Archives July 2022

Learning little knowledge about Brain and Mind connection helps us to live healthily and happily!

Hypothalamus:

It is a structure deep in your brain, acts as your body’s smart control coordinating center. Its main function is to keep your body in a stable state called homeostasis. It’s the main link between your endocrine system and your nervous system.

It is and almond sized and is located below the thalamus and above your pituitary gland. It is located just above the brain stem at the base of your brain.

Main Functions of Hypothalamus are:

1. Releasing hormones.
2. Maintaining daily physiological cycles.
3. Controlling appetite.
4. Managing sexual behavior.
5. Regulating emotional responses.
6. Regulating body temperature.

Hypothalamus & Body’s Stress Response:

Cortisol is an essential hormone that affects almost every organ and tissue in your body. Regulating your body’s stress response is Cortisol’s main function.

When a person is in stress, the heart-rate increases, immune system slows down and in fact the digestive system will be altered.

Upon stress, the hypothalamus releases a hormone that travels to your pituitary gland, which then tells your adrenal glands to release cortisol. However, when the stressful situation gets normal, your cortisol levels up and body’s functions will become normal.

It helps in controlling body metabolism & reduce inflammation.

Cortisol can seriously hurt your body whether it is little or much, so the hypothalamus carefully regulates the amount circulating. If a person has chronic stress, the hypothalamus and the rest of the system is activated more often than it should be.

When the body has so much cortisol from chronic stress, it gets used to these high levels. So when you have a stressful situation later, your hypothalamus has to release more cortisol to get an appropriate stress response. This leads to a cycle where your body has to keep releasing more cortisol after every stressful event, which can cause other health issues including anxiety, digestive problems, depression, heart disease, and more fun things literally no one wants.

How to balance Cortisol – For Stress Free & Happy Life?

1. Aim to reduce stress – Breathe well, Exercise, Engage with your interested hobbies.
2. Good Diet – Fruits (bananas), Probiotic food, fibrous food etc.,
3. Enough Rest – Sleep well, lower down screen time.
4. Relaxation Techniques – Meditation, breathing exercises.
5. Have Fun – Be with people who can make you smile and laugh, go out.
6. No Caffeine at Night – Caffeine can interfere with a good night’s sleep.

Other Hypothalamus Releasing Hormones & it’s Effects.

Primary hormones secreted by the hypothalamus include:

• Anti-diuretic hormone (ADH): This hormone increases water absorption into the blood by the kidneys.
• **Corticotropin-releasing hormone (CRH):** CRH sends a message to the anterior pituitary gland to stimulate the adrenal glands to release corticosteroids, which help regulate metabolism and immune response.
• Gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH): GnRH stimulates the anterior pituitary to release follicle stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH), which work together to ensure normal functioning of the ovaries and testes.
• Growth hormone-releasing hormone (GHRH) or growth hormone-inhibiting hormone (GHIH) (also known as somatostain): GHRH prompts the anterior pituitary to release growth hormone (GH); GHIH has the opposite effect. In children, GH is essential to maintaining a healthy body composition. In adults, it aids healthy bone and muscle mass and affects fat distribution.
• Oxytocin: Oxytocin is involved in a variety of processes, such as orgasm, the ability to trust, body temperature, sleep cycles, and the release of breast milk.
• Prolactin-releasing hormone (PRH) or prolactin-inhibiting hormone (PIH) (also known as dopamine): PRH prompts the anterior pituitary to stimulate breast milk production through the production of prolactin. Conversely, PIH inhibits prolactin, and thereby, milk production. **Thyrotropin releasing hormone (TRH):** TRH triggers the release of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), which stimulates release of thyroid hormones, which regulate metabolism, energy, and growth and development.

Let’s know more about brain; stay healthy and stress free.

Disclaimer: The images are taken from different sources of website. Factual information has taken from wikipedia and trusted sources in website. All credits goes to the original creators. This article is posted only with the intention of knowledge sharing.

In Gratitude,

N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

“Brilliant things happen in calm minds. Be calm. You’re brilliant.”

