’t want to exercise one day or if you don’t want to get out of bed. We’re often also our biggest critics — kindness to ourselves goes a long way.
B. The one thing that changed my life is Gratitude. I was taught gratitude as a child but I didn’t fully understand what true gratitude was until the pandemic. That’s when I realised how incredibly lucky we were that we were together as a family — and that we were protected and safe and comfortable. I started feeling gratitude for every little thing. I felt overwhelmed with gratitude. Life has never felt more beautiful. The more I’m grateful for, the more abundance comes my way! This is perhaps my most important tip for mental and emotional well being.
C. We live in a world where the only constant is change. Learn to adapt to change and you will be a winner. My mom was born in India and had lived in India till she was 58 years old. Then she had to move to the U.K. She’s made a life for herself here — she’s made friends, she learnt to make her way around London and get used to a different culture and way of being. And she never complained. Today at 82, she has made a beautiful life for herself by embracing change.
Never before has change been so important — every single structure is changing, the businesses we grew up with are changing, the way we work and live is changing, even the clothes we wear are changing. Embracing change is a necessity not a luxury anymore.
D. This is life — it will have ups and it will have downs.
I have seen people who trust someone or something — a God, a prophet, the Universe — lead happier lives because no matter what happens, they have their faith and it carries them through their darkest hours.
Recently I met a highly Spiritual healer whose daughter was very unwell. She lost her daughter a few weeks after I met her. She was totally shattered and broken but she kept saying she doesn’t know why the Universe did this but she trusts the universe — wow!
I’m learning to trust the Universe in the things that happen in my life — I’m learning that when things don’t work out, it’s because it’s not in alignment with the Universe at that point.
E. The people that I know who lead incredible lives — physically, mentally and emotionally are those who have a purpose in life. They find their Ikigai — something that they’re good at doing, that they enjoy doing, that the world needs and that they can be paid for!
When you find your Ikigai — every aspect of your life just falls into place!
As an expert, this might be obvious to you, but I think it would be instructive to articulate this for the public. Aside from weight loss, what are 3 benefits of daily exercise? Can you explain?
Daily exercise helps with keeping diseases away, it helps with mental health and stress, it helps with longevity and many many other things.
For someone who is looking to add exercise to their daily routine, which 3 exercises would you recommend that are absolutely critical?
Walking (or some form of cardio), yoga (and pranayama or breathwork which is a part of yoga) and strength training — the combination will take care of you physically, mentally and emotionally. This is the routine that works for me.
You should always choose something that resonates with you. There are many forms of exercise and what is critical for me, may not be appropriate for you but in general if you’re doing some form of cardio, some form of exercise that helps mentally and emotionally too and strength training that’s a great combination.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?
There are two books that are extremely special to me — one defined my relationship with my husband and children; and the other defined my relationship with myself and the whole universe.
The first is ‘The Prophet’ by Khalil Gibran. His page on love and marriage is very special to me ( Love one another, but make not a bond of love; Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls…); as is his write up about children (your children are not your children, they are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing fot itself …)
The second book which defined my relationship with myself and with the whole Universe is called the Bhagwad Gita and it is teaching me to go inwards to find answers to all kinds of questions irrespective of what happens in the world around us.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)
When I think of doing good to the most amount of people, I think of a movement towards building a collective community where we can help empower each other mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. That’s what I’m trying to do with Wellness Curated.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass,
It’s about learning how to dance in the rain”
Vivian Greene
We are all going through a ‘storm’. The current times are unprecedented in my lifetime and in the lifetime of all those younger than me — are we going to just sit around and wait for the storm to pass? Or can we perhaps learn to dance in the rain? Can we embrace new ways of being? Can we perhaps learn to enjoy this storm?
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)
I would love to meet Ellen DeGeneres, she has had such a varied life, and is someone who knows all about the highs and lows of being successful and in the spotlight! I’d love to talk to her about her journey and then try out her new skincare line with her!
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
https://twitter.com/WellnessCurated
https://www.instagram.com/wellnesscurated1/
https://www.facebook.com/wellnesscurated1-111010723848565
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
