Finding balance in the corporate world

Alex Mearns

Founder of Levitise

levitise.com.sg

Were it not for a health scare, Alex Mearns might have had a life-long career in finance. He had spent 15 years in a financial research firm, where he was its CEO.

There were a few times at work that he would have dizzy spells. He did what most people would do - seek medical help. His doctor ran some blood tests and came back with bad news. Mearns had a high BMI, high cholesterol and blood pressure and was pre-diabetic. His doctor suggested a list of medication he could take. But, “I felt I was too young to be taking all these medications,” says Mearns, who was in his mid 30s then.

He began doing his own research, listening to podcasts and reading scientific papers on how to attain better health, and in the process, lost 13 kg and cured himself of his ailments. Not only was his heath better, but he now has a second career through his fascination with holistic health.

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 “I had to fall sick to find out my true calling,” says Mearns, who also had a desire to start his own business.

So in 2017, he founded Levitise, a holistic wellness centre that helps clients deal with stress and anxiety, weight management issues, hormone imbalances and sleep disorders among other issues, without the need for medication.

While Mearns is a certified holistic lifestyle coach and a functional medical diagnostic practitioner, he has other colleagues, one of whom is a lifestyle coach and another is a personal trainer.

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If needed, clients can tap on all 3 experts’ skills to create a holistic lifestyle programme that is needed for them to regain their health.

“At Levitise we don’t just look at one aspect of life, like medical doctors who focus purely on symptoms, or nutritionists who focus on food. We look at a multitude of factors that contribute to a client’s health and happiness,” says Mearns.

Levitise focuses on executives who are in their 40s and older. Mearns says that being about the same age as his clients makes him more relatable to them.

“Despite the likelihood of them having more complicated problems, clients at that age are more motivated to make lifestyle changes,” he says. His clients are mostly bankers and lawyers.

Depending on the severity of the problems, it can take about 3 to 12 months for a client to regain his health. 

Apart from offering nutritional and life coaching, Levitise is believed to be the only wellness centre in Singapore that offers a full spectrum infrared sauna. 

Sauna sessions are good for detoxing, particularly for those who suffer from hormonal imbalances and heavy metal toxicity. It has also been scientifically shown to cure chronic fatigue and alleviate pain.

While most of Levitise’s clients are individuals, Mearns also offers corporate workshops, speaking to companies about the benefits of proper nutrition and ways to handle stress and anxiety.

“What we do is to provide our clients with lifestyle solutions before they need to reach for medical drugs,” says Mearns. 

Dr Oberdan Marianetti

Founder, OM-ICE

om-ice.com

How does immersing yourself in a bath of ice sound? More than just a way to cool down on a hot day, an ice bath session is said to ease sore and aching muscles, decrease fatigue for better sleep, while boosting metabolism and the immune system.

Ice bath sessions are one of the activities in a 3-day OM-ICE retreat designed by its founder Dr Oberdan Marianetti, a former global head of learning at a bank.

He is also a psychologist and clinical sexologist. Having twice successfully transitioned out of the corporate world, Dr Marianetti says he has a good understanding of both the corporate and wellness fields.

“While I always kept my hands in the pie, getting involved as much as I could to create psychology based solutions, one of the main things I was missing in my last years in corporate was the direct contact with the clients,” says Dr Marianetti, who is also a Wim Hof Method instructor and an Oxygen Advantage instructor. “I was craving a deeper involvement in helping people and applying my psychology skills and knowledge.”

It also didn’t help that he found the corporate world slow, bureaucratic and seldom creative.

He left the corporate world so that he could leverage his talents to impact people’s lives in a more direct way. He describes his OM-ICE method as a marriage between his personal, academic and professional experiences.

The programme aims to help overwhelmed professionals re-connect with themselves to find a sense of purpose.

Besides ice bath sessions, participants at an OM-ICE retreat also do journalling, meditation, breathing exercises and yoga.

“We believe in the right of everyone to live a fulfilling and well life; a life of balance, in a world where mental and physical health co-exist as complementing therapies and priorities,” says Dr Marianetti.

Since the retreat started in 2018, it has attracted participants from all walks of life, from their mid 20s to late 50s, from business owners to CEOs, from healthy people to those with severe physical or mental health challenges. 

“Most participants came to the programme with a sense of overwhelm due to the multiple life stresses and demands, and were seeking a more joyful and meaningful life,” says Dr Marianetti, who had spent years in the corporate world as an in-house psychologist.

Participants who have undergone the OM-ICE process report physiological, social and psychological benefits, such as the sudden disappearance of medical issues. Others report a higher level of daily energy, and there are those who report a sustained improvement on depression symptoms up to 3 months following the retreat. Some benefits are even more life changing, such as one participant who decided with her partner to leave their corporate jobs to start their dream business. 

The next OM-ICE retreat in July will be held at a resort in Sentosa, but interested participants can also take part in free introduction sessions to get a taster of some activities.

