Humans are social animals who thrive on reciprocality. It is in our basic nature to be socially courteous, and the word 'No' feels like a conflict that warns a potential relationship. Many of us tend to comply with every single request that is put forward to us by our peers, family, or at the workplace by our superiors. We choose to take up more jobs than we can efficiently handle and put unnecessary stress on ourselves even at the cost of our time and well-being. Must we always do that? 

Why is it so hard to say 'No'?

People have the notion that saying 'No' can come across as rude or uncaring. You may feel that you are letting someone down by turning down their request or risking a relationship. But, it has mostly to do with your self-confidence than your relationships with people. It may branch from overbearing parents, high expectations set by your peers and mentors or experiencing parenthood yourself and setting unreasonable standards for yourself. Childhood influences are usually the biggest cause of people always saying  yes  all the time.

People who have low self-confidence tend to value their own needs less than the needs of others. Saying 'No' feels rude, and no one wants to be impolite.

Well... saying 'No' does not mean you are being rude or disagreeable.

At the end of the day, it is more about how you say 'no', rather than just saying the word 'No'. Saying 'No' is about valuing and respecting your own time and priorities. 

How to start saying say 'No'?
If you want to take a step back and start saying 'No' to make sure your own needs are valued, here s what you need to do.

Refuse politely, when it seems not possible: Do not overcomplicate responses and try to be as simple in your responses as you can be. If you are asked to do something, and you want to say 'no', try to be polite in your body language and state that it is not convenient for you at the moment and that you would rather get back to it later.
Seek time before committing: The transition from saying  yes  all the time to saying no does take time! Start to give yourself more time and ask people to get back to you later. This way you can begin to build more self-confidence and learn to say no over time. This also allows you to evaluate your response instead of immediately saying yes or no to the person asking the favor or task.
Do not feel guilty: Deep down if you want to do a favor, you can go ahead with it, but you should also understand that it is okay to say no, and there is no need to associate guilt with it. You should set boundaries and allow people around you to understand how much favors they can ask you for instead of presenting you with an endless amount of favors from you.
Set your boundaries: Refusal does not amount to rejection as you have just as much right to say  no  as the person who is asking the favor from you. You are simply turning down a request, and in most situations, there is a middle ground for compromises where both you and the requester can be satisfied. If you have limited time to fulfill a request, let the person know and help out only as much as you can without overstepping your boundaries.
Bringing in these changes can help you be more self-confident, and at the same time enable you to say no when you need to without weighing yourself down with expectations and fear or rejection.

Simple Steps To Help You Say No!

When it comes to the brain and the iq, is bigger the better? does size really matter? is there really a connection between the size of your brain and intelligence? with the help of findings by neurologists 
And scientists, we seek to find out!

1. Ailments and the brain: scientists have found that children with autism have a brain that has grown in a disproportionate manner in the very first year of their life. This prevents the child from making connections with normal behaviour. On the other hand, children and adolescents who suffer from attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or adhd have shown signs of having a much smaller brain size. Many scientists have shown that the size of the brain shrinks as we age, and this does not have any visible effect on our cognitive abilities.

2. It's all relative: the size of the brain does not really have a bearing on the way a person's cognition gets shaped. Even large mammals like elephants and whales are finally hunted and tamed by humans who have smaller brains in comparison. The brain is made up of billions of neurons which need to function properly. It may be seen that scientists consider the brain mass in relation with the rest of the body so as to speculate about the cognitive abilities of the person. Why is this required? large animals need a well functioning and proportionate brain size to control and run their organs with proper cognition for satisfactory results, which is what we humans seem to have done.

3. Neanderthal brains: historically, the earliest man or the neanderthals are said to have had larger brains than we do. These people are believed to have brains that are at least 10% larger than the brains that we have in our modern times. The shape of their brain was different too. They were also heavily muscled people which had a bearing on the size and shape of the brain and bodies as well as the lean tissue within the brain. They also survived very successfully for a period of over 200, 000 years, which obviously points to some form of elevated cognition, as per many scientists.

4. Animals: while animals with small brains like lizards and reptiles do not perform too well on iq tests, the animals with bigger brains like elephants and dolphins perform much better. But the medium sized brains of monkeys, lemurs and other animals are said to perform in the best manner. The correlation between the body size and the brain does not seem to hold good here, as per various researches.

So the verdict as per medical science and research stands divided!

