Brain is just like other muscles in the body; stimulation of the brain cells on a continuous basis will lead to a well-functioning brain. In fact, exercising your brain through various brain exercises helps in forming new neural pathways inside it. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the brain to change and adapt when it is stimulated.

The various methods you can adopt to improve your mental health are -

Learn a musical instrument:
Start taking music classes to learn an instrument such as guitar or piano as it helps in improving mental health. It also helps in delaying age related problems such as alzheimer's disease.

Do math exercises in your head:
Try figuring out various mathematical sums inside your head, as this will keep your brain sharp. It has also been known to improve intelligence quotient.

Try to recall past events:
When you try to recall past events, the section of the brain dealing with memory is stimulated and thus, leads to stronger neural connections.

Learning a new language:
Learning a new language is good for the brain as well because it helps in delaying the process of decline of cognitive functions. Chances of being affected by mental health disorders decrease significantly.

Aerobic exercises:
You should follow a regular exercise regimen consisting of aerobic exercises and cardiovascular exercises as they help in improving your blood circulation. Apart from keeping you fitter and lean, it also improves your overall wellbeing.

Improve your hand-eye coordination:
Do activities such as painting, knitting or solving puzzles as they help in improving your hand eye coordination. It fine tunes your motor skills and keeps you mentally sharp.

Cooking:
Learning to cook helps in activating various parts of the brain such as sight, smell and taste. This is related to different parts of the brain resulting in an overall development.


Brain Exercises - Why You Should Do Them

When it comes to the brain and IQ, is bigger 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!

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 connection in a normal manner. On the other hand, children and adolescents who suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD show sign 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.
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.
Neanderthal brain: 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.
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 brain 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!

Brain Size and Intelligence - Are the Two Related?

7 dangerous things that smoking does to your skin

Most people think that having a smoking habit adversely affects only the lungs and the heart. But apart from known links to lung cancer and heart disorders, smoking also causes skin damage. The intensity of damage is directly proportional to the number of cigarettes one smokes in a day and the number of years one has been smoking for.

Here are 7 of the horrible things that smoking does to your skin

1. Premature ageing: the process of skin ageing is accelerated by a smoking habit. The chemicals that are ingested through the smoke cause your skin to age much faster, making it look loose, dull and coarse, with uneven colouring. Most smokers have a muted orange or grey tinge to their complexions.

2. Wrinkles and lines: the nicotine from smoke constricts blood vessels in the outer layers of the skin, thereby cutting off the supply of oxygen and nutrients. This causes the skin to develop visible fine lines and wrinkles at a faster rate.

3. Scarring and pigmentation: since blood is not flowing properly to the outer layers of the skin, it is more susceptible to broken capillaries and veins, which can cause dark scarring and pigmentation on the face and other areas.

4. Darkening of the lips: constant exposure to heat from smoking causes stark darkening and pigmentation in the lips, which also become dry and coarse.

5. Delayed wound healing: the presence of nicotine, tar and other chemicals in the blood causes cuts and wounds on the skin to heal at a much slower pace with an increased risk of infection, blood clot formation and death of skin tissue.

6. Increased risk of skin disease: smoking makes the skin prone to various diseases and conditions like psoriasis, which happen as nicotine adversely affects the body's immune system.

7. High chances of skin cancer: skin cancer and oral cancer are the two lesser known variants of the diseases that can be caused by smoking. Skin cancer is far more common among smokers than among non-smokers.

The harmful effects of smoking on the skin are not entirely discernible until after 10 years of prolonged smoking. Fortunately, your skin starts to heal itself when you kick the habit.

If you would like to consult with me privately, please click on 'consult'.
Related Tip: E-cigarettes : Good Or Bad?

7 Dangerous Changes that Smoking Causes to Your SKIN

What is Addiction?

Addiction is a condition in which individual engages in using a substance or seeking a behaviour which leads to rewarding effects in the brain and it reinforce the individual to repeat the using or seeking behaviour again and again. Addiction develops gradually over a period of time and due to the repetition of same pleasure seeking pattern individual become physically and psychologically dependent on the substance or to any other object at the center of addiction.

