INFECTION TO PRICKLY EMOTIONS FROM OTHERS

Something I have experienced many times though didn’t realise then though later observed to realise a super common problem that holds an individual from performing to their potentials, keeping many of us from executing our best. It is the ability to regulate our emotions, depending on how allowing we are to a principle called Emotional Corruption.

Emotional Corruption

It is the pace at which we can influence the emotions of other people and make them as our own. The problem is most of us are highly sensitive to other people's emotions. Task completion or work performance either at work, leisure activity or at home will impact even with the smallest external factor. Although, we can learn how to avoid other people's emotions by becoming better at regulating our own.

The best possible and common experience is the pandemic due to the Novel Coronavirus outbreak. It evolved from Wuhan city in China and soon caused a state of a pandemic, now has a lasting impression figuratively and literally. So much that the method to regulate our emotions and avoid catching the emotions of other people, I will name it the “Viral Effect.” I have summarised that the coronavirus is just like us humans. They can be contagious, and if we are not careful, they can infect us and also claim others around us.

To understand how this processes in real life, it is essential to know what emotions actually are. There's two popular theories about where emotions come from, first theory being the Cognitive Appraisal.

Definition: It is the experience of an emotion we judge where our current situation aligns with our expectations.

Example: Let's consider you are on your way home to disclose your exam results and that you have topped the batch with your mother. You walk through the door, you find her sitting on the couch, but instead of “wha’s the result like?” She leave the room without saying a word. Now, that's not how you expected leading to the emotion of feeling annoyed. This defines Cognitive Appraisal.

The other theory is called Physiological Perception

Definition: The emotions we subconsciously assign to the physical changes in our body.

Example: Public speaking is the perfect example. Most of us usually have a weird feeling right before the talk or speech. Sweaty palms, confusion and moment of panic imagining what if you forget. Considering the last time you spoke you had the same feeling and the speech went well, you may define that sensation as the emotion of excitement. On the other hand say you messed up last time, you may now define that feeling as anxiety or fear. Basically, we overlay our physiological perception from our past experiences onto our current situation.

Moreover, the interesting part in both the theories is how we assess the emotions of other people. A section in the brain that processes emotion and memory called the limbic system is considered to be a non feedback system as it can be influenced by any external factor.

Think about this as passing by someone and without communicating or greeting, you could feel how annoyed or excited that person is? And then maybe you too felt annoyed or excited. It's an interesting concept to think about, because our brain is capable to pick up these subtle cues in our environment, which makes it possible for the other person's emotions to infect your emotional state.

Many people don't realise that every human being is affected by our non feedback system. Many people at work or on the same team inevitably catch feelings from one another. They share everything from jealousy to envy and worry to joy. The more connected they are, the stronger is the sharing of emotions.

Positive Consideration: If the team has a larger target to achieve but the captain regulates his or her emotions by staying grounded and calm, which increases the likelihood that the rest of the team will stay grounded and calm as well.

Negative Consideration: All it takes is for one person on that team to express a negative emotion for the whole thing to fall apart.

Now take a moment and think about how long you have held onto an emotion say irritation, especially after an encounter from a person who is agitated. Was it days? Weeks? Months?

The ideal situation, which improves team and group dynamics as well as individual happiness, is for everyone to control their emotional state by sending back the other person's emotions to them. And research prove that there's two common emotion regulation strategies that can be the best solution.

SOLUTION

The first method to regulate emotions is called Cognitive Reappraisal, where you work to reframe how you interpret the situation in order to regulate your emotions. Countering the first theory of Cognitive Appraisal explained above, you assign definitions to a situation based on your goals and expectations on the outcome. For instance, taking active steps like following social distancing, regularly sanitising hands and wearing a face mask to re-evaluate your outdoor activity in order to avoid being a victim in on-going the pandemic.

Training our brain to reframe is time consuming and needs dedication. This will not be easy as there are hints of truth within each of our thoughts. But if we work consistently on reframing, we shall be able to engage prickly people without being negatively affected by their mood.

