Irish broadcaster Bibi Baskin has been on a journey which led her from Ireland to India and back.
The former radio and television presenter lived in Kerala for 15 years where she managed a hotel and grew her passion for wellness.
She now lives in Cork and runs her own business which focuses on wellness, public speaking and events.
Bibi told Alive and Kicking with Clare McKenna about her varied career.
She said: "It was in Ireland that I first discovered this wonderful system of wellness called Ayurveda and then years rolled by and I thought to go on a holiday after I'd given up broadcasting and I decided to go to that part of India where Ayurveda had started.:
This way of living has been her "constant companion" for 30 years and her wellness journey brought her back to Cork years later.
Bibi lives in India for 15 years and says that when she needed to visit a doctor, she could either visit a western-style GP or go to an Ayurveda doctor.
Ayurveda originated in Kerala, where Bibi lived, and the wellness movement is "very much alive and kicking there".
"There is no doubt" that people in Ireland should take a more holistic approach to medicine and treatment, she stated.
She said: "The sad thing is when you come back to the western world, be it Ireland or the UK or Australia or America, you find that the mind and the body are two distinct things, that they're not suggesting for a minute that the one can affect the other, and it can."
Life in India was naturally "very different" when she first went there, Bibi added, and she established a start-up business in the form of a new hotel.
"That was all very fascinating, but after I would say about 10 or 12 years, the fascination with the differences were all gone and then you're left with the other side of the coin," she said.
She said she was in her 60s and was looking for a quieter way of life which led to her decision to return to Ireland.
The country she came home to is much more open to wellness, she said, but she is not sure how much people are actually implementing it into their lives.
People are experiencing a lot of stress at the moment, Bibi acknowledged, and believes not enough is done about this issue.
"I still find that even in lockdown, people I know, say successful businesspeople in their 40s, are still working themselves to death, either physically, mentally or both," she stated.
It was this issue which gave her the idea to come up with 'The Happy Book', her second volume of wellness quotes.
"I thought this is going to be a terrible time for a lot of people, what can I provide that they might need, and I thought, tips on happiness, which is what the book is about," Bibi said.
She explains that the idea that you are "a big lazy lump" if you're not busy needs to be dispelled, and she factors in "doing nothing" time into her day.
"We need time to still the mind, to get that calmness into our mind that would de-stress us, and you get that from doing noting for a little whole every day," she added.
For people who say they don't have time to do this, she advises getting up ten minutes earlier each day so that by the end of the week, more than an hour of "me time" has been achieved.
Like most people, Bibi concedes that she "probably" spends too much time on social media after "taking to it like a duck to water" since joining various platforms.
All her work since returning to Ireland has been secured through contacts on social media, she added, and last month she set up a private Facebook group called 'Bibi's Happy Place' where people can subscribe to learn more about living a mindful life.
"I kind of justify up to a point my time on social media because that is now a little business, but of course I get great delight out of scrolling just like everybody else," she said.
The Happy Book Volume 2 is available to purchase now.