“We will also be introducing some online programmes to allow access to a broader audience,” says Dr Marianetti.

Cynthea Lam

Founder of Super Farmers

super-farmers.com

As a business owner, Cynthea Lam may be working doubly hard now compared to her previous marketing job at a university, but she has no regrets leaving the corporate world.

At the height of her career, she started seeing a therapist for insomnia and eczema, the latter which she has had since she was 7. “No dermatologist could resolve the eczema,” she says. Her insomnia problem was triggered by stress from work, and she would be awake for 72 hours straights before getting 4 hours of sleep. “I felt like a zombie for 6 years,” Lam quips. 

Corporate life was hard on her, but it wasn’t the only reason why she left it to start Super Farmers, a wellness company that helps people live better through nutritional and emotional wellness products and education. 

Her daughter had a near-death experience with pneumonia caused by food colouring, and Lam decided to leave her corporate career to focus on nurturing her child back to good health.

She took up a nutritional course and focuses on developing recipes that are simple and nutritious. 

The change in lifestyle helped healed Lam’s eczema and insomnia. 

Lam is a firm believer that there is a link between food and emotional well-being. She cites the example of how a slice of chocolate cake is often seen as a guilty pleasure. “The very guilt-laden feelings of eating the chocolate cake would almost certainly manifest into weight gain for that person,” says Lam. “Our minds are so powerful. In this case,  we can worry ourselves 'sick' or not.”

Her advice is to go ahead and eat the cake and enjoy it. “Giving it dirty looks only creates guilt, and guilt is very heavy energy that manifests,” she says.

Chocolate cake is not on the Super Farmers menu; instead, she offers small farming kits for users to grow microgreens. 

Her corporate clients, such as Google and Singapore Airlines, are enjoying her Apoteacary workshops, where participants learn about herbs, flowers and spices that support and strengthen certain bodily conditions caused by stress and anxiety. These ingredients are then used to create personalised tea blends.

With more awareness on mental wellness in recent years, the number of clients asking for these virtual workshops has gone up. “I do incorporate mental wellness in our Apoteacary workshops because I am an avid practitioner of paradigm shifting,” says Lam, who will be creating more emotional wellness programmes for corporates. 

Lam has no plans to go back to the corporate world. “I was working alone for many years on Super Farmers before I had a team, and those were very humbling years that taught me about the value of time, flexibility and life's simple joys - the currencies just as important (if not more important), as money. And most importantly, I no longer have insomnia,” she says.

Lim Han Ee

Founder of The Mindful Village

themindfulvillage.net

Having previously served in the Singapore Navy as a naval combat office for nearly 15 years and as a former national sailor for Singapore, Lim Han Ee knows how important it is to have mental agility and an action-learning mindset for peak performance.

Lim is now a performance psychologist, an executive coach and a certified mindfulness instructor, who has worked with plenty of corporate types, including clients such as LVMH and Oracle, who face pressure and suffer from burn out.

“There are many mindfulness workshops and courses in the marketplace these days. While the benefits of such offerings are evident, not many individuals are able to keep up with their self-care or mindfulness practice on a regular basis after that,” Lim notes.

This led him to start The Mindful Village, a safe and supportive space for holistic self-care and overall well-being. It works on a monthly subscription basis. “The global online community gets unlimited access to curated soul-nourishing activities like live meditation sessions and mindfulness at the workplace workshops,” says Lim. 

He adds: “I've always been curious about ecosystems where individuals and communities not only thrive but also flourish in a sustainable way.”

Through these activities, which cover physical, mental, emotional and spiritual energy, The Mindful Village will elevate a member’s overall well-being, as well as connect him with like-minded villagers and qualified instructors.

Having received his certification for the renowned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) from Brown University, Lim is now one of the first instructors in the region qualified to teach the programme.

“The MBSR focuses on the universal condition of how humans experience, respond and ultimately cope better with stress,” says Lim. MBSR uses a combination of meditation, body awareness, yoga and exploration of patterns of behaviour, thinking, feeling and action.

By committing to this 8-week programme which Lim will be conducting and the various mindful exercises, participants will learn how to enhance their emotional and physical well-being, resilience, sense of purpose, sleep patterns, mental clarity and focus, and improved interpersonal relationships. There are upcoming courses in May and June.

Lim says the programme will benefit business leaders who are hoping to recover from burnout and improve overall well-being and executives who want to improve their sleep patterns and handle interpersonal conflict.

Just why is mindfulness so important especially in today’s highly stressful and fast-paced world? Lim says being mindful can reframe the mindset and help the body cope better with stress.

“Conventional wisdom has conditioned us to avoid our stressors or find an easy way out,” says Lim. With mindful exercises, a person learns to pause, reframe the stressful situation and rethink about the stressor.

“Instead of being unduly triggered, a person might want to reframe that thought into a positive and learning experience,” suggests Lim. “Mindfulness is like a muscle, 'develop it or lose it'.”