Welcome to the latest issue of "Hindastry News" - Hinda's corporate newsletter.

"Hindastry News" brings you the latest on the happenings at Hinda.

This issue includes:

• Meet Greg Whitacre, our new Senior VP of Sales & Marketing
• Dave Peer talks about the importance of executive support of employee engagement
• Learn about the Incentive Federation's "Right to Recognize" Initiative
• Trends we saw at Toy Fair and the Home & Housewares Show

If you know someone who would benefit from receiving communications like this from Hinda, have them e-mail Alisa Schafer (aschafer@hinda.com) and ask to be added to the distribution list.

Also be sure to check out and subscribe to the Hinda Blog. 

Click here for the current issue of Hindastry News.

We’ve added some unique and timeless pieces of jewelry to our assortment just in time for the Big Day (which is May 12, but we don’t need to remind you, right?).

Sterling Silver Heart Necklace

Featuring a classically styled heart-shaped pendant strung on a black cord necklace, this piece is perfect for everyday wear and says “I Love You” in a special way!

Green Amethyst Necklace

A 12x10mm checkerboard-cut genuine green amethyst sits in a sterling silver pendant and hangs from an 18" link chain. A unique alternative to the traditionally purple February birthstone!

Smoky Quartz Necklace

The Smoky Quartz Necklace features a 10k yellow gold pendant and Venetian box chain with a genuine 6mm checkerboard stone. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire!

Diamond "X" Earrings

X marks the spot! These diamond earrings feature 14k white gold and a total carat weight of .11. Dress up your daywear or sparkle after hours!

Diamond Key Pendant Necklace

Show that special someone that she holds the key to your heart. The diamond-encrusted key pendant features a total carat weighs of .52 and hangs from a 14k white gold Singapore chain.

Journey Necklace and Earring Set

Everyone knows it’s the journey that counts. This sparkling set features 14k white gold and a total carat weight of 1.75. Show her just how much you’re enjoying the journey!

This is just a sampling of some of the new jewelry available in Hinda’s assortment. For more jewelry and other great gifts for Mom, check us out before May 12 or you’ll be in big trouble, mister! Don’t say we didn’t warn you!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there from all of us at Hinda!

Although World Health Day is technically April 7, there’s no reason not to keep the good health vibes going all month long – and by extension, all year! The World Health Organization held the first World Health Assembly in 1948 and sanctioned April 7 as World Health Day effective in 1950. World Health Day honors WHO's founding and provides an opportunity by the organization to draw worldwide attention to a subject of major importance to global health, with international, regional and local events related to a particular theme.

The theme of World Health Day 2013 focuses on controlling hypertension, or high blood pressure, which WHO calls a “silent killer, global public health crisis.” Both preventable and treatable, hypertension contributes to many cases of heart disease, stroke and kidney failure worldwide, according to WHO, and WHO estimates one in three adults over 25 has elevated blood pressure, or about a billion people the world over.

According to WHO’s website, some specific objectives of the World Health Day 2013 campaign are to:

• raise awareness of the causes and consequences of high blood pressure
• provide information on how to prevent high blood pressure and related complications
• encourage adults to check their blood pressure and follow the advice of healthcare professionals
• encourage self care to prevent high blood pressure
• to make blood pressure measurement affordable to all
• to incite national and local authorities to create enabling environments for healthy behaviors

Following a healthy diet, getting enough exercise and rest and losing weight are all great ways to lower an elevated blood pressure or maintain a healthy one. Generally, lowering sodium intake and maintaining low levels of stress are particularly helpful when it comes to relieving hypertension.

Get more information on hypertension and other global health concerns here.

After months of testing over 100 grills, Consumer Reports® announced that the Weber Spirit SP-320 is the best bet for the upcoming grilling season. It’s easy to use, heats up quickly and cooks evenly. CR also reports that it is among a few grills tested that excel at indirect grilling, making it an optimal choice for slow-cooking ribs, roasts, whole fish and poultry.

Boasting 529 sq. in. of cooking area, the Spirit can grill about 16 to 30 burgers at once, according to CR’s test. Other features that make this grill a winner include stainless steel grates, three main burners with 32,000 BTUs per hour plus 12,000 BTU-per-hour side burner, porcelain-enameled Flavorizer bars and six tool hooks.

You can find the Weber Spirit SP-320 among Hinda’s assortment of grills and outdoor cooking accessories, and read CR’s full grilling report here.