The second method to regulate emotion is Acceptance. It is learning to accept a moment for what it actually is and not what you expect it to be. To explain this this, I will use a three-step framework: "OK; so what; now what." By saying "OK," you halt all additional judgment to the person or to the situation. You then allow yourself space to accept your physiological responses and your perception to what's happening. And once you've distanced yourself from your thoughts and your emotional state, then you can say, "so what" because this helps acknowledge what happened purely as an event. And as you transit to "now what" that adds that you have gathered enough information to be able to respond to the event.

Now most people can get to "OK " but struggle to get past "so what" because it can be difficult to detach our physiological perception from the situation. Now here's something essential to be kept in mind, acceptance does not mean that we are OKAY with what happened or that you even want it to continue. It means that we are able to take an aerial shot of the exchange and understand where the prickly spines are and if they're worth attaching to.

Now, both of these strategies are my favourites because they are powerful and effective, especially on the effects that they have on how we approach life and relationships. One study suggests that cognitive reappraisal tends to be associated with more immediate emotional relief in negative situations, whereas acceptance may be better suited for decreasing short-term physiological reactions in unpleasant situations. But the best part? Both of these strategies don't have to be separate practices. Acceptance and cognitive reappraisal can be used interchangeably in order to maintain emotional self-control. The key though to implementing them is to become self-aware when you become emotionally triggered by another person or event. And once you've consciously become aware of either your thoughts, emotions or physical sensations, well then you can practice either technique.

These may be common concepts, but they are definitely not commonly practiced. So by remembering the jumping Viral Effect, it will help you to be more self-aware and self-regulated. And in turn, well, you'll avoid getting pricked by ... a prick.

SELF-ESTEEM: A SELF-DEVELOPED SKILL

 

In psychology, the term self-esteem is used to describe a person’s overall sense of self-worth or personal value. In other words, how much you appreciate and respect yourself. Well we all know that self-esteem can be an important part of success. Too little self-esteem can leave people feeling defeated or depressed. It can also lead people to make bad choices, fall into destructive relationships or fail to live up their full potentials. I believe self-esteem starts in the mind. When born we are born with a promise and its potential which is a secret, invisible and it is surely inside us. This is the case with every person living or dead on the face of this earth and these potential stays “what I can be is up to me and what my life can be is up to me”. The saddest part is that many of us never find our potential and remaining many of us never live our potential. 

Imagine you were born with a Blank Canvas and totally equipped with required colors, brushes and it was totally up to you what you wanted to do with your life canvas. You can use any color, any brush stroke. it was totally up to you where you could paint the painting of your life using the potential that you came with and you can paint any image on that canvas. Creating a masterpiece and calling it the Painting of Life.

 

Now what happens is, as we are born with the canvas - a promise, potential and with this unlimited imagination and instantaneously what starts to happen is people also come and they start painting on your canvas. These people are well-meaning, they mean well some are great and are positive, uplift and support you. But other people keep you small and condition you, they tease and pull you down. All of these other people are painting on your canvas making our masterpiece. This continues for a number of years and then suddenly you start to realize the painting doesn’t quite look the same anymore. It’s something different than you had thought but this continues for further number of years and then eventually you start accepting that this painting is the one that should be your life. Basically, accepting other people’s ideas, conditioning and perspectives about you as your reality. Now people have added their conditionings, ideas and perspective on your mind space as colours and brush strokes which we now want to change.

The blank canvas we are born with is a mind space which explains the statement self-esteem starts in the mind. The thoughts are the colors used to make the masterpiece of life. They can be positive feelings, up lifting or will be negative feelings and these thoughts create our values, beliefs and ultimately our Self-Esteem. So, everything that you think in the mind about what has happened in your life until now is what is creating your self-esteem. It is this self-esteem that will make or break you in life. 

 

Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing of The Vitruvian Man is one of the most popular world icons was created by around the year 1487. It is accompanied by notes based on the work of famed architect, Vitruvius Polio. The drawing is on display occasionally at Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, Italy. Every year when on display around six million people visit this place to see the drawing as it is very iconic and beautiful. Being a piece of heritage and volume of visitors The Vitruvius Polio is guarded around a lot of security but astonishingly you never see this security. The moment there is any step taken closer by any means the guards can race them and they protect the canvas. 