Hectic Deadlines, arguments, targets, inter-personal and intra-personal issues, social life imbalances, poor work-life balance, dealing with losses etc., creates more stress. Meditation has emerged as an antidote to ubiquitous stress. Meditation is a tool to calm down and help you relax and unwind in just a few minutes.

Approximately there are more than 3,000 scientific studies are done with meditation to prove scientifically that meditation helps our body and mind. The reasons to meditate can be physical, mental, emotional as well as spiritual.

Meditating for minimum 15 – 20 minutes daily for a few weeks brings transformation in our life. When we practice meditation regularly, it helps to:

• Improve your mental health Reduce anxiety
• A feel of personal growth
• Reduce depression
• Increase your peace of mind
• Lower levels of stress hormones
• Get a better quality of life
• May reduce blood pressure

Effects Of Meditation On Brain:

1. Meditation for Stress Reduction: Meditation helps to decrease the stress revel by regulating the cortisol and adrenaline. It develops a state of deep relaxation in which our breathing, pulse rate, blood pressure are balanced and can helps o bring down to normal rate. When you are stress, check out your pulse rate and breathing pattern, it would be abnormal. Thus, meditation helps in stress reduction.
2. Meditation Improves Cognition: Meditation helps to improve cognitive function, mindfulness and to focus clearly by increasing the gray matter, brain volume and cerebral blood flow. It has been termed as a powerful fuel to increase your productivity. It also increases the blood flow to brain, it creates a strong network in cerebral cortex and reinforces the memory capacity.
3. Meditation for Mood Stability: Meditation helps to increase the brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine levels by stimulating brain regions which are connected with positivity and happiness. Meditation decreases mood disturbances, anxiety and fatigue. It can also reduce the behavioral anxiety response in psychosocial stress.
4. Meditation for Laser Sharp Focus: Meditation increases focus and concentration/attention span. By increasing the cortical thickness in the region of brain responsible for attention, focus gets improved. Researchers from Columbia University found that meditation can change the structure and functions of the brain.
5. Meditation Increases Brain Function: It helps in synchronizing the right and left hemispheres of the brain while increasing balance and amplitude in alpha, theta and delta-wave patterns. Meditation can thicken the pre-frontal cortex. This helps in increased concentration, awareness, execution and decision making.

The above given points are very few to touch upon. However, meditation helps in larger extent for Brain and Mind. There are occasions where meditation can do adverse effect. Meditation can act as a stressor in vulnerable patients who may develop a transient psychosis with polymorphic symptomatology. In such cases, advice from the mental health practitioner helps to put things better. Clinically if it is advised not to meditate, then patients should listen to it.

Learn from the Master: It is good that one can start practicing meditation from a trained master under his supervision rather self-teaching. After a point of time when you practice it with more focus, you may not need the help of instructor. Meditation instructor will help you understand the nuances, science behind the meditation and can clear your doubts if any you have.

Disclaimer: The image has taken from synchronicity website as they have posted it as free image for sharing. Credits to the original creator.

In Gratitude,

N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

“In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.” – Phil Collins

In Parenting, one of the challenging areas is Teaching Children at home. We may teach well, it may be easy to understand. However, children wouldn’t have taken it easy. You know why? The method which we use to teach them may not the right one which their Brain may adapt.

Identifying their learning method helps to teach them effectively, easily and it will become stress-free & effortless. They will also take less time to learn with interest. Many students will simply spend as much time as with the books, but we cannot find productive learning.

However, knowing the learning style helps a lot in parenting. It happens a lot that students are learning without realizing that the way they learn, their learning style, may not be their best option. This leads to poor outcome and their exact potential has not utilized optimally.

Various Learning Styles are simply called as VAK Method:

1. Visual Learners: They benefit most if the study material is presented through posters, pictures, slides, photos, or videos.
2. Auditory Learners: They learn best when they hear things. When they hear the information, they will remember it much better and easier than when they would read that material.
3. Kinesthetic or Tactile Learners: They will learn and retain information better if they experience things themselves while using all of their senses, such as hearing, sight, touch, etc. Kinesthetic learners cannot sit for more time at a stretch.