Is There an Association Between Brain Size and Intelligence?

When you get a compliment'smart thinking or you are intelligent or that was intelligent of you, you definitely feel good. These comments fill us with confidence, admiration and pride and we want it to happen to us again and again. But owing to a busy schedule and long working hours it might not be possible. Having said this, it does not mean that a person cannot stay intelligent throughout. This can be easily achieved by regular meditation. Regular meditation and yoga helps the mind to be more reflective and efficient.

Here are reasons how yoga and meditation lead to an intellectual learning and growth:

 Utilizes the brain: almost everyone uses one half of their brain more and this leads to imbalance. Meditation is believed to sync the left and the right hemispheres, thereby allowing neural connection and great processing power. When logical left and creative right brains start working in harmony, then solving problems becomes easy; and it also increases creativity, deep thinking comes to be known of and concentration and focus magnifies. Highly successful people usually display whole brain synchronization.
 Functional capabilities of brain enhance due to meditation: research backs it that meditation increases the gray matter thickness of the brain regions, thus making the brain smarter, bigger and faster. This is very similar to doing physical exercise which makes the muscles denser and stronger. The increase in functional capabilities of brain is based on the concept of neuroplasticity, which states that our intelligence is not based on genetics and there are some things which can be done to improve the way our brain works. Meditation is a good brain enhancer with an ability to increase intelligence.
 Beneficial brainwave patterns can be seen: meditation can help to guide the brainwaves into beneficial frequencies. The frequencies: alpha, theta and delta when guided can show case a myriad of benefits including idea generation, creativity, cognitive functioning, and intellectual capacity. Meditation helps to transform these beneficial states of mind and help boost the iq.
 Develops intuition and insights: these are generally obtained through listening and developing to the inner voice. Thus meditation forms to be the basic key to tap these latent abilities. The intelligence can be mapped through tests and quizzes and is valuable at each level to stimulate insights and creativity. As per some people, inner intelligence, is considered to be the most important and best success in the world. Successful people including steve jobs have stated that their super revolutionary ideas and business acumen came through their intuition.
 Meditation helps in improving both short and long term memory: the key memory areas hippocampus and frontal lobe show increase in activity during meditation. By stimulating these areas, the short and long term memories are improved.

Can Yoga Improve Your IQ?

Top 4 Ways You Can Increase Your Willpower

There are days when you wake up but you don’t want to move out of the bed. When your alarm goes off and you open your eyes feeling groggy and disoriented.Times when you accept defeat and stop moving towards what you want to achieve in life. These are just indicators of being low on motivation and lacking will power to chnage things. It’s more psychological than physical. Follow these simple tips, to come out of your cocoon and boost your willpower. 

Try these four ways to up your willpower.

1) Meditate - Meditation is the key to unleashing your powers, especially willpower. Practicing mindfulness, even for few minutes a day can help in boosting your willpower.

2) Exercise - The magic pill of exercise is another best way to boost your willpower. It is recommended that you exercise for 30 minutes, at least three times a week to ensure that you feel fitter, reduce your anxiety levels and boost your overall willpower to achieve bigger and better things in life.

3) Hold yourself accountable - That’s one of the best ways to boost your willpower. If you hold yourself accountable in your own life, if you know that those reasons of not getting out of the bed are mere excuses, then you would certainly increase your willpower.

4) Set Goals - One of the reasons why people experience a faltering in their will power is the fact that they don’t set their goals. Setting definitive targets is a must.You must ensure that the goal is set with measurable quantities, is specific, attainable, relevant and timely. All of this will certainly help you in enhancing your willpower.

If you have any further questions, ask me by clicking on 'consult'.

From Lybrate: If you found this tip useful, please thank the doctor by clicking on the heart icon below. Also, spread good health by sharing this tip with your loved ones over WhatsApp, Facebook and other media.

Top 4 Ways You Can Increase Your Willpower

Role of relationship problems in depression and suicides - 
Almost everyday we read about people ending their lives by committing suicides from celebrities to common man to even children . Although this is not permitted in any religion and there is a legal debate on whether it should be legalized, the fact remains that people are driven towards this unfortunate step. Let's take a look at the common reasons for suicides to become so very common.