From today onwards our mind, panelist or mind space is like that Vitruvius Polio drawing and we guard it. We will allow people inside who are positive, up lifters, encouragers and the ones giving us confidence rejecting others who are negative, pull us down and the ones who tell us we are no good. This doesn’t mean you start removing people from your lives, some people are positive and some are negative but it means you do not allow the negativity into your mind space.

 

Imagine for a moment now looking at your painting of life. There are things positive as well as negative painted on it. Looking at it as it is, decide are you happy with the masterpiece, are you happy with your life or a bit frustrated. If frustrated the its time to make some changes and make some choices. This is how we move forward and make a decision only out of these two choices. First, we can accept the negativity and discouragements or Second, we can start to take action. We can take action knowing that we can are making a difference in our lives. 

 

There is a popular Indian saying “the bite of the snake does not kill you but it is the poison that is left behind once the snake is gone which is fatal”. We all have events in our lives where something bad had happened many years ago and we continue to think about it longer even after the event has happened. So, the the bite of the snake represents the event and we thinking about it long after it has happened is the poison. 

 

Solution: What’s already painted on you canvas stays on it. You may try to scrape off the paint. The scrapping will make it look uglier. So, the solution is as simple as you start repainting on you canvas. This means you are choosing not to develop negative thoughts and would repaint it with new colors of positive thoughts, ideas and experiences. From this moment, onwards you can change the way you think and act. 

 

Let me introduce you to a simple yet effective therapy and it is called THE SMILE THERAPY. It is a self-therapy and doesn’t need expertise like other therapies do. 

Practical: So, think about something that makes you angry. Feel that anger in your body and remember where you felt it the most. Now relax, get a small smile think of the same something and could you connect to the anger? The smile that you introduced to the memory that get you anger changed the definition or trigger to your emotion. 

 

There are two types of smiles. The smile that everyone regularly uses is called a laugh because of something funny. On the other hand, Mac smile a is create smile. In other words, its fun when you smile. By creating your smile, you can change your mind from negative to positive. As a result, it will improve your health, aesthetics and interpersonal relationships. The objective is to improve your overall human capability by improving your appearance with smile training and your inner strength with mental training.

 

This works on two principles: 

(1)FACIAL DOUBLE FEEDBACK EFFECT   

When the brain detects that you are having fun or liking something, it will naturally raise your mouth’s corner turning it into a smile. This is because a pleasure hormone called endocrines gets released in the brain.

 

(2)MIRROR EFFECT

Imagine a mirror between you and the other person. When you smile, they will smile right back; when they smile, you smile right back at them. Conversely, the transfer of your grim face onto the other person is called the reverse mirror effect.

 

Let me introduce you to another simple yet an effective technique and it’s called STOP. This technique is very effective and works for everyone. STOP technique just means when you have a negative thought you STOP your mind and mouth to introduce a pause. Then you introduce in a positive thought. Here you think of the positive instead of the negative. A positive thought is something that makes you happy the moment you think about it. Researchers have concluded that humans have about 50,000 thoughts every day. Miraculously all of those thoughts are the same you had yesterday and the day before and the day before that. Researchers have even proven that majorly those thoughts are negative. If we have low self-esteem then we have more negative thoughts of everybody else and we think about the past more than anybody else. 

 

The first thing every morning most of us do is we check our mobile phones. So, today onwards the first thing we do every morning is we stop checking our mobile phones and replace it with checking our mind space for the thought we have woken with. Consider you waking up with a negative thought – I am still tiered / I didn’t sleep enough / I drank too much / my exam today is going to be a blunder. We are going to say STOP to that negative though introduce a pause with a positive thought. This is when you are paining positivity over the negativity on your mind-space/canvas. You think of the positive thought for about 20/30/40 seconds and then you start your day.

 

Concluding with two easy solutions to nullify the negative emotions triggering bad thoughts majorly affecting your SELF-ESTEEM by virtue of The Smile Therapy and STOP technique you keep repeating this during the day. You have happy thoughts you have happy emotions and you take happier actions and lead a happier life. So, do not care what your past has been like nor what has occurred to you in your life until this moment. What really matters is how you move forward from this moment onwards. Remember you are the child born with the promise and the potential is still inside each and every one of you. It is the time you shine and bring out your potential choose your thoughts and repaint it on your canvas making it a masterpiece. 