In this article, let me explain the Tactile (or) Kinesthetic Style and The Best Way to adopt for Tactile Learners.

What is the Pomodoro study method?

In this method, the study which combined with breaks to help train your brain to concentrate better and recall more information. Chunking Down the schedule in short-term goals.

The process works in a series of short bursts and can be used while studying alone or in groups to help everyone do better on exams.

It is Created and developed during the 1990s, the essence of the study method is to use a timer set to 25 minutes and use that time to study without interruption.

Once the 25 minutes are up, take a 5-minute break so that you can relieve the pressure. If you need to study additional material, take another 25 minutes followed by a 5-minute break until you have covered everything needed.

25 Mins Study – 5 Mins Break – Again 25 Mins Study – Again Break – REPEAT.

Advantages of the Pomodoro study technique

To train the brain for laser sharp focus and to learn with full concentration, this method helps a lot. This helps not only in studying, but also for professional with kinesthetic or tactile learning aptitude. Advantages are:

• Less distraction & more concentration.
• It avoids unnecessary multi-tasking in between the studies.
• Helps to think precisely.
• Better Organization of Materials Used to Study.

Because the focus is on 25-minute intervals, the result is that it keeps you from multitasking which is the type of distraction that pulls you away from the material.

Instead, by organizing your time and materials in an efficient manner, by creating a good study plan, you can study in single 25-minute sessions for short tests and in multiple sessions for longer university exams.

How to use Pomodoro Technique?

• Decide on a Specific Section or Task that Needs to be Studied
• Start the Timer
• Focus on the Task until the Timer reaches 25 Minutes
• Take a 5 Minute Break
• Start a New Task

If you should complete FOUR – 25 minute periods, take a 15 to 20-minute break so that you can better recover.

Using the Pomodoro Study Method, you can vastly improve your retention by focusing fully on the task at hand for 25-minute intervals.

Kinesthetic/tactile learners can have a hard time fitting into the traditional classroom. This is because these students learn by doing, by moving, by engaging- these processes form connections that help them remember, discover, and understand.

By adopting the above method, learners can cover a specific area of a subject deeply so that their brain can grasp the knowledge without becoming overly tired or strained.

Let’s create awareness on the learning styles to parents, teachers and students. It will help us to see students coming out with flying colors. Teach Easy – Learn Easy – Live at Ease!

Wishing everyone stress free life with yourself and your kids (if you are married).

Note: The above mentioned method of learning is one beautiful method to adopt. There may be other good approaches also, it is up to the learners to take whichever is comfortable for them.

Disclaimer: The images are taken from different sources. The Pomodoro Technique is a time management method developed by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. Much gratitude to the developer and credit goes to him for the excellent content.

In Gratitude – N.R.Rakesh Babu | Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher

The most fascinating organ in our body is Brain. Most of my articles hovered over BRAIN. It’s “World Brain Day – July 22”. The World Federation of Neurology has declared July 22 as World Brain Day with a bid to increase public awareness and promote advocacy related to brain health.

Theme of this year is “Brain Health For All”. A much needed theme. Not only in the perspectives of the medical importance, but also in the psychological aspect. Actually, it is a resilient year for every one of us after pandemic, a threatening war between Ukraine and Russia, more disease threats and economic imbalances in the World.

To cope with the situation better for the peaceful life is to understand our Brain, it will be easy to handle ourselves better.

According to World Health Organization, Good brain health is a state in which every individual can realize their own abilities and optimize their cognitive, emotional, psychological and behavioral functioning to cope with life situations.

1. Awareness: Both physiological and psychological significances to be educated and for that more awareness campaigns to be executed.
2. Resource & Access: Ready reckoners and easily available resources, easy access to rehabilitation and treatment.
3. Educate: As I mentioned above, education sector should take more care on this. Include scholarly articles, recent researches and updates on Brain in schools and colleges.
4. Humanity: For optimal Brain Health, more hands to be joined globally.
5. Prevention: In a recent seminar that I have attended on “Substance Abuse and Brain Damage”, the resource person from India’s renowned Mental Health Organization thrown a light on the mix. He said, many Brain diseases are preventable. Prevention is Better Than Cure.
6. Feed The Needy: Malnutrition is another alarming area to be looked upon. Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, neuroinfections, brain tumors, traumatic injury and neurological disorders are resulting from malnutrition

By dragging attention to this complex organ will emphasize the significance of brain and its vital role in controlling all aspects of collective human life.

