The PLACEBO effect...

The placebo is any substance which has no known treatment value to it, such as a sugar pill, saline injections or any other administered placebo, the actual therapeutic and healing effects they have without the medicinal contents is called the placebo effect. It’s funny to see people reporting that their headaches have subsided after taking the medicine, when what was administered was a simple sugar pill.

Why does it work? There’s been a lot of debate as to why does it actually work but the common opinion to this is that any illness is part physiological part psychological, which means that your brains also dominates the effect of a thing or in this case medicines. What happens is when a person continuously reports some pain which does not subside without taking a medicine, that person is given a placebo and what that does is, it makes the person believe that his pain would go away because now he has taken his medicine and that does happen because now after taking the placebo his body would release the natural pain killers and the pain would diminish eventually, now keeping that in mind that the body would do that even without taking the placebo but the persons belief is so strong that when he takes medicine only then the pain would go away.

But the placebo has no actual treatment value, it makes the person think that he’s fine now but in reality the illness still persists. And on the contrary it may have side effects as well, that would be called as “Nocebo effect” which in turn means that the person might report even severe headaches after taking the placebo.

What plays the major role in the effectiveness of a placebo is the belief of the person in the treatment he’s offered, nature of his/her illness and also expectation the person has after he/she takes the medicine.

If it has no actual validity in treatment then why is it still used? That is because any illness is never treated solely on the basis of placebos it’s administered with actual medicine (the real deal) and in this case it increases the effectiveness of the treatment by setting the stage for an actual therapeutic effect.

Whether it should or should not be used is as good as any debatable topic because even if you are treating the person and trying to make a positive change in his life but on the other hand you’re deceiving him as well (coz you can’t and won’t take the patients consent when administering a placebo).

But one thing is for sure,

“The Placebo effect is the single greatest indicator that your capacity to heal starts in your mind”

                                                                                                                                    -Anonymous

Defense Mechanisms

It’s one of the ways by which our brain tricks us into feeling less sad or more happy about something than we actually would if our mind or to be precise our unconscious mind would not use them. The normal definition of defense mechanism would go like; it’s a way by which our unconscious mind tries to distort the harsh reality which would make us very anxious or would divert from the value we have for ourselves.

But is it a bad thing? The answer to that is highly dependent on the intensity and frequency of the acts. We all use some defense mechanisms in our daily lives, like when we have a bad work day and we take out that anger on our kids (unconsciously of course), this type of act would generally fall under the defense mechanism called ‘Displacement’, or when we are very angry and we try to take all that anger out on the weights at the gym or we go for a long run; this is a very socially desirable way of dealing with anger yet this too falls under defense mechanism and to be specific it’s called ‘Sublimation’

Not all defense mechanisms were created equal that’s why some of them are more socially acceptable than the others. One more defense mechanism which people tend to use a lot is ‘Projection’, in this the person actually projects his feelings and intentions onto the other person and tries to play the victim, for example if he finds himself in a situation where he is very angry (without any sound cause) and has behaved in a bad way too, the unconscious mind would now tell him that this kind of behaviors and such aggression is not right and in order to save him from the guilt of such a thing, it would trick him into thinking that people are aggressive towards him and that they leave him with no choice than to behave in a manner like that, hence taking away his anxiousness and guilt.

I would not say that they are bad for your mental health if you don’t overindulge they would provide the slight mental relief that we all need every now and then, but if you overdo it would totally distort your sense of reality. For example there’s this defense mechanism called ‘Denial’ which involves total refusal of a certain event (stressful) and blocking it totally from the consciousness but as we know no one can escape from reality for long, like when a student actually denies his/her lack of preparation for the exams he/she eventually faces the reality and the outcome is way more anxiety provoking that the pervious situation in which they denied their lack of there preparedness.

The BEST things...

The best things in our lives the things that really do matter are the things that actually don’t cost anything and yet reward us with immense joy and pleasure, but what are the best things of your life is it the car you drive or the conversations you have with your buddy’s, is it the expensive shoes you wear or the happiness you share amongst and endless comparisons can be made but you get the point.

So why are we tangled up in things that don’t make us happy in the real sense? And the answer to that is; we are made to believe that you get this particular material object or that thing your life would be a very happy venture and if not it’ll suck. But do actually need all that clutter in our lives can we not live a happy life without them? Of course we can but what we need to do is focus on to the things that are not expendable, cherish the small things that bring you happiness.