AN INFECTION FORM REJECTION

There is an epidemic that has invaded the environment of every one of us. It is often undetected, undiagnosed and underestimated. It is AN INFECTION FROM REJECTION. There are many who will not agree to the epidemic overlooking the fact that it is universal & unavoidable. No matter who you are, how much have you accomplished unenviably have to deal with the reality of rejection. It is not hidden any more that every Perfect Person who has walked on the face of Earth has not dealt with rejection. Successful Businessmen, Political Leaders and Idolised Personalities in the alive or dead long back in history. They have always felt|did|said what was needed and have treated people the way they were supposed to be treated reciprocating to which people have rejected them sometime or the other. If these people have faced rejection then there are no other logical reasons that everyone of us are dealing with rejection too. 

Denied a job or promotion, broken up or failed to impress a prospect life partner,  not making it to the college/school football team or stated not eligible for a  scholarship. These are some commonly at general spaces everyone has currently or earlier has faced. Rejection is a refusal from someone else's part to show acceptance. People may sometimes accept you for the person you are and reject you for the person you aren't. In case of hiring sales executives, companies seek self-motivated and energetic personalities and avoid hiring people who are constantly seeking guidance. 

'Rejection' has its roots in Latin meaning 'to throw backwards', appropriately used to put us back by pulling us down to reach our potentials and change/improve our realities of life. Rejection is a very effective weapon to wound the SOUL and shatter SELF-CONFIDENCE. The wound of rejection is not visible but it bleeds internally making it an undetected haemorrhage of emotions growing inside. The wounds may self-heal but infections do not. Infection from rejection don’t show up in form of puss like usual infections do but they show up in personalities. 

Carrying a bad attitude, being careless, being emotionless, being dismissive, refusal for acceptance, people pleasing tendency and the purpose dependent on someone else’s pleasure is not rejection it is AN INFECTION FROM REJECTION. 

The inclination to be a saviour and take all responsibilities of saving the day for every single person by virtue of over committing or over extending yourself under the pressure or just expectations and finally helping people who don’t even want to help themselves is not  just rejection it is AN INFECTION FROM REJECTION. 

Similarly, the apprehensiveness that doesn't allow you to use the knowledge,  talent and potentials are not personality traits but they are a stimulus reaction to AN INFECTION FROM REJECTION.

 

We mostly do not care about everybody's perseverance about us but it hurts when rejection comes from the people we value the most. Just because someone seems to be quiet doesn’t mean she/he is not injured and considering them not gifted with unique strengths. Some people can be annoyed, affected and on the other hand being so dysfunctional, competitive, jealous and manipulative. Simply because they are confused subjecting them to an abusive situation and tolerating it as well because they can not live without being needed. We realise getting abused but we accept it as we don’t want to lose them as they are so important to us. We develop something known as  SELECTIVE CONFLICT AVOIDANCE and we do not realise that their rejection is not our responsibility because they rejecting speaks more about them than it does about us. Rejection can be a result of their vision but not our values. Moreover, a rejection can be the result of you succeeding reflecting their failures. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with us actually, we seem to be a reflection for something that happened to us and not to them. We weren’t created imperfect or with an acceptance defect, it is we who seek acceptance fearing an Infection from Rejection. We need to tell ourselves daily “I AM NOT PERFECT BUT I AM ENOUGH” and make sure that we believe in ourselves creating a light that will light up the darkest place where rejection has infected us. When we are told we are not good enough, not smart enough and a misfit these are genuinely lies said reminding us about the existence of an Infection from Rejection.

Concluding by saying no one is born perfect nor a misfit. The very existence is a miracle itself indicating how special, talented and blessed that person is to be chosen for the very situation he/she has taken birth. Let's not fear rejection believing approvals and rejections are not something we humans can judge. Its a negative tool used against every possibility of our success hurting someones self respect where they had failed. 

ADDICTION FOR APPROVAL

Is seeking approvals an addiction, Really? 

This can be the first question you may consider reading the title of the blog. The answer to this quarry is ABSOLUTELY YES, MOST OF US ARE ADDICTED TO IT. 