Let’s inspire with our action and we can achieve Brain Health for All.

Wishing healthy and peaceful life to everyone!

Disclaimer: Credits to World Federation of Neurology for this wonderful initiative. The image and technically necessary points have been taken from their campaign. The intention is just to promote the awareness about this Special Day. Whole credits to them.

In Gratitude,

N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

How #Gut #Bacteria Affects our #Brain & #Body?

Read an #article, thought of sharing the information with this community of #aspirants.

Our bodies are made of more bacteria than human cells, and the gut alone contains trillions of microbes (bacteria and fungi). In fact, it’s estimated that the body is composed of 10 times more bacteria than human cells.

And the intestines are home to more bacteria than any other part of the body, including the skin. Now, #scientists are devoting increasing amounts of #time and #resources to understanding the gut ‘microbiome,’ as the massive collection of bacteria and microbes is called — and the influence it may exert on the brain and body. The National Institute of Health’s Human Microbiome Project, for instance, is devoting millions of research dollars to understanding the #microorganisms living within the human #ecosystem.

Of particular concern among scientists and the public is the effect that gut flora may have on mental health, as a mounting body of research suggests that gut bacteria can have a significant impact on the way we think, feel and behave, and also on the development of neurological conditions. Last year, a major neuroscience symposium called the investigation of gut microbes a “#paradigm shift” in brain science.

A number of #diseases and disorders have been linked to abnormalities or instability in gut flora, and the microbiome is an important area of research for these conditions. However, it’s important to note that while research has linked these conditions to alterations in the microbiome, it does not mean that in every case gut bacteria is the cause of the problem.

Some of the impacts are: Depression | Anxiety | Schizophrenia | Autism | Obesity & Diabetes | Parkinson’s Disease | Crohn’s Disease | Colon Cancer | Rheumatoid Arthritis | Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

Research Sources are mentioned in the attached picture. Recent researches may improvised the findings and working on the gaps.

Wishing everyone a healthy brain and pleasant mind!

#research | #neuroscience | #science | #mentalhealth | #health | #development | #psychology | #psychologystudent | #psychologyresearch | #researchscholar | #phd | #linkedinlearning | #linkedinforcreators | #linkedin | #psychologists

In Gratitude,

N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

“Your brain is the organ of your personality, character, and intelligence and is heavily involved in making you who you are.” – Dr.Daniel G. Amen (Psychiatrist and Brain Disorder Specialist)

The brain is a complex organ that controls thought, memory, emotion, touch, motor skills, vision, breathing, temperature, hunger and every process that regulates our body. Together, the brain and spinal cord that extends from it make up the central nervous system.

The human brain color physically appears to be white, black, and red-pinkish while it is alive and pulsating. Images of pink brains are relative to its actual state.

Let’s see some facts about Human Brain!

1. Brain storage is virtually unlimited.
2. Brain contains 100 Billion Neurons.
3. We would have heard that only 10% of our brain is what we use. It is a MYTH. Actually we use all part of our brain, even while we sleep.
4. Brain weighs about 3 pound (1.3 Kg).
5. Human brain can generate approximately 20 watts of power.
6. 25% of cholesterol in our body resides in brain.
7. 60% of brain is fat.
8. Men’s brain are 10% bigger than Women’s brain.
9. Women’s brain have more grey matter and larger hippocampus which involves in emotional processing.

10. The Neocortex accounts for 76% of the Brain’s mass.
11. Brain development keeps processing until your late 40’s.
12. Human Brain is not formed fully until the age of 25.
13. Brain’s Information Processing speed is approximately 268 miles per hour.
14. Gut is your second Brain.
15. Gut bacteria makes over 30 neurotransmitters, including serotonin.