The main idea behind this blog is a proverb that I came across “The Best Things in Life Are Free” and when I tried to trace its origin it came out to be a songs title which came out in 1927 and some of its lyrics are-

“The best things in life are free
Now that I’ve discovered
What you mean to me
The best things in life are free
Now that we’ve got each other
The best things in life are free”

Let’s take another example an activity which we do every day and that is sleeping. Remember that feeling when you wake up naturally without the obnoxious sound of the alarm clock, what you feel when you slightly crawl out of your slumber, that feeling can’t be put to a price. Coz no matter how much money you make if you haven’t had a goodnights sleep your mood, manners and thoughts in general suffer dramatically.

Another thing which is free is having a gym buddy, the person who motivates you on the days you don’t want to go to the gym, who kicks your ass in workout sessions. Yes you can pay for a personal trainer and mock yourself by calling him your gym buddy/partner but it’s not the same thing, so you see the things that actually bring you joy are not always related to money except for donuts that can definitely make you happy (even thinking about them makes me happy).

But what makes me more happy is the fact that you have the control to delay you sweet cravings (self-control is also free) till your cheat day and even then enjoy a controlled amount of that lovely donut. What it’ll do is it would make you more self-regulated and that is never a bad thing.

The OVERRATED antidepressant.

The reason why you shouldn’t uplift your mood by munching on your favorite comfort food is that it only provides you the momentary satisfaction and might even uplift your mood for a very brief period of time, but when that satisfaction subsides (up till then you’ve stuffed yourself with a lot of food ) you will only feel worse. Now what is comfort food? If you may ask, it is the food with dense calories; high in both carbohydrates and fats, either too salty or too sugary (you know the foods).

Now these foods might trigger your brain into activating the reward system in turn making you ‘feel’ relaxed and virtually happy. Some people also do it because either consciously or unconsciously they like the instant gratification which these foods provide even though that gratification wouldn’t last long (it might if you eat pizzas all day all night but then you would die).

What exacerbates this issue is your emotional status, people tend to indulge in binge eating their favorite comfort foods when they are somewhat depressed or feeling low, but that emotional status only gets worsened by this. And this kind of emotional eating can very easily change you into a person who has lost his vision of physical goals and is also lacking the feeling of self-worth.

What should you do instead is involve yourself in some physical activity and you’d see that the flow of negative emotions would go dry and you’d feel a greater amount of satisfaction not to mention you’ll be getting a great physique in the process too.

Exercise can have a great deal of impact on your mood (positive impact), I mean just thinking about a good workout brings a smile on your face then think of the wonders it’d do if you actually dragged your ass to the gym or the race track and did one. You’ll see an instant boost in confidence along with the feeling of accomplishment be it a very small one but it’d last unlike the binge satisfaction. It would also make you incharge of your life and you would no longer be dominated by the cravings of momentary satisfaction that you used to have.

This doesn’t mean that you cannot treat yourself, of course you can but when you do something of significance, when you stick to that workout, diet etc. regime. Then you have a right to have a cheat day/ meal but not every meal has to be a cheat meal (coz then the only one being cheated would be you).

Live in the Present

You exist in now and as much as we all like to believe that we have control over the future which to some extent is true but let’s be clear on this that something what’s in future would happen sometime later (now we have a good hold of the obvious) and the other thing which we find ourselves so caught up with is the past viz something that has happened in the past (in case you didn’t knew that already). Where we actually do have a lot of control is that brief moment which we call the present, why I call it brief? I do call it brief because it’s passing by you just now as you’re reading this blog or when you’re doing anything else and especially when we are procrastinating.

It’s it very sad and funny at the same time to see that people get caught up so much in the past or the future that they actually don’t focus on the only time that matters the most.

We are so busy in our lives thinking about what we did wrong in the past or what might get wrong in the coming future but where we lack attention is that the things which we’re doing right now will determine how the coming events might shape up to be.

In my opinion what kills most of our opportunities of anything better in the future is procrastination (remember the things you tell yourself to not to do the task in hand and maneuver your way around that activity and doing every other bullshit stuff), now what happens when we do it is we lose the chance to make a change and do any good to our lives.

What I believe instead is to go through the important activity first and then do any other thing for example if you have to go to the gym just go there. You need to understand that what’s stopping you from doing the work is you yourself only (and of course a whole lot of miscellaneous things).