Approvals can have impacts on people more than addiction to substances. People get the momentum on approvals from others defining ‘how a person feels about you’. It is a sense where we consciously suggest that “the way I feel about ME is based on how somebody else feels about ME and it is somebody else’s feeling much more valuable than yours.”This is because we have given the power to someone to think and change our thinking and decision-making abilities and this is called APPROVAL ADDICTION. 

Approval Addiction is an expression to an infection from rejection where it doesn’t make us bleed physically but emotionally it hurts a lot. It is interesting for people who think they have a personality type that does not make us an approval addiction, instead of meeting our own needs we are accommodating others preferences. We end up giving people what they want and not something they need. This satisfies our need for attention more than assistance. So instead of meeting their needs we are accommodating their preferences because our activity although from the outside looks we are doing it for them wherein from the inside we are doing it for ourselves. We give them help they give us compliments, approvals and getting a feel of being needed.

 

The feeling of being not needed or rejection is FEAR. Approval Addiction follows Passive Aggressiveness as well, we keep stuffing feelings within because there is conflict avoidance as we don’t want to say what we feel because we don’t want to offend the source and pleasure we receive of being NEEDED. So, we choose to rather feel the discomfort with our feelings than dealing with the possibility of rejection. We tend to suppress discomforting feelings repeatedly then the outcomes is inevitable. When we don’t show our expressions where they should be expressed and control them, they come out when they shouldn’t be expressed and are out of our control. When we should be talking about an issue in this year but we start going all the way back from 2010 coming on to every suppressed feeling. This is genuinely because we are ready dealing with the discomfort in dysfunctionality rather than the possibility of they rejecting us then.

 

“I feel what I feel but I won’t say what I feel”, this plays with every aspect of our lives. It will troll professionally and torture socially and it will make us feel miserable in every relationship whatsoever. Every relation is on reciprocity, freely expressing needs and expressions. This is a vicious circle where we are when its needed by somebody more than anybody really needing it protecting our necessity of being needed. The struggle to keep up with being needed complements an ANGER. Anger here is the secondary expression for instance first we are cheated then is when we are angry.

 

We cannot realize unless we are in denial and at some point, people need to admit that “what people think about me extremely matters”. Recalling an action we took when the inner conscious asked us to do something nevertheless we did something else to avoide being rejected. Many of us aspire to lead and some are already leading. It is a difficult situation here as leading principal says YOU DO NOT LEAD THE ONES YOU NEED. When you need the ones you lead they are helping you where it should have been the other way around meaning that rather than guiding them we will be accommodating their needs. If we do not take control of this behavior of ours it limits our true potentials in life. So, when we want to be in demand we need to understand that every day I am making decisions that is disappointing people because if we have to reject offers and opportunities everybody is not going to be motivated. Leading we will except every opportunity, respond to every request helping everybody not realizing that we didn’t live life for ourselves. Three things people with approval addiction face on a regular basis:

1.    Suffering abuse from the ones being satisfied.

2.    Having many useless people in their life.

3.    Pursuing other people’s preferences ignoring own purpose.

 

Now realizing that Approval Addiction blinds us and puts excuses in our tongue so that we don’t see the real side of people and make excuse we needing their approval. It is essential that we stop wasting our time trying to DELIGHT PEOPLE that is to accomplish something that cannot be accomplished. Contribute the best to satisfy them and they will have complained to counter remembering the times we have failed to deliver.

 

I wish each one of us get rid of APPROVAL ADDICTION. Most of us are and don’t really realize suffering. Let’s declare that we will jump into a sea of possibilities we haven’t considered or heard before for betterment of our quality of life and aiming to achieve goals set by us seeking no approvals.

HEALTHY ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP !!