There may be lot many facts like this. From this we can understand the amazing nature of our brain and it’s significance. We all are bestowed with such a precious organ which commands all of our actions even when we are in silence.

Are we really concerned about our brain? It is said that a human being should have sharp brain and calm mind for the peace life.

Sharp/Focused brain helps to take decisions, think innovatively, logically and creatively, to identify good and bad, to control our impulses. Workout, reading, learning and unlearning, healthy diet, listening to music, plan your work and personal life – hangout with friends etc., can keep your brain healthy.

Calm Mind helps us to live peacefully without stress, to share and care, to love and show compassion, to live with humanity and humility, to help others when they are in need. Meditation, Yoga, Listening or reciting chanting, breathing exercise, listening to knowledge sessions, making yourself free to talk with your dear ones, sleep well, take it easy and win-win attitudes etc., can also helps you to keep your mind calm and steady.

Let’s be more grateful for being a human being. Know YourSELF | Grow & Glow!

In Gratitude,

N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

Without these messengers, you cannot become a messenger of your thoughts!

Neurotransmitters are chemical messengers without which a body cannot function properly. It carries the chemical signal from one neuron to next target cell. They are the molecules used by the nervous system to transmit messages between neurons, or from neurons to muscles.

Neurotransmitters influences a neuron in one of three ways: excitatory, inhibitory or modulatory.

Nervous system controls the functions such as: Heartbeat and blood pressure. | Breathing | Muscle movements | Thoughts, memory, learning and feelings | Sleep, healing and aging | Stress response | Hormone regulation | Digestion, sense of hunger and thirst | Senses.

How does neurotransmitters work?

Human body consists of billions of nerve cells in your body. Nerve cells are generally made up of three parts: 1. Cell Body, 2. An Axon & 3. An Axon Terminal.

1. Cell Body plays a pivotal role in producing neurotransmitters and maintaining the functions of nerve cell.
2. Axon carries electrical signals along with the nerve cell to axon terminal
3. Axon Terminal is where the electrical messages are changed to chemical signal using neurotransmitter to communicate with next group of nerve cells or to organs.

Neurotransmitters are located in a part of the neuron called the axon terminal. They’re stored within thin-walled sacs called synaptic vesicles. Each vesicle can contain thousands of neurotransmitter molecules.

The seven “small – molecule” neurotransmitters are: acetylcholine, dopamine, gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamate, histamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin

FIVE Major Neurotransmitters that Influences the Mood are: Serotonin, Dopamine, Glutamate, Norepinephrine, GABA

1. Serotonin: It is “Happiness Molecule”. It helps in memory and learning. It contributes to feelings of well-being and happiness. It is also produced in the gastrointestinal tract in response to food. As a result, serotonin is involved in functions such as sleep, appetite, behavior & moods. It is speculated to have a role in depression, as some depressed patients are seen to have lower concentrations of metabolites of serotonin in their cerebrospinal fluid and brain tissue.
2. Dopamine: It is “Motivation Molecule”. It plays a role in body’s reward system which includes feeling pleasure, motivation, motor control, reinforcement and learning. Parkinson’s Disease has been linked to low levels of dopamine and Schizophrenia has been linked to high levels of dopamine.
3. Glutamate: This is the most common excitatory neurotransmitter of your nervous system. It’s the most abundant neurotransmitter in your brain. It plays a key role in cognitive functions like thinking, learning and memory. Imbalances in glutamate levels are associated with Alzheimer’s Disease, Dementia, Parkinson’s Disease and Seizures.
4. Norepinephrine: It assists in fight-flight response and helps moderate mood by alleviating depression and anxiety. It also modulates the responses of the sleep patterns, focus and alertness.
5. GABA (GAMMA AMINOBUTYRIC ACID): It helps increase feelings of calm and relaxation, reduces stress and pain. It also helps in improvement of sleep & concentration. This helps in eliminating the feeling of anxiety, stress, and fear, and may also further help in preventing seizures.