Here I would introduce to the other thing that hampers your chances to do anything and that is overthinking. Overthinking is when you get so engrossed into trying to make that activity as perfectly done as possible that you don’t ever get to do it, because you’re just thinking about how it should be done and not freaking doing it.

Let’s take the same example (of the going to the gym). In that case a lot of people get caught upon what’s their weight at, how much protein they should take, which multi-vitamins to get, which days to train and what brand of wrist straps to buy. Now if you see that John Doe only wanted to go to the gym but when he’s thinking about all these before even actually going to the place he has not done anything in present and just thought about it (it may even burn some calories but not compared to as much he’d have burned if he’d step into the gym).

So what I would suggest that instead of trying to know everything beforehand and then not actually doing the thing why don’t you do it and figure out the minor details in process.

The Reference Point...

We have forgotten who we actually are and what we are made of, we have just become living manifestations of reactions to what’s happening in our daily lives be it anything significant or trivial we just react to it without giving it a serious thought. On the superficial level there’s no problem in being reactive to things I mean that keeps us going and most of us live our days like this only, but if you look deep down you’d see that there is no real you left if you are just reacting to stuff on a daily basis because there is no active thought involved. What happens because of this is; your personality starts to diminish in value. But what is personality? It’s a set of behaviours, your emotional pattern, and what goes into your mind in situations (provided people use theirs).

So you see it’s just the regular things that add up and become your personality, and what happens if you’re just reactive to things you don’t have an action plan and you just go by the flow?

You start to lose the basic essence of your personality and you slowly drift towards something you never were of ever wanted to be.

Remember an incident when you have been told by someone that you have changed it’s not actually that you have changed (consciously) it’s that you have been changed by the events and the daily hassels of your life without you being aware of that.

You have been told this many times let me tell you once again that you’re unique and what you have nobody can have and if you be true to yourself nobody can take from you that which you are entitled to get. Read every word written above carefully and know that its load of crap you aren’t special and neither the world we treat you any better so grow a pair and try to be more active in taking decisions of your daily activities. But how do you know that you are drifting slowly? There’s a very simple trick to it develop a reference point, be it a friend that you talk to of be it you writing down your thoughts and ideas in a diary and when you do re-visit them then you’d get a very clear picture as to where do you stand, have your surrounding made an impact on your ways for good or for the bad?

Once you have it (the reference point) then you can analyze what steps are needed and how can you improve yourself even more because our personalities are dynamic in nature and what’s good about it is that it can always be made better and better and better, all you need to do is show yourself your true picture and don’t eat your bullshit lies that you activities are OKAY because if there’s one thing that kills the scope of being better that is your brain telling you that you’re OKAY enough.

Effective Coping

There are basically three ways to cope from a stressful situation as given by Endler and Parker: Task oriented, Emotion oriented and Avoidance oriented and in my humble opinion the first one works the best. I say this because if you try to do anything else it would give you momentary relief and once that subsides you’ll feel every sorrow, every stress so very deeply.

Now what are these strategies and how do people use them?

In Task-oriented strategy the person actually focuses on the problem (the object, event causing the stress) and tries to eliminate that problem in a very thoughtful and productive manner for example if a person is bad at maintaining good social relations then the person would try to identify his problem or as to where are things going wrong and then would take adequate steps and help if needed to solve the issue.

On the other hand if the same person would be using Emotion-oriented strategy the person instead of working on to his problem or stressful situation i.e. having bad social relations would in turn work on the negative emotions he has because of the above situation. What he’ll do is try to relax himself, take up a new hobby or meditation just to mitigate the bad feeling he has because his social support system sucks, this strategy though isn’t that bad yet the problem still persists and it’ll eventually show up.

The worst of them all is the third one (in my opinion of course) viz Avoidance-oriented strategy in this the person tries to totally avoid the situation (just like a pigeon closing his eyes and assuming that the cat is gone). The same person if were to use this strategy would simply indulge himself in work or any activity and make himself busy and would totally neglect he problem and even avoid the thought of it. This strategy has bad consequences coz by the time you do think about that problem that has already been worsened.

There’s this concept of Sunday neurosis given by Viktor E. Frankl in his book Man’s Search for Meaning. About this concept he says it’s the depressive feeling people have once they are done with a very busy work week, and when they finally see the amount of discontent that is there in their lives.

“Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”

-Viktor E. Frankl

I think something similar happens to the people who use Avoidance-oriented strategy towards any problem, it’s at some point when they do realize that there actually is an issue, it’s very late and all they are left with is guilt, depressive feelings and what not.