Intimacy, Security, Respect, Good Communication and a sense of being valued these undoubtedly are elements which most people would agree involves in a healthy relationship. Many researchers and scholars have worked and agree to these elements in their findings and articles on healthy relationships. They also mention that frequent arguments between couples, lack of support, contempt, criticism, hostility are a few negative elements that take place in the relationship causing a lot of unhappiness and discomfort to either partners and in most cases, includes both. This leads to an ending of a relationship or divorce, a decision taken to part ways as there is no substantial reason to continue. Break-ups or divorce is just not any course of action or judgement, it is by human psychology making people physically and emotionally confused. This is by far the only reason that people engage into unhealthy relationships. Majority of us are unaware of the elements, do’s and don’ts of a healthy relationship because we are never formally explained. We learn from our experiences, right from the first couple in our lives our parents adding to famous personalities thinking and forming an idol healthy relationship prototype or benchmark. The truth of the moment is we consider Couples Therapy or talking to elders when it’s almost unamendable. Here the couples realize either the elderly or therapist do not understand or are considered biased or they were never meant to be together. The true reason being we have become intolerant to change and cannot accept the fact went were wrong somewhere. Most of this knowledge based on personal experience is shared with us right before marriage be it talking to a groom or bride to be. Most of it are partners who feel trapped in their relationships and are sharing perspectives of their partners being incompetent feeding the misery making it even more difficult because the person has already selected and what if it’s a bad choice for a partner? Isn’t that a bit too late to even share experiences and perspectives? The bottom line is “NO EXPERIENCED OR THERAPIST GUIDANCE CAN MAKE UP FOR A BAD PARTNER CHOICE.”

We need to adapt and learn about having a healthy relationship because it has been limited as they fail to address three major concerns. 

1.     Knowing what you need in a relationship 

2.     Selecting the right person 

3.     Developing and using skills from the beginning. 

We need to learn about our future relationships at a very young age following a skill based approach to relationships functioning leads us to create a healthy relationship reducing the ones that may lead to unhealthy ones. It consists of INSIGHT, MUTUALITY AND EMOTIONAL REGULATION forming the base of Romantic Competence. It is the ability to function adaptively across all aspects of a relationship process right from understanding what you need in choosing the right partner to building a healthy relationship, maintaining and growing one also for times where you need to get out of a relationship. 

INSIGHT is about awareness, understanding and learning. With insight, you can understand who you are, what you need and why do you react the way you always do. For instance, you are being irritable to your partner, with insight you may realize it is not something related to your partner it can be your work stress where you need to calm down so that it doesn’t bleed on to your relationship. It will also let you understand your partner better making you to able to anticipate the positive and negative consequences of your behavior. With insight, you will learn from your mistakes in a way that will allow you to behave in the future. For instance, maybe you will be able to understand that you are the kind of person which jumps into romance early and then things don’t work out and then would realize for the next time would be slow and easy to not to repeat the same mistake.  

 

Mutuality, it is about understanding that both people have needs and both senses of needs matter is the second skill. With mutuality, you will be able to communicate your own needs clearly likely making it to be met. For instance, you are to attend an office function and are needed to deliver a speech. You will be able to communicate to your partner that its going to be quite stressful there your need of them to accompany you as they are a good support. Similarly, with mutuality you will even understand to meet your partners needs as well and also makes you make decisions which are best for the both of you. Switching roles in the previous case, consider your partner has asked you to accompany them to an office event you will be able to rationalize and fulfill their needs adjusting your schedule for that day in advance not to disturb your priorities as well.

 

The third skill is EMOTIONAL REGULATION, is the response to things that happen in your relationship. With emotional regulation, you will be able to keep your emotions calm in your relationship and keep things in a positive angle of approach. For instance, in tight situations you may consider it as a disaster, difficult for you to handle and things like it’s the end of it wherein with emotional regulation you will consider it something that is manageable and you will be able to handle it. With emotional regulation, you will be able to tolerate uncomfortable feelings and not react impulsively making you to think yourself through the situation easily. It will make you maintain self-respect and commitment to your needs even if bad things happen in your relationships.

 

So, I believe insight, mutuality and emotional regulation when practiced on a day-to-day basis can help people with a healthy relationship. Being romantically competent at a young age is associated with more adaptive relationship functioning and greater individual wellbeing. We may know what a healthy relationship looks like but people have no idea how to have one and no one teaches us to do so. It is to know what an individual wants in a relationship and is able to choose the right partner. The decision made should be strong enough to deal with the challenges the relationships bring. Bringing to the conclusion that we need to learn and build skills right from the beginning. As this is the notion of Relationship Competence about. I strongly believe for sustaining a successful and motivated life the key is a good partner that we lack by making wrong choices and end up unhappy and lonely. I hope this adds value to your living and may you have a relationship you can depend and feel proud of. 

