Obsessive compulsive disorder (ocd) is a disorder that causes anxiety. It is also called as anxiety disorder. The main characteristics of this disorder are uncontrollable, unpleasant thoughts, which are continuing. Ocd causes the mind to get stuck on a specific thought or inclination. For instance, you may repeat a task forty times to ensure that it has been done properly. You will not be able to get it out of your mind. Ocd is characterized by obsessive thoughts and compulsive behavior patterns.

Some obsessive thoughts include:
1. The fear of being defiled by germs or soil and also of contaminating others.
2. The fear of losing control and hurting yourself or others.
3. Having sexual or brutal thoughts on the mind.
4. Extreme focus and devotion to religion and religious activities.
5. A sense of fear of losing or not having things you need.
6. Having the assumption that everything would go fine.
7. The person will become very superstitious.

Some compulsive behavior patterns include:
1. Inordinate double checking on things like locks, apparatuses and switches.
2. Over and over monitoring of friends and family to ensure they're safe.
3. Counting in the head, mumbling nonsense words without meaning.
4. Devoting a lot of time for washing and cleaning.
5. Praying without reason and taking part in religious ceremonies.
6. Accumulating junk material.

Here are some common ways to deal with ocd:
1. Regular exercise: exercise is the best natural remedy to prevent anxiety, which leads to ocd. Exercise checks your ocd symptoms. It makes your nerves stronger and hence you can focus your mind out of obsessive thoughts by yourself, when they arrive. Get at least thirty minutes of exercise regularly.

2. Connect with friends and family: social isolation is one of the common early symptoms of ocd. Social isolation can lead to ocd as well. Therefore, you must always stay connected to your friends and family so that you never get lonely and anti-social. Share everything with family.

3. Sleep sufficiently: lack of sleep or troubled sleep may lead to anxiety disorders. You need to sleep enough to be away from obsessive thoughts.

4. Perform relaxation techniques: simple practices like yoga, meditation, pranayama help you grow spiritually, relax your mind and keeps ocd away from you.

5. Tackle your fears: instead of avoiding fearful thoughts, let them flow and tackle them face to face. This will help you overcome the fear. Adopt measures so that you can focus on other things and ignore the obsessive thoughts. Distract yourself away from the obsession.

Ocd is a harmful disorder, and you should take all measures possible to keep away from it.

Ways to Deal With Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

This is a disease that affects the large intestine and the rectum. The Ulcerative Colitis refers to the inflammation in the innermost lining of the large intestine. The main function of the large intestine is to absorb water from indigestible food matter in the body before throwing away any waste. Hence, the large intestine is a vital part of our body. If left untreated, the disease increases risk of colon cancer.

Symptoms:

    Diarrhea with blood or pus: A person suffering from Ulcerative Colitis is likely to suffer from loose stools accompanied with blood or pus.
    Stomach pain and Cramping: In many cases, patients complain of severe stomach pain and cramping.
    Rectal pain: At times, many patients feel pain while sitting or even after a bowel movement.
    Bleeding from the rectum: Bleeding can be observed while passing stools.

The other complications leading to this disease are kidney stones, swelling of the colon, thickening of intestinal walls and blood infection.

Diagnosis:
This disease can be diagnosed by several methods. A simple stool test may be done to check out for bacteria and parasites. A blood test to check the level of C-reactive protein helps determine the inflation rate of the body. Endoscopy, colonoscopy, biopsy are some other methods of diagnosis.

Treatment

    Oral medication: Treatment involves drug therapy or surgery. The first step in treating Ulcerative Colitis will be an intake of anti-inflammatory drugs, but these may have a side effect. Another option is immune system suppressors, which help to bring down the inflammation by suppressing the immune system response. Antibiotics, anti-diarrheal medications, pain relievers are some of the additional drug supplements recommended by doctors.
    Surgery: Surgery plays an important role because this disease is pre-malignant in nature. Depending on the severity of the condition, the medical practitioner may advice surgery. The common methods of surgery are:
        Proctocolectomy and Ileostomy: Proctocolectomy involves removal of the colon in part or whole. Ileostomy is carried out by placing a special bag in the small intestine to collect waste from the body.
        Proctocolectomy and Ileo-anal: Ileo-anal pouch is a bag directly created the small intestine and connected to the anus, for diffusing the stools. As colon is removed Ulcerative Colitis cannot re-occur.