Bissell® PowerFresh™ Steam Mop

Experience a new way to steam mop! Get a deep clean with a fresh scent. Clean sticky, dried-on spots two times faster than the leading steam mop. A handy flip-down scrubber takes out the messes with ease. No more bending over and fingernail scrubbing. PowerFresh™ combines the built-in scrubber with SmartSet digital steam control to safely clean almost any hard floor surface. Eliminates 99.9 percent of germs and bacteria when used as directed, and your family deserves a clean, germ-free household!

Dirt Devil® Extreme Power 14.4 Volt Stick Vac

Cordless convenience and a rotating brush! This 14.4-volt cordless stick vac easily moves from carpet to hardwood floors with a fingertip on/off switch for the brushroll. The low-profile nozzle is ideal for cleaning under beds, tables and chairs. The lightweight design and folding handle make it easy to move from room to room, and you can store it virtually anywhere. Maybe you’ll want to clean your floors more often now?

Samsung® TwinChamber Canister Vacuum System

With a 12” two-step brush, this system features an innovative chamber design providing up to 95.2 percent dust separation. An advanced HEPA sealed-gasket filtration system delivers a more hygienic clean by removing more fine particles from the air and trapping more dust and allergens. The large, easy-to-empty 2.5-liter bagless dust bin holds more so you can clean bigger messes in one shot, and the compact design makes it easy to store. Are you ready to experience cleaner floors?

Well, that takes care of your floors! Don’t you feel better? We knew you would. Your family won’t recognize how spotless the house is - they’ll think you’re playing an April Fool’s joke on them! Plus, remember floor care is trending, so clean floors just means you’ve got an edge when it comes to what’s fashionable in the domestic realm!

Part III: Sleep

(Click here for Part I: Relaxation and here for Part II: Meditation)

So far we’ve covered relaxation and deep relaxation in the form of meditation. Now let’s talk about the ultimate in relaxation – sleep. Everyone needs it and most aren’t getting enough of it – to the detriment of every area of our lives. You’ll want to stay awake for this.

In “The Healing Power of Sleep,” Pamela Weintraub, Executive Editor of Discover magazine and author of Cure Unknown: Inside the Lyme Epidemic, uncovers just how sleep deprived we are as a nation, the detriment sleep-deprivation does to our bodies and minds and how we can turn this nocturnal habit around.

“People devalue sleep and are completely unaware of what happens to them when they have a deficit,” says James Maas, PhD, a recently retired Cornell scientist and one of the world’s foremost sleep researchers, according to Weintraub’s article. “As a society we are so habituated to low levels of sleep that most of us don’t know what it feels like to be fully alert and awake.”

University of Chicago sleep researcher David Gozal, MD, adds that we treat sleep like a “tradable commodity,” sacrificing it for everything from work responsibilities to entertainment or other lifestyle choices. We create this deficit because it can take upwards of months or years for symptoms of a sleep deprivation-related disease to surface, according to Gozal.

How many of you have used the phrase, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead?” I know I have.

According to Weintraub’s article, sleep deprivation, even by as little as one hour a night, can wreak massive havoc in the body and mind. Most people are aware by now that lack of sleep creates increased food cravings, increased levels of the stress hormone cortisol and disrupted metabolism, all of which can lead to weight gain. However, not getting enough Zs can perpetuate a plethora of other lesser-known symptoms, such as hair loss, hearing loss, skin problems, insulin resistance, vision problems, sexual functioning and even cancer.

In her article, Weintraub recounts the story of Jason Karp, a 36-year-old hedge-fund manager and restaurateur who had reached a dangerous level of sleep deprivation before he sought help. An ambitious learner, Karp taught himself to speed-read and would spend long hours reading as opposed to getting adequate sleep – sometimes sleeping just two or three hours a night.

Karp began seeing double and was diagnosed with keratoconus, a disease that causes the cornea to progressively degenerate, sometimes necessitating a transplant. Then, he began experiencing prostate pain. His hair fell out in clumps and he broke out in a rash. Finally, one doctor told him his cortisol level was so high he may not live to see 40. Karp legitimately believed he was dying.

When Karp came across a bit of research that linked his rash to his keratoconus, he decided to try and cure himself by getting more sleep and altering his diet. Though it took some time for Karp to retrain himself to sleep, about six months later he had recovered from every symptom he was suffering with. And although Karp is an extreme case of someone who trained himself to forgo sleep, these are real symptoms that can occur in anyone suffering from lack of sleep.

Find out if you are sleep deprived by taking the quiz devised by James B. Maas, PhD. How else can you incorporate more rest, relaxation and sleep into your weekly agenda? Do you think you’d benefit from slowing down and taking time out for yourself during the day? What positive changes do you think you’d see? Talk to us in the “Comments” section below!

