Find your own wellness quotient

Coming from a family with insights in the industrial sector, Vasundhara Patni, founder, Kiro, is making a foray into the world of beauty with Kiro. Having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, she has previously fronted successful ventures in the education and hospitality sector. Her entrepreneurial endeavours continue with the launch of a homegrown makeup brand that places world-class clean beauty solutions within the reach of Indian consumers

Find the right balance

When it comes to wellness, I truly believe that it's just being able to find the right balance between the various elements of being healthy and fulfilling life. In my opinion, finding a positive and good work-life balance is something that we are constantly striving to do. When I started working I did struggle a lot, in terms of time management and organisation, figuring out what is the correct balance, how do I separate my work time, my family time, my me-time. I think this is a constant changing struggle that we are striving to find the correct balance in all our lives. It's very easy for people who are busy with work to put aside exercise, clean eating, clean living on the wayside and saying listen, I am just too busy with work, I do not have the time to do this.

Make the right choices

But the key is to be mentally, emotionally and physically fit to feel good and to make the right choices. I also feel the family is very crucial in this. In my overall wellness and wellbeing, I do feel that family time, relationship with your kids, with your spouse, with your parents, with in laws, and with the extended family is very crucial. I think they are my strongest strength, strongest support and honestly, these relationships are what make me - me. So this is something that I truly value and I feel like making time for my family is very important and the third thing I think that's very important is having a set of friends and being social and just have a couple of people you like to hangout with and that you can be yourself with and just people that make you happy and relaxed. So these are 2-3 things that help me live an overall balanced, positive life and wellness to me includes all of this along with the nutrition, sleep and meditation etc.

Similar to this, I think our journey at Kiro has been all about balance. Just the way wellness - mental, emotional and physical is about finding the right balance in your food, in your relationships, in your day-to-day living. Our approach towards building a product like Kiro followed very similar principles where we wanted to balance three very crucial aspects of makeup products and that being a mindfully created product, an effective product and a product that makes you feel indulgent and glamorous. So not only is balance important in our daily lives but has also been a very crucial part of our product development, our brand development, our coming up with key values and so that's what I would like to say about balance and wellness and wellbeing.

"I personally feel that a successful or fitness routine is the one that evolves with your lifestyle. There is no one right way or wrong way"

Enjoy your fitness routine

I personally feel that a successful or fitness routine is the one that evolves with your lifestyle. There is no one right way or wrong way. I truly feel that your fitness routine, fitness regime Depends on the phase you are in your life. Flexibility allows you to make sure that you are dedicated towards it and doing it on a daily basis. It's somethings that you must enjoy and at the end of the day, it should make you feel healthier and more positive as opposed to it causing any kind of stress 'oh, I didn't, I wasn't able to finish it, I wasn't able to do it', so overall your fitness and wellbeing routine should have a positive impact and it should be dynamic based on your current scenario and there is no right or wrong way in terms of what works for you and what doesn't.

What you eat is important

When it comes to food and diet I truly believe that eating in moderation, eating clean food, eating whole-grain food, trying to get as much organic and less processed food is very important. It cannot be any truer than the saying that feeling healthy from inside means focusing on not just exercise and sleep but also on what you eat. And I think moderation is what I really believe in; eat everything but eat it in moderation. I truly think that in our kind of Indian culture, food is very family-focused. It is very social, it is a social activity. So trying to separate the way you eat from your family and friends can take the enjoyment out of food and out of meals and that's why I personally feel very restrictive diets don't work for me in the long run. You know the constant restrictions make most of us feel very deprived and we treat food as a small pressure and enjoyment of life.

Discover your hobby

During this pandemic, I have rediscovered my love for painting and photography. It has reminded me and given me the time and space to spend some amount of my energy and time on something that I love doing as I used to paint a lot. I haven't been doing that as of the last 5-7 years ever since I had kids. I got caught up with the daily responsibilities of work and kids and home. I just hadn't gotten back to spending time doing things that I love doing. And this pandemic has given me that. I make sure that I spend a couple of hours every week-painting, creating designs and things that inspire me. Kiro actually has brought me back to start taking some fun photographs. Photography is also something that I really enjoyed doing during my college days. Hadn't gotten back to it, but since there's a lockdown there are no photographers around that we could do a proper product shoot with. I turned the photographer for our brand and I have really enjoyed exploring various aspects of photography, of course using my iPhone. And that's really given me a lot of joy and I really think it's something that is a stress buster for me.

To conclude, I like to say that there is no one magic exercise that works for everyone. I think the secret of fitness is to look at overall Holistic Wellbeing. It's honestly our job to find out what works best for our bodies, for our lifestyle, for our fitness goals, and therefore, what's most sustainable for us to keep going in the long run. The real challenge is not only getting it done but to make it enjoyable so that there is a desire to want to do it as an everyday part of your life.