Anxiety is a very normal emotion, which gives rise to feelings of nervousness every now and then. An anxiety disorder is a serious medical condition in which people experience a high degree of distress and mental trauma, which causes difficulties in leading a normal life. People suffering from this medical condition experience high levels of anxiety and nervousness almost all the time. Here are the symptoms that indicate you're suffering from anxiety disorder.

1. Excessive worry - This condition persists if you worry about the day to day activities a bit too much on a regular basis. It is identified when you start taking too much stress about very petty things, which tends to affect you in an adverse manner. A noticeable sign of excessive worry can be too much fatigue.

2. Sleep problems - Problems falling asleep at the right time and problems in maintaining a sound sleep are two signs that indicate you have an anxiety disorder.

3. Irrational fears - This symptom is not generalized; instead, it is specific and subjective in relation to a particular thing or situation. The fears that are experienced under this category are sudden and unexpected in nature and there is no fixed rationale behind these fears.

4. Muscle tension - Muscle discomfort and pain is one of the leading physiological causes of an anxiety disorder. The pain felt is chronic and pervasive, and is very common among people facing situations of anxiety. If you are exposed to constant periods of anxiety, you will experience fatigue, muscle pains and unwillingness to work.

5. Chronic indigestion - Problems related to the digestive system are also a sign of anxiety disorder. In this case, you may face constant digestive problems accompanied by a common disorder called IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). IBS refers to an anxiety situation in the digestive tract, which is characterized by stomach aches, cramping, bloating, gas, constipation, and/or diarrhea.

Apart from the above-mentioned symptoms, other symptoms of an anxiety disorder include stage fright, self- consciousness, panic attacks, memory flashbacks, perfectionism, compulsive behaviors, self- doubt, and such others.



How to know if you have an anxiety disorder?

Top tips to help you fight anxiety

Anxiety is the latest problem affecting a majority of the population, owing to our hectic and fast-paced lifestyles. All of us are so busy in our lives that we forget to provide our mind and body with the basic care that they need in order to function effectively. Here are five useful tips to help you overcome anxiety, on a daily basis.

1. Maintain the right diet
Though it may sound like a cliche, maintaining a healthy diet on a regular basis is the key to beating anxiety. Try and consume food products rich in Vitamin b which is known to improve mental health; and Omega-3s which can effectively counter severe anxiety and depression.

2. Get adequate sleep
Not getting enough sleep not only affects your mind but has an adverse effect on your body as well. Even anxiety can result in irregular sleep patterns and thus ensure that in any situation, you manage to get six to seven hours of sleep on a daily basis.

3. Engage with people
Man is indeed a social animal. People make us happy. The hormone oxytocin significantly reduces anxiety levels and it is released during the process of socializing; thus it is essential to be in contact with your close group of people.

4. Keep your immediate environment clean
A cluttered home or workplace not only adds to physical clutter but contributes towards building up mental clutter as well. Spend a few minutes every day in keeping your immediate environment clean and organized. You are bound to feel calmer and more relaxed.

5. Indulge in breathing exercises
When your brain is tensed, your breathing pattern automatically becomes short and shallow. In order to send relaxing signals to your brain, try taking deep and long breaths and continue the process for a few minutes.

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5 Most Effective Ways To Drive Anxiety Out Of Your Life

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?

How to brush off stress from your life

Current lifestyle is such that stress becomes inevitable. But you might be aware how disastrous stress can be, it does take control of our lives. What one needs to consciously do is, take steps to address the stress that they are under. 
Here are simple and effective ways to do it.

1) indulge in physical activities - most of us have sedentary lifestyles which add to stress. While indulging in workouts won't take away your stress, what will happen is that there will be clarity in your thoughts, and your emotional intensity will come down, calming you.
2) believe every problem has a solution - it is easy to be scared of the problem and let it take control of your mind &amp; your life. Take control of them. Try to actively address your problem and look for solutions. When you act towards solving your problem, irrespective of the solution, your mind has more positive in it than stress.
3) give it away - meet people, socialize, and connect with other lives. This is actually going to solve half your problem. Not only will more things occupy your mind, and you will know of other people's problems too, but at times, sharing your stress problem warranties a quick solution!
4) treasure yourself - take some time for yourself and do what you love to do the most. Go to the spa, go shopping, read or just sleep. But make sure you have time away from work and daily chores, where you can rejuvenate your sense by doing what makes you the happiest. If nothing, meet up with friends.
5) indulge in volunteering work - helping others not only preoccupies your mind with problems of others rather than staying immersed in your own, but also helps you be more resilient. You will come out stronger and with more will to address your own issues.
6) try to stay positive all the time - appreciate what you have rather than concentrate on what you don't. Be thankful.
7) accept what you cannot change - however much we try to solve our problems, some things we cannot resolve right at the time. And there is no point in pondering over them. Accept that this is how things will be, and move on.