People can get addicted to many substances like, alcohol, nicotine, drugs, solvents, etc. In case of these substances, physical and mental dependency both can occur. There are other objects and behaviours which also activate brain reward system in the same way and can make people dependent on them, like gambling, shopping, videogames, watching pornography, etc. But in case of these objects or behaviours, psychological dependency can be more prominent.

It has been seen that there are lots of other mental problems found among individuals suffering from any kind of addiction, like anxiety, depression, personality disorders, psychosis, etc. Individual who is addicted to a substance or an object or behaviour indulge into compulsive pattern of seeking the same inspite of their detrimental consequences. Consequences of addiction can be seen on person s health, personal life, occupational life and social life. Addiction can lead to severe unmanageability in one s life.

Especially when it comes to substances, like alcohol, nicotine or any kind of drugs, we must understand how the tolerance level of the brain develops? Tolerance develops when an individual no longer responds to a substance in the way he/she did at first. So, it takes a higher dose of the substance to achieve the same effect as when the individual first used it. This is why people with substance use disorders use more and more of a drug to get the  high  feeling that they seek.



A blog posted by an alcoholic:

 I always wished I could drink like other people. But I never could. I thought it was the third drink that got me into trouble. If I only had two, then I d be fine. Thing is, once I put that first drink to my lips, I could no longer accurately predict what would happen next. I might go home, but I might not.

You d think if I made it home, then my drinking was a success. Wrong! If I made it home after two drinks, there was an insatiable need raging within me and I was gonna take it out on you.  After all, you re the reason why I had to come home. I would punish my family by being silent, or mean, or emotionally distant.

Looking back, it was never intentional. I didn t purposely choose not to go home.  I didn t leave the house with a suitcase containing a fresh set of clothes, a tooth brush and my cosmetics. Seriously, I was only going out for  a few. 

If anybody can relate to this or can understand this, he or she can understand tolerance, powerlessness and unmanageability.

How to recover from addiction?

To be an addict can t be anybody s choice, but recovery can be one s choice. The first key step to come out of your addiction is developing acceptance. For a person to admit their powerlessness in addiction to drugs or alcohol or to any other object at the center of addiction is a monumental first step to recovery. Powerlessness means the person do not have any control over his/her use of substance. Powerlessness may indicate weakness and helplessness; some may think it fosters a victim mentality. Acceptance starts developing when a person admit that he or she is powerless over the substance or object at the center of addiction and their life have become unmanageable because of that.

Addiction is a disease and recovery is not an easy process. Individuals who are already into the grip of addiction need to seek help. One cannot go through the journey of recovery alone. There is a myth that addiction is a habit and one can get out of it if he or she has the  Will Power . It s actually not true. To get out of the disease you need to develop  Skill Power , like skills to understand your physical and psychological mechanisms when it comes to the substance or the object of addictions, skills to handle cravings, skills to be assertive enough to manage social cues, skills to deal with day to day life stressors, etc. And in this process of developing skills and maintaining your recovery you need help of professionals.

A complete treatment program has three important approaches. First one is psychopharmacological (medicine) approach, second is psychotherapeutic approach and the third one is the 12 step program of alcohol/narcotics anonymous. A combination of psychotherapies along with the basic essence of 12 step program can bring greater outcomes in individual suffering from addiction.

Understanding Addiction And The Key Steps To Recover From It!

Anger is an emotion found in every human being. There is nothing wrong with being angry. However, if it gets out of hand there might be serious consequences. Knowing a few things about anger management might help the next time you are struggling to manage anger. 

The Wrong Approach
Before knowing, what are the right things to do, it is necessary to know what doesn t work well. This will give a better insight on anger management. 

