The Hangover

Writing this post with the assumption that most people have seen 'The Hangover'.  A group of friends who do not have any memory of the previous night's events and go searching for their lost friend. Things are a mess, but they have no idea of the ruckus they had caused the previous night.  Ultimately, they find their way through. The movie was one of the great comedy movies in recent times. 

This post is not about the movie, but about a similar hangover experienced when one goes to bed with negative thoughts. But there are lot of parallels the I can draw from the basic premise of the movie. That's why this post is titled 'The Hangover'.

One of the most important facts that one has to accept is that Human Body is one sophisticated machine. Billions of cells driven by electrical impulses from the brain. The muscles, organs form the mechanical parts whereas the brain forms the battery which drives these parts. Its only natural that the mechanical parts needs rest after a day's work. The brain too drains out of energy by the end of the day. Thus the human body recoups during sleep.

Any action that affects this recharging cycle of the brain causes a hangover in the brain the next day. When you take your worries, sadness and anger to bed, the brain naturally starts processing these thoughts. These negative thoughts are seen by the brain as stress. Instead of recharging itself, the brain immediately takes remedial action to release chemicals to counter the stress. This happens throughout the body. Though one still goes to sleep, the body does not get enough rest. The brain  working in the background ensures that :)

The effect cannot be observed immediately but only the next day. The body and mind wake up with a hangover. Neither the  body  nor the brain have any idea of what happened the previous night. This is because the recuperating is a subconscious action. Side effects are there to see - mental and physical fatigue. Not enough energy to pull through the day. The more this process repeats itself, one risks severe health issues. On the other day, with a good night's sleep, you wake up fresh in body and spirit.

This hangover is a common phenomenon observed by many when we operate with very less energy throughout the day. We never look back and  realize its due to negative thoughts in the head the previous day. Instead we go looking for tonics and medicines. Rather than addressing the cause, address the symptoms.

In short, its not a great idea to take your worries, anxieties and negative thoughts to bed. I'm also not implying that one must think something very happy before sleeping. We face bad days quite often, so its not always very easy to dig up happy thoughts at the end of such days.

But, the least one can do is to go to bed with a blank mind.  After all, the body and mind needs rest.

That's why the saying goes 'Sleep Like a Baby'. No worries, no thoughts before sleeping.

Now I'm going to sleep like a baby

Good Night

- Kaushik

Hand la Glass, Glass la......

Most days that I'm back from work I get to spend some time alone. The mind being the entity which never rests, numerous thoughts appear:  The Good, Bad and the Ugly. So many thoughts. It almost becomes impossible to figure out the positive ones from the negative.

When such thoughts occur, there are always two choices, spend time with yourself or socialize. When you socialize, the mind engages itself in other activities, but the questions that have been presented by the mind remains unanswered. The questions don't fade away, but come back another day. 

When you listen to the inner voice, what you want may become clear. Other people may  or may not understand , but most important that  you  understand what you want.

You can listen from none other than yourself about what you want. More often, spending time alone is a great way  to take stock of what's going on in one's own life. It"s the window to reflect on the events of the past, present and the future. The mind gets the time to connect the dots, form patterns and  relationships between seemingly random events that occurred in life.

So the question ultimately boils down to whether you give enough time for yourself. More often than not, it helps :)

Good Night,

Kaushik

I changed my android keyboard!!!

Whenever I write blog posts from my android phone, the experience has only been harrowing to say the least. The punctuations don’t turn out right, the capitalization was all over the place, spelling errors etc.My woes were endless. Fixing of all these glitches turned out to be more time consuming than writing the post itself. As it turned out, I was using the Swype keyboard on android. I was making gestures on the touch screen, which were magically interpreted as words. Swype also accepted keystrokes like a normal touch keyboard, but so much I had gotten used to using gestures that I almost forgot that it was a normal keyboard too.

So much was the trouble using the keyboard that I was contemplating to either stop writing posts using my mobile or using an iPhone. So much for Blogging on the move!!!!

As always, I was lured towards the Apple. Started finding reasons why android sucked big time and why my new hobby (which is barely 10 posts old) has to be done only from an iPhone. But my geeky wisdom kept telling me that getting rid of my Android was not the best decision. The marketing geniuses at Apple too didn’t make things easier for me be pricing the iPhone a good 10K rupees higher than the international prices.

The dilemma existed for close to a week. Ultimately, I came to a sensible conclusion that a lot of people including myself could do a lot more with 40000 rupees than buy a new phone. 

I don’t burn cash, well... I don’t have an iPhone.

I had decided at last, the next task was to work my way around the typing woes on my phone.

The solution was simple; I just reverted back to the Stock Touch Keyboard.  My troubles came to an end. Swype keyboard is a wonderful concept. It worked great, accurate but it was limited to typing short messages, chat. Blogging, emails were entirely a different beast to deal with. The guy's at Google had built a good robust keyboard. Now I’m happy. I can blog happily from my phone and moreover didn’t burn 40K in cash. And I can wait for the iPhone 5 later this year ;-)

Quite often, you are stuck in a situation similar to the one above. Life does not go as per plan. Something which you do everyday is often a pain in the neck.  There’s an overwhelming urge to despise what you do, find more negatives against  nagging troubles and make THE BIG Change. The mind too convinces itself  that complete overhaul is  the one stop fix to all your woes. You’ll be tempted to  start over, do something new.

Most times, all it takes is a small change to fix what’s troubling you. A break, a holiday, few minutes in solitude, calming music, friends etc.. The list of the small changes you can make is endless. Not all the changes work for everyone, but there’s at least once change that will work for you.

Figuring out what works is by trial and experience. You can always seek a counsel. Bottom-line, the more you are open to making the small change, the more chances it will work. The key is “Willingness to experiment” with what works and what does not work.

Go for it, make the small change. Its the easiest way to fix nagging troubles.  Most often, things fall in place.

Enjoy the evening,

- Kaushik

Questions for a lifetime: Yes, You can fly !

Questions for a lifetime: Yes, You can fly !: There are these phrases that get us thinking. I consider those best that get us till the very nature of human existence. This one stayed wit...

When I went shopping...

Many years ago, I was on the way to a movie, with two of my friends. The movie hall was in the 5th floor. So we had to find our way through the mall, find an elevator and reach the cinema.

Despite the fact that we were running late, both my friends decided to do some shopping or just look around some stuff I must  say. I was quietly following them when suddenly both of them started moving towards opposite sections of the mall. Tried following, but it was impossible, both were running in opposite directions :-)

In the desperate yet impossible quest to  follow both of them, I almost ran into the pillar right ahead of me. Had, I run into the pillar I'd have looked like an idiot coz I tried to be in two places at the same time. Then, came my moment of realization. Never go shopping with two girls :-). I quietly cut the chase and went shopping on my own :) Once all of us were done with our own shopping, we regrouped for the movie.

Since then I made sure that the episode didn't occur again. But time and again I was required to be in two places at once or run behind two different goals at the same time . Later, this is what I figured out.

Often, we try to chase two targets though they are moving away from each other. In the almost impractical solution to chase both of targets, we forget about taking care of ourselves. This results in stress, loss of energy, unseen obstacles and sometimes even missing our own priorities.

It's important to realize such situations, take a step back and give some time to oneself. When one  slows himself down at such times,  mind and vision becomes clear. The  moment of realization presents itself. The mind invariably resorts to the most practical solution. After all,  there's no point chasing two moving targets at the same time.

Happy weekend
-kaushik