Conclusion: The ultimate aim of this article is to create awareness among people about the Brain chemicals that influences the mood of a person. Reaction or response around is is just a triggering factor. However, upon the chemical exchanges or signal exchanges are creating all mood swings. Upon balancing the chemicals by eating more of healthy & natural food, depression less activities, maintaining steadiness and patience, non-comparison with other people, stress free work-life balance, living for the bigger cause such as charity, service to the humanity, spiritual rituals (applies only to believers), practicing & cascading human values to next generation and maintaining healthy body and peaceful mind, a person can deal with the Brain Chemicals happily.

Disclaimer: Sources of pictures and technical terms are from wikipedia and other few trusted websites. Credits goes to the original creators of the images.

In Gratitude
N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

A picture is worth a thousand words, but a memory is priceless. Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose. Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

“Memory is the reactivation of a specific group of neurons, formed from persistent changes in the strength of connections between neurons.”

Remembering begins with your senses. Any festivals or functions at home, for instance, your brain might take note of how good the food smells, how nice it feels to hug your mom, and how your relatives joined you with more happiness during the event. As your brain processes that sensory input, it creates neural connections and those connections will eventually become memories.

Your brain decides how important a memory is based on context cues, such as your level of emotion or stress at the time. The more important the recollection is, the stronger the neural connections will be.

“Remembering highly emotionally charged events is an important survival tool.” Say you’re in a certain area of the woods and all of a sudden there’s a dangerous animal chasing you—when you remember such occurrences happened before, you won’t go to that place again.

There are several areas of the brain that are involved in encoding and later retrieving memories, but one part—the hippocampus—is thought to play a key role in “binding together the different scattered components of memory. “It might function as a kind of index.”

The hippocampus is a pair of wormlike structures nestled deep inside the midbrain. It’s believed to be especially important for processing long-term memories—like your last vacation, or what your email password is.

The brain has three types of memory processes: 1. Sensory register, 2. Short-term memory and 3. Long-term memory.

Sensory Register: In the sensory register process, the brain obtains information from the environment. This activity is short, lasting at most a few seconds. During sensory register, the brain gathers information passively through visual and auditory cues, known respectively as “iconic” and “echoic” memory.

Short-term Memory is the other main type of memory, and it refers to things you need to keep in your consciousness for no more than a few seconds. “That’s the kind of memory you’re taxing if you’re trying to hold a phone number in your head before putting it into your phone.” It’s also the memory you use to recall the specials the server has just recited, or measure out the correct dose printed on the label of a medication. Those bits of information appear to be stored in the prefrontal cortex, the structure that sits at the very front of your brain.

Long-Term Memory: The process allows information to remain in the brain for an extended period, nothing in the brain avoids risk. Information stored in long-term memory can stay in the brain for a short while (a day, a week) or last as long as a lifetime.

Thanks to Daniel Schacter, PhD & Brian Becker Professors of Neuropsychology.

In Gratitude,
N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

Addiction Relapse is Ok! Don’t Isolate & corner them. Show some kindness!

In the THE TRANSTHEORETICAL MODEL OF CHANGE, Relapse is one of the stages of intentional behavior change.

When it comes to substance addiction, many victims are very much aware that they are harming themselves. Out of which, a considerable percentage of people wish to come out of it. Very few seek support from family members. Most times, addicted people are taken to therapists/counselors or to rehabilitation centers.

Rather generalizing, it is seen that many are coming out of this issue and leading happy and peaceful life. Most of them fall into the stage called “RELAPSE”. Relapse is the resumption of substance use after an attempt to stop or period of abstinence. For example, someone who returns to drug use after months in rehab would be experiencing a relapse.

I would like to highlight this stage “Relapse” in this article. It is Ok to fall in relapse stage. It will make them to understand the severity of the issue that has happened to them. In fact, the therapists can use this situation positively to help the clients. When the client feels guilty, it is the best stage to re-iterate the importance of health (physical & mental), relationship, identity in society.

The reason for me to write this article is, I have seen a person who was in relapse stage and got rejected by therapist (so called), got stigmatized by family members, friends detached their company and this person had to encounter deep depression and the family lost a good human.