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How To Brush Off Stress From Your Life


7 CHARACTERISTICS OF EMOTIONALLY STRONG PEOPLE

Emotionally strong people are better able to manage the stresses and distresses of daily life, and recover more quickly from challenges and crises when they arise. Is your emotional engine strong enough to take you through the ups and downs of life? Are you riding a bullock cart which can topple over anytime you pass through a broken road or are you driving a four wheel, all terrain vehicle, which will ensure you a safe trip through all the rocky terrains of your life?

A common cultural belief is that people who don’t cry and are unemotional, detached are the emotionally strong ones...and the ones who cry easily and exhibit emotional turmoil are the weaker ones. Well, this is just a myth and not an accurate indicator of one’s mental and emotional strength. A person’s internal coping mechanism will determine how strong he/she is emotionally and deal with challenges and bounce back from them. For eg. Two investors invest in a startup company and watch it fail after 5 years of hard work...one cries copious tears and falls apart, the other controls his emotions but feels defeated. Both were not emotionally strong as they couldn’t sustain the pressure and crumbled. It would have been fine if they felt sad and worried over the loss of time, resources and money and then bounced back with fresh ideas and renewed energy, which would have shown their capability to bounce back from difficult situations.

Unfortunately, too many of us judge ourselves incorrectly in exactly such moments. If we react emotionally or tearfully to emotionally challenging situations we scold ourselves for being weak, even when we have every intention of persisting and moving forward and even when we believe we will eventually succeed. Tears are usually a sign of frustration and disappointment, not defeat. What you believe about your future chances of success and how discouraged you feel in the long term is far more important than how often you cry in response to stresses and bad news.

The following list will help you decide how emotionally strong you are and where you need to work on yourself:

1) Emotionally strong people are less discouraged by setbacks and disappointments: they see each failure as an opportunity to learn and improvise over the last one. They compare themselves with themselves and define their own measures for failure and success. You could do an analysis of your strengths, limitations, opportunities and impediments in order to get over difficult situations. Geet, a student who didn’t get into his desired subject of IT, sat through 5 years of Law and did some extra courses in corporate law and worked towards fulfilling his dream of working in the Corporate. He felt confident, happy and satisfied with his efforts.

2) Emotionally strong people are more adaptable to change: they welcome and embrace changes in themselves and their environment simply because it brings newer opportunities and learning which can catapult them on their way to success. New boss, different stage of life, children going away are changes that will surely happen. Preparing for them in advance, can help people cope better with changes. When Surabhi got married, she took marital counselling to prepare for the differences that will crop up due to changes in the environment, thinking and attitudes of her inlaws family. She is a happy and successful wife and mother today.

3) Emotionally strong people are able to recognize and express their needs: ability to acknowledge and express your needs is being genuine to yourself and an expression of self care. People who are self aware move faster on the ladder of success as they are devoted and passionate towards their goals and needs. Taking care of your health and exercising along with a professional career makes for an emotionally strong person. You can become aware of your needs and values in counselling and experience contentment and power as you take charge of your life.

4) Emotionally strong people focus on getting around a hurdle rather than on the hurdle itself: focussing on the hurdle can be very emotionally draining and demotivating. Emotionally strong people invest their energies in working through a problem and looking for viable solutions, which ensures their victory over stresses and strains. If you have lost money in business, then working on your sales and marketing skills could get you better gains rather than feeling defeated. Counselling can help you look at problems objectively and from different perspectives. Get in touch with your problem solving skills and feel motivated and accomplished again.

5) Emotionally strong people can learn from mistakes and criticism: who hasn’t been subjected to criticism or made some mistakes? It’s human to err. Working towards excellence rather than perfection and looking for the golden piece of advice in the strong criticism helps emotionally strong people win over situations and important relationships. Sarita, an intelligent and smart woman ignored the critical remarks of her mother in law because she knew that there is a lot to learn from her. She knew which battles to fight and which ones to let go of.

6) Emotionally strong people tend to see the larger perspective in a challenging situation: They don’t get weighed down by smaller defeats when they have the larger picture in mind. An emotionally strong employee, Martin, who experienced office politics, kept his cool and focussed on his work.

7) Emotionally strong people are able to recover more quickly from emotional wounds such as failure or rejection: nobody can reject you unless you give them the permission. Seeing each failure as an opportunity to grow and learn helps. Staying with what you can do differently next time and having fall back plans helps to reduce the impact of failure. Thomas Edison didn’t get deterred by the number of times he could make his bulb glow. He kept looking at different permutations and combinations and kept learning from each mistake. Finally, his bulb glowed and now we all can benefit from the fruits of his hard labour.

If you don’t find yourself scoring high on this list, then there is no need to worry because in personal counselling, you can build emotional strength and capacity to bounce back by working on your mindset and learning more adaptable responses to stresses of daily living.

7 characteristics of emotionally strong people

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