Precautions after surgery
It is very important that the patient takes healthy, sufficient and nutritious food so that bowel movement can be carried out with ease and zero strain. The patient has to restrict lifting of heavy grocery, mowing the lawn, any physical activity that can strain the abdomen and related areas.

Surgery and Post Surgery Care for Ulcerative Colitis

A little bit of sun is always good for you and you do need sunlight for your body to process vitamin D, which is necessary for bone health. At the same time, the ultraviolet rays from the sun can be detrimental for your health. While being in the sun is not a bad thing, how long you stay in the sun and how well you are protecting yourself count. Prolonged and unprotected sun exposure harms your skin and can decrease the immunity function of the skin.

Some effects of sun exposure include:

Development of cancerous and non-cancerous skin lesions
Benign tumours
Coarse and fine wrinkles
Freckles
Mottled pigmentation (Skin discoloration in certain areas)
Sallowness (The colour of the skin turns yellow)
Telangiectasia (Expansion of blood vessels under your skin)
Elastosis (Destruction of the collagen and elastic tissue)

The most harmful effect of sun exposure is definitely skin cancer. It is the uncontrolled development of anomalous skin cells is skin cancer. This accelerated development leads to formation of tumours, which are either malignant (cancerous) or benign (noncancerous). Skin cancer is mainly of 3 types: basal cell carcinoma, melanoma and squamous cell carcinoma. Among these, squamous cell and basal cell carcinoma are less critical; while melanoma is very serious. When melanoma is left untreated, it can affect the other organs and get difficult to treat. UV rays are the major causes of skin cancer. Sun exposure over the years leads to squamous cell and basal cell carcinoma, while severe sun damage episodes before the age of 18 cause melanoma.

Here are some tips to prevent sun damage:

Always apply sunscreen 20 minutes before you go out, even if it is cloudy. A sunscreen with SPF of 30 or more, and zinc oxide is advisable if you want optimum sun protection. Also, you should reapply sunscreen every 2 hours, especially if you are swimming or sweating.
Select cosmetic products, contact lenses and clothing that offer protection from UV rays.
Choose sunglasses that offer total protection from UV rays. Also, wear a hat with a wide brim to shade your neck and face.
Avoid direct exposure during harsh hours like between 10.00 and 3.00PM.

Prolonged Sun Exposure - How It Can Damage Your Skin?

Doing everything right can still make you gain weight. Irrespective of your diligent efforts, that paunch comes in the way of your crunches. Reviewing your exercise routine, diet and overall lifestyle may have no effect on the extra kilos. The reaction to such stagnation could be as many as the conspiring causes. Backpedaling into an unhealthy way of life is what cowards choose to do. The ideal way of approaching the problem is to find out the specific factors leading to excess weight.


These few factors can make you gain weight


1. Sleep deprivation results in significant bloating: You may not be aware, but a full night s sleep is indeed necessary. When a person rests, the human body carries on with repair work. Sleep helps your body to get rid of excess adipose tissues. A person who has not slept for two to three days at a stretch or has only slept insufficiently is likely to look fatter or bloated.


2. Being perpetually depressed could be the curse: Depression can lead to extreme ends; you may either gain a lot of weight or may even lose weight drastically. If your depression is at an advanced stage a medical practitioner will prescribe you with antidepressants. Antidepressants tend to fatten you up.


3. An irritable or slow bowel syndrome can prove to be adverse: If you suffer from problems related to the bowel your tummy might show. A patient of irritable or slow bowel syndrome feels bloated throughout the day. Since they face digestive problems, their bellies protrude.


4. The gray streaks of hair could be a reason: Gaining weight could also be the result of your age. If you are above thirty-five your metabolism decreases; this results in slower breakdown of food. Exercising can help, but it usually shows meager results once you have attained forty.


5. Nutrient deficiency should not be taken lightly: Being deficient in certain nutrients can also make you overweight. Vitamin C, folic acid and potassium are some of the nutrients that actively contribute to a person s body weight. A lack of these nutrients can make you fat.


6. Edema could be the underlying cause: Edema refers to a condition where a person s body retains water. Certain parts and joints become swollen. There are medications that can help push excess water out of the body through frequent urination. If not taken care of, edema could be the reason behind weight gain.

