Dr. Priti Srivastava

Are you suffering from extreme depression? Does your depression episode continues for a long time and makes you feel too tired to get out of bed? Chronic depression is capable of turning your life upside down, causing turmoil with all your activities, thereby, spoiling your regular life totally. At times, a person can get so drained by depression that getting out of bed seems impossible because of fatigue. It is quite difficult to deal with such situations.

Here are some important tips on how to overcome your chronic depression and get out of bed.

1. Be depressed upright: It is likely to be driven by the voices in your head during your depression. You should respond by replying to the voices that you are depressed, but you are going to be depressed outside. This is important, as activity and depression do not go well together. You should try to stop your thinking totally and put yourself in an automatic mode. Preparing to deal with thoughts from before is beneficial. When your body is in motion, it is easier to deal with the thoughts.
2. Try to make it to the shower: When you do not feel like leaving your bed at all, you should try making it to the shower somehow. Taking a shower makes you a bit relaxed and diverted and you can expect relief from your depressive episode. This is an effective way to get yourself up and running from bed, instead of isolating yourself under the blanket. Taking a shower might bring you some hope and encourage you to step out of bed and do something productive. Even if you decided to be in bed all day strictly, a refreshing shower is likely to change your mind.
3. Bribe yourself: You can try bribing yourself as a reason for getting out of bed. You can remind yourself how good you will feel after having a cup of hot coffee, or how nice it would feel to listen to a certain song while going to work.

It is important to give yourself a purpose or reason to get out of bed. Many people believe that they might feel like leaving the bed in spite of being heavily depressed, if they had a worthy purpose. It is very important for you to get involved in something. You might hate a job, or hate working, but it will give you a reason to divert from your depressive thoughts. In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Early to bed and early to rise, makes one healthy, wealthy and wise. We have all heard this age-old adage since time immemorial. Yet, how many of us actually adhere to it? Staying up late and waking up even later has become a lifestyle problem that many of us have succumbed to. It has become common to hear people complaining that they simply cannot make it out of bed on time. This can lead to various health problems in the long run.

So what are the health advantages of rising early. Read on to find out more!

• Healthier Appetite: Your body has been on a 'fast' all night (6 to 8 hours) and you need to 'break the fast' with some healthy food. When you wake up late, you tend to skip your A.M. meal which makes your body go into starvation mode. And the moment you wake up (after prolonged hours of sleep) and eat something, you are more likely to overeat and crave unhealthy foods. If you wake up early, you help the body in asking for the right food at the right time, which creates a healthy appetite and healthy food intake as a consequence. Moreover, having a good healthy breakfast is a foundation for building healthy eating habits and makes you less likely to eat junk the rest of the day.
• Depression: People who wake up early are generally less prone to depression. A medical study has also shown that there are definite links between the tendency to hit the bed late and depression. It is a well-known fact that a lack of routine can lead to a state of imbalance in the mind and body. This can also have an adverse effect on the hormonal balance of the person and lead to depression and mental conditions along the same lines.
• BMI: People who wake up early and work their way into the day with proper meals and eating habits tend to have a more balanced BMI. A healthy BMI is where you weight is appropriate for your height. This may differ for men and women with the same height.
• Exercise: When you wake up late, you actually have that much more of catching up to do, which can lead to grogginess and sudden jerks to the nerves and neurotransmitters as well as the signals that they emanate. All this has a profound effect on the amount of time that we allot for other activities like exercise, which can help one destress even as it keeps us healthy.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

You might be feeling that spending time on any social media network is a simple way to pass time and is a common habit. But a recent study by University of Chicago Booth School of Business says that social networking sites can be more addictive, than alcohol. The desire to consume alcohol can be controlled and turned down, but the desire to check Facebook is simply uncontrollable for most people, and it’s a serious addiction.

About the study
The ground breaking study was done on 250 people in and around Germany aged between 18 and 85 years of age. They were sent messages at specific intervals to report their desires and cravings. It is found that most people had the desire to sleep and have sex during the day that they were able to control. But the desire for checking Facebook was much higher.

Reasons for Facebook addiction

1. One of the major reasons is that availability of Facebook is much easier and higher than alcohol availability.
2. Also, it is thought that the cost of checking Facebook is much less than consuming some amount of alcohol on a regular basis.
3. Even if a man wants to resist his desire, but due to easy availability and lesser cost, he is prone to use it again and again.
4. Alcohol consumption is prohibited in public and during office hours in many countries. But checking Facebook updates have no restrictions. People can check it whenever they feel the desire.
5. The most shocking part is the urges drove the people to such an extent, that they couldn’t even resist themselves even if they wanted to do so.

Effects of Facebook addiction

1. Drainage of time: No matter how good we feel while checking Facebook updates, can you deny that it’s simply a waste of time?
2. Self esteem reduced: When you see your peers enjoying their life with flying colors, no wonder you will feel depressed. But we are reluctant to believe this fact, that nobody shows his tragic part of life on Facebook. So, whom you think is the happiest person in the world, may be the saddest and is drowned in his own miseries.

Remedy of this so called addiction
The study says that when we are much worn out, we are unable to control our desire and our will power is depleted.

So, if you find yourself posting your status on Facebook at the midnight instead of sleeping, then it is high time you should try to come out of this addiction and give yourself a better life and health.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

Loving relationships are known to improve more than just your mood, it improve your looks and your health. Researchers believe that it might just be the best medicine for most people, as it helps keep your heart healthy, beat cancer and recover faster, boosts athletic performance and leads to spiritual and emotional growth.