So what I feel your best tool of solving any problem or tackling any stressful situation would be is going through that and having a positive attitude towards the outcome (I know not a very genius or new advice but it’s that simple and we’d all get it if we weren’t so hell bent on overcomplicating things ).

You're not that Important...

'You’re not that important' 

By this I don’t mean to say that you are not at all important because of course you are important, I mean the most important person in your life is you yourself, what I’m implying here is you are not that important in other peoples life and not everything revolves around you like most of us tend to believe. To an extent feeling this is very normal and we all succumb to this but some people tend to take it on extreme heights those people are just a bunch of kids who have progressed in age but not cognitively. According to stages of cognitive development given by Jean Piaget there are basically four stages of cognitive development Sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete-operational and formal-operational. Something happens in the second stage which is the pre-operational which is usually from 2-7 years.

Concepts called Centration and Egocentrism come into play. Why I am telling about this? Because I have even observed 35 year olds to behave like a kid who has yet not successfully crossed the stage.

Now when I explain what centration and egocentrism is you might find examples in your day to day observation (of people who behave like this). Centration as Piaget explains it; is a tendency to focus only on one aspect of situation at a time now this he said about kids between the age range mentioned above but I have seen a lot of people who very conveniently focus only on their aspect. And they give utter disregard for the other person or in general the other aspect.

Egocentrism is the failing of the kid (in this case the big, very old kid) to understand the situation with others point of view or their preoccupation with the thought that everyone has the same point of view as they have. Now does any example come into your mind? A person for whom anything that happens has only one interpretation that is theirs.

Anything you do which comes to their notice is now their agenda and the only right thing is what they have in mind and if you have a different opinion then you are wrong. Now is there any need to talk about these people? Yes there is because we sometimes are surrounded by these kinds of people and when they don’t understand the other aspect or our point of view, we tend to make a lot of efforts trying to make them understand. Not knowing the fact that they would never understand and you’re wasting your time.

Then what should we do? What we can do is let them believe that everything revolves around them, let them live in their Personal Fable (concept first given by David Elkind in his book Egocentrism and Adolescence). And if they do poke their noses in your business you should still not battle them. What you wanna do instead is remind yourself this quote,

“I would challenge you to a battle of wits, but I see you are unarmed…”

 -William Shakespeare

'Resolution' for the Resolutions.

As New Year has made its entrance in our lives and so we’d soon start to follow the tradition of making Resolutions but we ourselves know this that they won’t even last for a month (if you don’t know this then you my friend are lying to a very wrong person i.e. yourself).

The reasons of dropping resolution faster than you make it is not the resolution itself but the manner in which you take it. Like if a person wants to start reading and makes this as a resolution; the most common example (folly) would be that “I will read more books this year” now it looks good enough for a resolution but the mistake here is that the person didn’t specify anything and that would make the goal highly unstructured. The person didn’t specify the type of books the amount of books or the purpose of books. In my humble opinion if you do specify your resolution and try to keep it on the level of mere mortals the resolutions would stick longer and who knows they might develop into habits. An example of how resolutions should look like according to me is; “I will read two non-fictional books (related to psychology) (personal growth) every month”. Taking myself as example as a not so book loving person if I say I’d read more this year then that could mean 5 novels (which is way more than the novels I have read before in 2018 {2019 is the exception in book reading in which I read way more than I ever had}) but if I take latter as a new year resolution (which I have) then I am bound to read 2 (If not more) non fictional, self-growth piece of literature every month.

Another thing which we can do to make our resolutions to stay in for a longer duration than just a month is that you can go easy on yourself and try to make one positive change at a time. What this would do is that would give your body the necessary time to adapt to this new style of yours and you would not feel that discomfort at all.

Think about it you have been eating donuts regularly in the past year do you think you would suddenly start a new all leafy greens no sugar, low salt and dressing on the side kind off diet and your body would except it. That isn’t going to happen, if you go very extreme on any of your resolutions then you’ll soon find yourself guilty of breaking the resolution, so again in my opinion moderation is the way.

Because it’s not only the resolutions that break every year but along with it, breaks your

Self-confidence the amount of perceived Self-control you think you have and when that happens it leaves you more devastated then you ever were.

So I would only suggest that take it easy on yourself, try to live like a human being and do not attempt to be a productivity God stay in the realm of the mortals and focus on the long term habit development and of course don’t make a resolution just to follow a trend coz it would never last.