Part II: Meditation

(Click here for Part I: Relaxation)

While you’re on one of your breaks, why not try a little meditation on for size? Meditation may seem like a fad due to its recent rise in popularity in the States, but it’s a wellness practice that’s been helping people around the world for thousands of years. As daunting as it is to even think about sitting still and being quiet in this time of hustle and bustle, even adding a few minutes of meditation into your daily or weekly routine promotes life-sustaining benefits.

In “The Strength to Sit Still,” EXPERIENCE L!FE fitness editor Jen Sinkler recounts her first attempt at meditation as a fitness buff and how it not only altered her thoughts about meditation, but her thoughts about thinking in general.

Instead of “crack[ing] open the meditation CDs that I bought three years ago,” Sinkler went all out for her first meditation experience with a 3-day beginner’s retreat at Shambhala Mountain Center (SMC) in Red Feather Lakes, Colo. “…stillness emanates from the surroundings here, and when I arrive I finally feel like I have time to meditate,” Sinkler says. “Cell phones don’t work and my laptop is back home, edged out by the towel on the SMC packing list. I suspect this sort of sacred space can be created anywhere, but signing up for a retreat has given me formal permission to carve it out for myself.”

According to Sinkler’s instructor, Charles Rosicky, “The first rule of meditation is to have no expectations,” Sinkler recounts in the article. “It’s like being excited to go on vacation. The vacation you go on is never the vacation you think you’re going to go on. In the same way, it’s better to meditate without ambition.”

Unfortunately, Sinkler broke this rule. “I didn’t expect to find enlightenment over the weekend, but I did want the act of meditating to feel blissful, life-altering and important,” she says. “I didn’t go on the vacation I thought I was going on. Meditation felt…ordinary. Unspectacular and, at times, like déjà vu.”

But here is where Sinkler’s moment of insight came through. Although she arrived at SMC thinking she had never meditated before, she had in fact experienced the “flow state” of meditation many times, “during particularly good workouts or standout rugby games, where my focus was so singular it became everything.”

That’s all meditation is, anyway – focusing your attention on the task at hand; remaining in the present moment when unrelated thoughts attempt to disrupt your meditative flow. Focusing on your breath is a great way to get started. Sit comfortably and breathe. When your mind starts to wander, which it inevitably will, bring your focus back to your breath. The point of meditation is not to clear your mind. That is impossible. The point is to allow your thoughts to pass by your consciousness without reacting. You can always come back to them later.

“One of the first benefits is that you begin to see that you are not your thoughts,” says Ron West, ecologist for Boulder County Parks and longtime meditator, who was one of Sinkler’s instructors on the retreat. “We self-identify with our thoughts – meaning, bad thoughts equal bad person. You slowly see that thoughts arise in a vast and neutral space, and that it is possible to see that the mind is not solid. The thoughts just become interesting-to-look-at fish swimming in a very large aquarium.”

Sinkler has since incorporated 10 to 30 minutes of near-daily meditation into her weekly routine and has been singing its praises and reaping its benefits ever since her weekend retreat.

Stay tuned later this week when we wrap up our series with Part III - Sleep!

Part I: Relaxation

We’ve talked a lot about exercising, eating right and the benefits of corporate wellness to your bottom line in our monthly column. But something we haven’t discussed is how sleep, relaxation and meditation all contribute to your overall health and well-being.

The March 2013 issue of EXPERIENCE L!FE magazine is chock full of information related to all three of these areas that seem to fly under the wellness radar. Many people don’t realize that rest, recovery and relaxation are just as important to a healthy lifestyle as nutrition, exercise and hydration. Relaxation in particular is beneficial in the workplace, since giving your brain a break lets it recharge and gear up for the next big task.

In “Take a Break,” the EXPERIENCE L!FE team urges that, “Random moments of ‘unproductive’ time don’t just make you healthier, happier and more resilient. They help you work smarter, too.” For example, have you ever come up with a brilliant idea whilst showering? We have, too – and so have plenty of other people, which prompted a discussion of this very topic in “Take a Break”:

You’ve no doubt heard the rumored story of Archimedes, who shouted his now-legendary ‘Eureka!’ when he stepped into the bath, saw his bathwater rise and suddenly understood that the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he’d submerged, abruptly intuiting the answer to what had previously been an intractable mathematical problem.

“There’s a reason so much genius has occurred in bathrooms…and it’s the same reason we often get great ideas while puttering in the garden, getting a facial, taking a walk or just waking up from a nap,” the article states. “Because these are precisely the types of circumstances in which we’re not trying to come up with genius ideas, or really any ideas at all.”