Mentioned below are a few of the ways, in which love may lead to a healthy heart and life:

1. Better Heart Health: Research has shown that women in healthy and loving marriages are less prone to contracting cardiovascular diseases, in contrary to those in stressful marriages. It has also been discovered that love reduces the likelihood of chest pains and suffering from angina despite having high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes in men.
2. Lengthens Your Life: The National Longitudinal Mortality Study studied a million subjects and concluded that couples in a loving marriage tend to live longer and have lowered risk of getting heart attacks, pneumonia, cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. Their chances of committing suicide are also reduced by almost half.
3. Faster Cancer Recovery: After extensive research, University of Iowa proved that patients of ovarian cancer, who were in loving relationships, had stronger WBCs i.e. White Blood Cells that kill cancerous cells, as compared to those in unhealthy relationships. They also concluded that patients in love recover quickly or completely eliminate cancer. 
4. Lowers Blood Pressure: Studies show that when couples are together, their blood pressure is significantly lowered. This research even proved that spending time with loving and supportive friends results in lower systolic numbers. 
5. Keeps You Slim: Being in love is a much healthier and better option than a juice cleanse, when it comes to losing that extra weight. People in loving relationships produce more adrenaline i.e. an appetite suppressant and are more likely to hit the gym and make healthier lifestyle choices to look their best. Apart from that, sex is one of the best ways to lose calories and reduce your weight.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

We all think of clapping as a way to applaud somebody for a job well done in sports, award shows, theater or movies. However, there are a number of hidden benefits that clapping has been proven to have. In the recent years, there are different types of groups in parks who get together in the morning and/or evening. Some of these groups indulge in laughing, there is also another group who gather around to clap.

Our body is a bundle of nerves and blood vessels spread all through the body and is one of the most complex networks we will ever know. Each organ is linked to the other and a bad effect on one organ can put the other in danger. The palms, basically, contain nerve and blood vessel endings and stimulating them through clapping helps improve the health of organs like kidney, digestive tract, and lower back. Sounds surprising? 

Well, there are about 30+ acupressure points in the palms, which are activated when you are clapping. These connect various organs including low back, neck, kidneys, lungs, stomach, etc. and have indirect benefits as noted below.

1. Clapping improves the overall heart health and maintains the blood pressure level. Blood circulation to various organs is also improved by regular clapping. Clapping also helps improve asthma-related problems by promoting the function of nerve endings that connect these organs.
2. Beneficial for children. In children especially, clapping is known to improve the brain function and contribute to better handwriting, reduced spelling mistakes and improved concentration.
3. Reduced occurrence of infections. Clapping helps immunity by boosting white cells, which are essential for fighting germs and therefore reduces the occurrence of frequent infections. Regular clapping is also shown to have benefits on improved bone health in cases of arthritis and associated pains.
4. For the back. Be it middle or low back pains, there is an immense benefit from clapping. The severity of the pain can be reduced significantly. Strange as it may seem, clapping is also shown to reduce instances of insomnia and improve hair health. 
5. For mental illnesses like depression and anxiety, clapping can be very easy to do exercise that costs actually nothing. If you think the kidneys and palms are very distant from each other, think again. For gout, which affects the kidneys, clapping is shown to be immensely useful. Both the severity of gout and the progression of the disease can be halted.

A word of caution: For better results, clapping is to be done after applying an oil like mustard oil or coconut oil. So next time, your clapping shouldn't be a part of just applauding. Include it in your routine exercise and see the results yourself. In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!

You might think, as a parent, that if you behave strictly then your child will become well-behaved. But research and studies have shown that the opposite happens. Strict parenting leads to children who behave worse than others and they suffer from low self-esteem.

Some other reasons why being strict is harmful:

1. Never learning self-regulation: Responsibility and self-discipline have to be learned by the children themselves. When you put harsh limits on them, they never learn self-regulation. If they think the limits don’t sound too harsh, they will learn to accept them. But the limits placed on them should never be controlling. If this happens, children see themselves as being controlled and no one enjoys being controlled.
2. Instilling fear: If you are being authoritarian (parenting in which there are high demands and low sympathy) instead of empathetic, then your children will become scared of you. You are instilling the power of fear in them. This triggers a vicious chain of events. When you yell, they will yell as well.
3. Anger and depression: Authoritarian parenting often leads to children believing a part of them is unacceptable. They feel that their parents would not understand. It makes them susceptible to anger management issues and depression.
4. Blindly obeying those in power: Children raised up in strict households start thinking power is always right. They learn to obey blindly. This makes them vulnerable to peer pressure. They also never learn to take responsibility for their actions.
5. Rebelling: Children tend to be angrier and become rebellious when they have strict parents. The need to break free and not conform to the non-empathetic limits that forces them to act out. They might even nurture thoughts about leaving home and running away.
6. Lying: Strict parenting creates excellent liars. Children learn to lie when they are in trouble. They think lies will placate their parents and they can get away with anything.
7. Damage to parent-child relationship: If you are strict and you don’t change your authoritarian ways, then it damages your relationship with your children. Natural empathy is lacking in strict parents. You don’t understand your child, and your child doesn’t feel like sharing their lives with you. It creates a divide between the parent and child. Children never quite get over this as they grow older.

In case you have a concern or query you can always consult an expert & get answers to your questions!