Love and compassion will certainly work in this situation. Rather stigmatizing, blaming and put them in a corner, if they are attended rightly by learned professional and kind-hearted people. They can come back to normal life. As shown in the picture, it is a cycle of change. Sometimes, two, three or more relapse may occur. However, if the victim is surrounded by a humanistic environment, there are lot of chances to bring back them to normalcy.

Point to be noted is, there may be situations where right treatment to be given and all stages of prevention methods to be introduced to avoid relapses. Family therapy to be given to people around the person. They should be properly educated about the consequences. CARE is more important. In the case of young adults, it is necessary to inculcate moral values. It is quite challenging during the treatment, however, it can also play a pivotal role in rehabilitation.

The ten processes of change include:

1. Consciousness-raising (Get the facts) — increasing awareness via information, education, and personal feedback about the healthy behavior.
2. Dramatic relief (Pay attention to feelings) — feeling fear, anxiety, or worry because of the unhealthy behavior, or feeling inspiration and hope when hearing about how people are able to change to healthy behaviors.
3. Self-reevaluation (Create a new self-image) — realizing that the healthy behavior is an important part of who they want to be.
4. Environmental reevaluation (Notice your effect on others) — realizing how their unhealthy behavior affects others and how they could have more positive effects by changing.
5. Social liberation (Notice public support) — realizing that society is supportive of the healthy behavior.
6. Self-liberation (Make a commitment) — believing in one’s ability to change and making commitments and re-commitments to act on that belief.
7. Helping relationships (Get support) — finding people who are supportive of their change.
8. Counterconditioning (Use substitutes) — substituting healthy ways of acting and thinking for unhealthy ways.
9. Reinforcement management (Use rewards) — increasing the rewards that come from positive behavior and reducing those that come from negative behavior.
10. Stimulus control (Manage your environment) — using reminders and cues that encourage healthy behavior and avoiding places that don’t.

Psychologist or community care workers should help Addicts who are in relapse stage with love & compassion which can heal them emotionally, mentally & physically! Let’s live with love and humanity. Love moves the world.

Disclaimer: The pictures attached in this article are taken from different sources in websites. Credits to the original creators. Special thanks to wikipedia.

Sources: wikipedia, google scholar, wellness blogs, science direct and rural health

In Gratitude,

N.R.Rakesh Babu
Psychologist | Doctoral Researcher
www.rakeshbabu.com | www.rbac.in

“What if you could take control of your life with one decision? You Can.” – David J. Pollay

How often does a bad driver, rude waiter, curt boss, or an insensitive relative ruin your day with a thoughtless action, an angry rant, or a snide remark? And how often have you ruined someone else’s day?

In The Law of the Garbage Truck, David J. Pollay shows us that by refusing to let others dump their “garbage” (negativity, anger, resentment) on us-and letting it “pass by” instead-we become happier and more successful, both personally and professionally. And when we stop dumping garbage on others, we improve our relationships, strengthen our businesses, and bring our communities together.

Twenty years ago, while riding in a New York City taxi, syndicated columnist and business consultant David J. Pollay narrowly escaped a life-threatening car crash. The driver who almost caused the accident and started yelling at the cab driver, who remarkably just smiled, waved, and wished him well. Pollay asked how the cabbie could remain so calm, and his response sparked the defining principle of The Law of the Garbage Truck.

Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment…And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally…move on.

Now Pollay shows you how to apply his Law in this remarkable audio book that can help you:

• Avoid getting dumped on by rude, thoughtless, and angry people

• Stop reliving the negative in your past, and fearing the future

• Focus on what you can control, not the negative things you can’t

• Reduce incivility wherever you find it, and stop bullies in their tracks

• Improve your relationships by not dumping on your friends, parents, spouse or coworkers

• Find happiness again after dealing with illness, loss, and personal tragedy

• Increase productivity, respect, and cooperation by creating a No Garbage Trucks! Zone in your business, school, and home

• Gain the courage to enjoy every day, do what you love, and make a difference

© 2010 Ascent Audio (Audiobook) ISBN: 9781596596023