Depression: A disease or an Epidemic of Modern Civilization

I believe DEPRESSION is tragically misunderstood word in the entire English language. The fact is Depression has radically tow different meanings depending on the context. So, everyday conversations when people say that they are depressed, they use depression as a synonym of sadness. It’s a normal reaction to the state of our lives making all of us know the pain of Depression. Yet clinically depression is a short hand for devastating illness which is known as Major Depressive Disorder. This is a disorder that robs people off their restorative sleep robs their energy, focus, concentration, memory and their abilities to enjoy the pleasures of life. For most individual it robs them from the ability to love, work, play and will also rob them from the willingness to live. Clinical Psychologists explain it as it lights up the pain circuitry of the brain to a point that if you happen to communicate with a clinically depressed person and they speak their heart out they will tell you it is torment, agony, torturous and many attempt death as a means to escape. Depression is the major reason that drives people to suicide and *India reported 381 deaths by suicide daily in 2019, totalling 1,39,123 fatalities over the year, according to the latest National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) data.**Close to 800 000 people die due to suicide every year, which is one person every 40 seconds. Suicide is a global epidemic and occurs throughout the lifespan not pertaining to specific gender, tradition, culture, religion or race and it’s getting worse as the rate of depression is increasing generation after generation. So, every successive birth generation has higher rates of depression than that of which preceded it. Now is the time we need to understand what’s happening around the world and what’s behind driving this epidemic. 

 

What causes Depression is a question that is pretty complicated. There are articles after articles published that have given different factors that are implicated towards the onset of depression reasoning biological, cultural, social and behavioural. If we way through the complexity we do find a common underlying pathway i.e. a primary driver or trigger called the Brains Runaway Stress Response. In simple terms, it’s the flight or fight response we adapt to stressful situations we come across at times. This response has evolved from the earlier ancestors of the human race. It was evolved as a reaction to a predator, physical threat or any form of danger and they reacted with intense physical activity which may go on for a few seconds or minutes and in some extreme cases may go on for an hour and its completely a different behaviour an individual adapts and its completely fine if the mode shuts off when its supposed to. For generations the current generation the shutting off for the stress response goes on for weeks or months and at times even for a year. When the stress response remains on it is very toxic especially to the brain and body of that very individual. It is disruptive to the neural circuit veins in the brain many of us may not have even heard off but this dispersion can directly lead to something commonly known as CLINICAL DEPRESSION. If left unchecked it can actually damage the brain over time leading to inflammatory reaction to body and brain. It is clinically proven that an inflamed brain is a depressed brain.

We have understood about certain common diseases which now are mythically taken as hereditary diseases like Diabetes, Arthritis, Thyroid, Cholesterol, many form of Cancers and currently Clinical Depression is the new commonly heard medical issue. Medical Science categorises them as inflammatory disorders. They are epidemics in the modernised industrial world and can be termed as a lifestyle disease. Speaking of lifestyle comparing our urban culture to a below the poverty line existing in cities lead a very hard life. They have high infant mortality rate, higher exposure to parasitic infection, they do live around modern civilization but not in it they do complain, get angry but they do not turn their stress response mode and do not become clinical depressed as they still live a life based on daily wage format just like non-modern days, Hunter-Gathering method. Modern time life from the industrial revolution onwards is term Industrial Mutated Environment and has been a complete mismatch between the mind, body and gene we were born with the environmental reality. 

Dr.Stephen Ilardi, a professor of clinical psychology defines it as “We were never designed for the sedentary indoor, social isolation, fast-food laden, sleep deprived, chaotic pace of modern life”.

 

If we keep inducing and countering the epidemic with anti-depressant medicine in the system we are not going to fix it. The answer lies in change of lifestyle, I don’t mean to say we should go back hunting and scavenging for food or stop innovating and adapting to modern times. We simply need to practice Lifestyle Change. A minimalistic time daily given by us for us can help fighting the epidemic causing a supressing life and many times a dreadful end to life. We have varied stories of people ending earlier than their actual time. I wish everyone a healthy, beautiful and non-depressive life.

(*Ref:https://www.theweek.in/news/india/2020/09/01/suicide-cases-in-india-ncrb-report.html)

(**Ref:https://www.who.int/teams/mental-health-and-substance-use/suicide-data)