1) Lack of intimacy- We see that although we are surrounded by people most of people are having friends only on Facebook. Even among the people we interact everyday nobody wants to open up with anyone or allow you to open up with them.The fact that you are surrounded by people who don't share themselves with you intimately starts pulling your mind downwards. Work colleagues are bothered only about work, family is only bothered about the income you are generating, partners are obsessed with how much you can spend on them, friends are occupied with what benefits you can share with them. Therefore all in all, despite having all relationships, people feel left out and alone like as if their inner self has been left unwanted and uncared of. The monotony of mechanical life hastens the culmination of this abuse into drastic steps like suicide.

2) High demands- People are often left to fend with high demands from them from their social circle. Many people cannot attempt this and some who attempt are not able to make it. This leaves them with a feeling of failure which is often frowned and looked down upon whether it is a student or a professional. It is no surprise that today even below 10 years olds are successfully attempting suicides.

3) Inappropriate planning- Planning is a key necessity for successful results whether it is financial or relationships. but unfortunately many people are unable to obtain the correct know how which will enable to implement their plans successfully.

4) Inability to cope- Many people plan to do things but are unable to cope with the harsh realities that come with the plans. To some it may be unseen to some unbearable. So although they set out on doing something the journey is not what they had expected.

5) Lack of results- Sometimes although everything is planned well, executed well and completed well it does not fetch us the rewards that may seem appropriate to the level of efforts. This is something that is very difficult to deal for most people and is a result of many unfortunate casualties.

6) Lack of desire-It is very important to have something to look forward to in life. But unfortunately in an age where drinking water and using the toilet cost s money many people cannot think of having something to look forward to and hence this unfortunate step.

Therefore, you have to be very prudent in what we are doing today because we can never predict which way our lives may go and even importantly which way you may yourself go based purely on circumstances beyond our control dependent on the choices we make today or others make for us. Although suicide is not a sensible solution to any problem it does remain a common reality. If you are feeling suicidal please remember to seek help.

Please feel free to consult me privately for further assistance.

From Lybrate: If you found this tip useful, please thank the doctor by clicking on the heart icon below. Also, spread good health by sharing this tip with your loved ones over WhatsApp, Facebook and other media.

Health Tip - Role of Relationship Problems in Depression and Suicides

When it comes to the brain, simple yet easy to make juices can make a lot of difference. These juices not only improve your memory, but are of great help to the cognitive functions as well. While green tea is a known component of increased brain function, there are other drinks too, which can charge your brain over the long term if consumed daily:

Beet juice: Apart from being a nutritional powerhouse, beet juice is a great source of nitric acid. The latter helps with blood flow in the body. A smooth blood flow, on the other hand, helps the brain in functioning properly. A study has found that people who consume beet juice have an increased circulation in the white matter resulting from an increased brain activity. This juice is sweet in taste and can be consumed every alternate day.
Berry Smoothies: Acai is a fruit which has a South African origin and hits the top of the list when it comes to brain assisting food. It increases the flow of the blood and dilates the blood vessels. However, this is extremely expensive. Berries also have a similar effect on the brain, but they are less powerful in nature. What can be done is to mix a little ingredient of Acai in frozen berries juice and drink the same every day. Frozen berries retain the freshness and the nutritional benefits. This drink will improvise your brain and increase blood flow in the body.
Pomegranate juice: Pomegranate is a great antioxidant and it very aptly limits the free radicals from damaging the brain cells. Antioxidants are also credited with increased blood flow and protection of the heart. A healthy cardiovascular system is synonymous to an increased brain function. What is surprising is the fact that Pomegranate has more antioxidant content compared to red wine and green tea. Pomegranate juice can be consumed daily during the morning or afternoon.
Carrot juice: Carrot is known for its healthy components that are beneficial for the eyes. Recent studies have revealed that they are great for the brain too. Like other colored vegetables, they are a great source of antioxidant and have a high content of beta-carotene. Carrot juice can reduce the inflammation of the brain cells and improve memory. Carrot juice is not at all bitter and the same can be consumed every alternate day after your meal.
Cocoa: A Harvard study revealed that two cups of cocoa on a daily basis greatly helps a person in improving memory. Cocoa contains flavanols that keep the blood pressure normal and relaxes the blood vessel linings. Cocoa is also known to be a great antioxidant agent that limits the free radical to affect the brain cells. Cocoa should not be overloaded with sugar and should be consumed hot before starting your day.

5 Super Brain Drinks that Boost Your Memory

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