Often, we think suppressing anger might be the right thing to do. But, it is not. Trying not to react to a situation and keeping it under wraps, might affect your health and can even be the root cause of heart disease. However, suppressing it often lessens the intensity of the anger.
Just like suppressing it is not a good idea, venting it out completely is not the right approach as well. Venting might help you to cool down faster later on, but initially, it might hurt the other person and also have a negative impact on health. Venting anger occasionally will also make the person aggressive in nature.
Thinking or using words like always, never, should/shouldn t, must/mustn t do not usually help. Thinking about  he should never talk to me like that  or  they are always being unfair to me , brings about negativity and doesn t help in calming down.
The Right Approach

Counting to 10, the age old approach to anger management often helps in cooling down and giving a clear perspective. When we are angry, we end up saying and doing things we don t mean to. Counting gives us some time and helps us calm down a bit.
Breathe slowly when you are angry, say experts.  Instead of talking or reacting to the situation, just breathe in and out slowly. When you breathe out more, your body will calm down and make you relax.
Talk to someone who understands you when you are angry. Instead of venting out or suppressing it, talk it out with a friend or a family member. Tell them your feelings and why you are angry. This will help you a lot in relaxing. It works as a counselling session.
To manage anger, in the long run, one should always lead a healthy lifestyle. It means not just having a healthy diet, but also having proper sleep, not being stressed about anything, doing exercise, etc. 
Doing something creative often takes your mind away from angry feelings. Join a dance class, an art workshop, start keeping a journal, it will definitely help in the long run.
Leave the place immediately for few moments and drink water slowly when angry. Don't prolong the anger, come back and start conversation normally.

Anger Management - What Works and What Doesn't

Being a perfectionist is not wrong until it does not stop you from working according to your priorities. However, when you struggle to go on with your regular routine and seem to concentrate on one particular thing, again and again, it is time you seek expert advice.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder or OCD is a medical term that refers to obsessions or excessive thoughts leading to compulsions of repetitive behaviours. A person suffering from OCD usually has recurring thoughts that he or she has no control over, which leads to developing uncountable urge of repeating behaviours over and over.

The condition is long-lasting and chronic, and when not attended to as early as possible, usually brings in difficulties to the patient in leading a normal life. Continue reading to know about its symptoms and how it can be diagnosed.

Symptoms
The symptoms of OCD can be divided into two types, symptoms of obsession and the other is symptoms of compulsion.

Obsession Symptoms:

Spending more than normal time on one s obsessions, which results in disrupting one s social, professional, and personal activities.
Having the same images, urges, and thoughts again and again which the patient has no control over.
Losing the control over his/her anxiety and anger and acting on the urge of harming others or one s self.
Having unwanted and inappropriate sexual thoughts, especially developing obsessions with incest and homosexuality.
Being extremely obsessive and concerned about the fear of contamination that includes threats from the germs, dirt and even body fluid.
Compulsion Symptoms:

Constant cleaning and washing, especially washing one's own hands again and again.
In cases of mental compulsions, tendency to repetitively review events mentally, repetitive praying for harm prevention, etc.
Repetitively checking of the body parts or things around to be sure that nothing has happened to them.
Repeating routines such as reading the same page over and over.
Diagnosis
Diagnosis of obsessive-compulsive behaviour may consist one or various medical examinations that include,

Physical examination: Physical examination is performed in order to eliminate the probability of the presence of any other complications or illnesses.
Psychological evaluation: Psychological evaluation is all about discussing the feelings, thoughts, symptoms, and behaviour of the patients.
Laboratory-based tests: Usually, a complete blood count or CDC is included in the lab tests where the presence of drug or alcohol and the function of the thyroid is analysed.
Reference to the OCD diagnostic criteria: This step includes referring to the standard OCD diagnostic criteria to determine whether the patient is suffering from OCD or not.
Affecting people of all ages, OCD traps its victims in a cycle of compulsions and obsessions. Though a complete cure to this illness has not yet been discovered, still, with right treatment at the right time can be very effective in controlling of the symptoms while helping the patient to lead a normal life.

Depending upon the condition of the patient, the severity, and type of OCD, a psychiatrist can offer the best treatment in the form of therapies or talk sessions, or medications or a combination of both.

A Brief Overview Of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Its Symptoms, And Diagnosis!

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