Cognitive neuroscientist Mark Jung-Beeman, PhD, a researcher at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., has dedicated his working life to studying the brain circuits involved in these eureka moments and offered up his insight for the article:

The body is relatively relaxed; the brain is being allowed to do whatever it likes, its circuits freed up for whatever associations and information-shuttling activities it deems worthwhile. And it’s those random associations that seem key both to large-scale breakthroughs and handy “aha!” moments. … While the brain lays much of the groundwork for insight by expending focused attention on a particular problem, certain parts of the brain must actually relax and be allowed to wander a bit for the necessary connections and associations (most of which are churned up by the more loosely organized right hemisphere) to be made.

According to the article, psychologist Joy Bhattacharya, PhD, a researcher at Goldsmiths, University of London, has perpetuated this point by using electroencephalography (EEG) to predict these aha moments up to eight seconds before they even occur. One key indicator is the presence of alpha waves – the brain-wave pattern associated with relaxation – emanating from the right hemisphere of the brain. Bhattacharya suggests this activity makes the mind more susceptible to new and creative ideas.

The moral of this story is that, “Beyond a certain point, sitting for hours at your desk and working harder to solve that problem or come up with that big idea may actually work against you.” The article suggests listening for your “ultradian rhythms” – bodily cycles that occur many times throughout your day – and paying attention to when your body is telling you it’s time for a break. Get up for 20 minutes after every 90- to 120- minute cycle of energy expenditure and let your brain recharge. You’ll end up being more productive than if you don’t!

Stay tuned next week when we cover Parts II and III of our series - Meditation and Sleep!

The 2013 International Home and Housewares show took place March 2-5 right here in Chicago, and Hinda was on the showroom floor checking out the latest and greatest of what the industry has to offer!

A lot is happening this year in the realms of Kitchen, Home Décor, Floor Care and Outdoor Living. Let’s start with everyone’s favorite room – the kitchen. Eye-popping color is all the rage this year, so why not replace your black, white and stainless steel with bright orange, fuchsia and blue! Everything from stand mixers to pots and pans to servingware is available in brights – and why not?

The Kitchen Chic category is also trending toward the more economical side, with an increased interest appearing in healthy living, bringing your lunch to work, making your own baby food and brewing your coffee at home. Travel beverage and food containers are popular for saving and freezing leftovers and byo-ing your meals – a great way to save a few bucks!

Top emerging trends in the Home Décor category include recycling and refurbishing instead of going out and buying new – and Pantone®’s fabulous palettes are making it easy to match colors and create new looks for items you already have in your home! This year, Pantone is throwing pops of bright color into its earthy-toned palettes to help you spruce up a room or your whole house without spending hours searching for and testing paint.

Texture is also a big factor in the latest Home Décor trends. For example, wicker and shiny white ceramic add another dimension to a brightly painted kitchen hutch; bright throw pillows make a splash on your old comfy couch or easy chair; and waffle-weave crystal for serving or as decorative pieces are hot! Also, look for reflective materials, green and recycled items and simple, bright white lighting.

While we’re on the subject of revamping your home, why not go the extra mile with a little spring cleaning? Floor care is trending right now, with bare floor steam cleaning still a popular way to get the job done. The latest floor cleaners are appearing lightweight, cordless and compact, which makes them easy to use and carry around the house for all your floors. Robotic floor and window cleaners are also emerging in this category, as well as air purifiers and humidifiers. Breathe easy in your newly redecorated home this spring!

And now that spring is on its way, we can finally talk about hanging out outside! Outdoor Living was another emerging trend at the show this year. Look for ways to create beautiful, useful spaces that extend your home living space, perhaps with the addition of a deck, patio, hot tub, pool or outdoor kitchen. Bringing the indoors outside is popular as people are spending more time entertaining at home. Patio furniture and outdoor lighting are becoming more aesthetically pleasing as opposed to just functional.

Stay tuned to Hinda Blog for more tradeshow, trends and merch updates via our weekly column, Merchandise Monday!

Hinda Incentives is pleased to announce the hiring of Greg Whitacre as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing. During the past five years, Greg held sales leadership roles with Marriott International, Inc., most notably its Global Individual Incentives business.

Prior to Marriott, Greg amassed an impressive career in the incentive marketing/employee engagement industry, spending 13 years at Maritz and 10 years managing his own company, G-FORCE Incentives, Meetings and Events. His undergraduate degree and graduate studies were at Northern Illinois University while on a full football scholarship, followed by a graduate assistant coaching position.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have Greg join our senior executive team,” says Dave Peer, President of Hinda Incentives. “He’s a tremendous leader who has a great passion for incentive marketing and employee engagement strategies. Hinda, as well as the whole industry, will benefit greatly from his experience, knowledge of the business and long-standing industry relations.”