6 Strange Reasons you are Gaining Weight

The area in and around anal region is some time affected with pain swelling and pus or watery discharges. This abnormal presentation may be due to anal fistula. It is characterized by a nodular swelling in or around anal region with occasional pain and watery or blood mixed pus discharge. The symptoms might be mild but as the time passes the fistulous tract may become deep and develop multiple branches with multiple openings. This makes the treatment more difficult. Therefore it is always advisable as soon as this condition is diagnosed it should be treated promptly to avoid further complications. 

Causes: The causes of anal fistula are many. The major reason is the formation of pus. Incompletely cured abscess, microbial infection, ulcers, inflammation of anus and the region around it, and complications that arise out of a surgery can cause the anal fistula. The individuals suffering with diabetes, ulcerative colitis, malignancies and also individuals undergoing chemo or radiotherapy or having some other immune compromised conditions are prone to develop anal fistula. 

Treatment: Practically it has been noticed that any amount of oral medications either from allopathy/ homeopathy or Ayurveda is not of much help. In allopathy the surgeons usually advice Fistulectomy i.e. complete excision of fistulous tract or VAAFT   Video Assisted Anal Fistula Treatment. However in both these case a fairly high incidence of recurrence has been noticed. In Ayurvedic surgery; Fistula has been categorized among eight diseases which are difficult to cure. A highly specific Ksharsutra procedure has been advised in Ayurvedic surgery to treat this problem. Subsequently, efficacy of this Ksharsutra therapy was compared with surgery in 1991. This clinical trial was conducted by Indian Council of Medical research at AIIMS New Delhi and PGI Chandigarh. They have clearly reported that Ksharsutra treatment is more convenient and more effective as compared to surgery in the patients of Anal fistula. The recent concept of Graded Ksharsutra has further improved the efficacy of this therapy. Facility of Graded KsharsutraTM is available only at Sushruta Ano rectal Institute Rohini; New Delhi. 

Ksharsutra Therapy: It is a highly specific and most effective amongst all available treatments for the patients of Anal Fistula. In this treatment; the first step consists of proper identification of fistulous tract with respect to depth, direction and branching pattern. This is usually achieved by careful probing or taking the help of MRI Fistulogram, Ultrasound etc. One the tract has been defined Ksharsutra is placed in the tract with the help of malleable probes under local anesthesia. Since there is no injury to the soft tissue hence no pain or bleeding is expected after this treatment. Patient can continue his routine activities as usual from the very first day. The Ksharsutra   medicated thread is changed at weekly interval. Usually the Fistula heals @ 0.5 to 1 cm per sitting. Therefore the anal fistula which is 4-6 cm long they usually heal in 8-10 sittings. After Ksharsutra Treatment the sphincter control remains normal and the fistula heals completely.

Anal Fistula - How Can It Be Treated Using Ayurveda? 

Sleep is a natural part of the daily biological functions and we spend some time of the 24 hours sleeping.

Sleep cycles are different for different persons and while 5 to 6 hours of sleep may be enough for some people, others may need up to 8 hours of sleep to feel refreshed. How you sleep is as important as the duration. This is one area which is often neglected by people.

Why sleeping positions are important?

Sleeping positions are very important as you stay in a single position for hours at a time every day, and if these habits are bad, they can contribute to spinal problems. Thus, many of the spinal problems can also be alleviated by sleeping correctly.

Some of the bad sleeping positions that may adversely affect your spine are as follows.

On your stomach - This position is in overall a bad position as it curls up the spine, especially where the neck meets the spine and can cause spinal deformities over a long period of time. Certain adjustments to this position can lessen the effects, but it is important to try to change habits and sleep in a better position.

The fetal position - Although this is one of the more natural positions and most babies are crouched up in this form in the mother's womb; as a sleeping position, it has its disadvantages as well. The lower spine is especially put under a lot of stress when someone curls up in this position.

On your side - Although this is safer compared to the other two, sleeping on your sides straight would cause blood circulation issues and also put a lot of stress on the relevant organs, depending on the side you were sleeping on.

In all of the cases, slight adjustments to these positions will lessen the stress on the spine and also help you sleep better.

Some of the adjustments that you can make are:

1. Sleep with a pillow between your knees to align your hips and cause less strain on the spine.
2. If you don't have sleep apnea, put a pillow under your knees to raise them while lying on you back.
3. If you sleep on your back, try to consciously change your position to sleep on the side.
4. Try and actively change your posture throughout the day to ensure good sleeping position at night.

How Badly Sleeping Postures Can Affect Your Spine and Ways to Undo It

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