Do you monitor your psychological diet?

Most of us are very conscious of the food we consume and try to monitor our diet based on our age, health goals, or doctor's recommendations. We know that the type of food we consume has a direct effect on our physical health. The origin of many serious diseases can be traced to our dietary habits, this forces us to be a responsible consumer of food. But how many of us pay equal attention to our psychological diet? How many of us are even conscious about the type of food we feed to our minds? It should not come as a shock to anyone that the type of content we feed to our brain directly affects our thinking and in turn affects our behavior. Our personal and social life is affected by what we think and hence our psychological diet matters a lot in determining our social health. So, why don't we pay attention to our psychological diet, and if we want how we can monitor our psychological diet?

The first problem is that we can't see or feel thoughts like we feel other tangible things like the food we consume or gadgets we buy. When we eat food we can smell it, feel it, taste it and these factors can dictate whether we like that food or not. It is true that information also comes in different flavors, we do reject or accept some information or thoughts just based on their source, but such behavior is normally associated with some strong religious or cultural emotions. But in today's era, we are bombarded with information, it is continuously fed to us through different outlets like social media, online news, and other traditional sources (like books and print media). We hardly get any time to scrutinize them before consuming them as we receive them on our newly "acquired organ" called a cellphone. This is where lies the rub. On one hand, it is great that if we want we can receive a lot of information from different sources, but at the same time, these platforms guess our habits, likes, and dislikes and can channel only particular types of information toward us (welcome to the world of Artificial Intelligence). Most of the information we receive, especially on social networks, we have no clue from where it is coming or how authentic it is.

When we know that the type of information we consume shapes our thinking shouldn't we be more careful to verify the content or check the reliability of the source of that information before allowing it to become part of our intellect and sharing it with others? Getting to know every side of any issue is necessary and getting information from different sources may help us to look at the same issue with many different angles. But unfortunately, this is not what people are doing. These social media networks and groups are designed in such a way that people receive the same type of information from many unverified and unreliable sources. When this information gets validated by their idols (politicians, celebrities) who also get that information from the same unverified sources, it becomes a fact for that group. So, the lies not only get perpetuated openly but also go unchecked and get consumed as facts. It seems every group, political leader, or political party has its own set of facts, the same way as every religion has their own set of facts about its own book or messiahs. This is not a very healthy situation for any society.

When people stop caring about the quality of their personal diet society suffers from a serious public health crisis. In the same way, when people are careless about their psychological diet society starts suffering from various social and intellectual issues like political and racial polarization. If you are interested in preserving the good psychological health of your community, monitor the quality of your psychological diet, verify the information before you consume it, and see the effect. Our mental health is as important as our physical health. Remember, responsibility always starts with us, be responsible and share the information responsibly.    

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

Superstitions - Being possessed by deity

Being possessed by some deity, devi (goddess), evil, or God is one very common superstition. Once it was very rampant all over the world, many women got killed because people suspected them of being a witch. This belief is still present in some parts of rural India (as well as in some parts of cities also), Andhashradha Nirmoolan Samiti (ANS) defines this act as follows,

 "Being possessed by a ‘Deity’ ‘Devi or ‘Dev Angat Yene’ (in Marathi): During this condition, the individual completely transforms his or her expression and behavior (personality) to resemble some abnormal individual or a deity. The person is then supposed (pretends) to be possessed by a deity during that period he behaves in a convincing manner making appropriate actions and sounds to appear as if he is in a trance and pretends to know answers to all questions posed to him or her by gullible devotees."

As I mentioned before, it would be very wrong to assume that this superstition was only present in parts of India, but I personally witnessed it only in India that's why my views and opinions are exclusively based on these incidents. I used to see some women behaving in a very weird way on some days of the year. These days used to be some special days as per the Hindu calendar and it was believed that some goddesses used to possess these women, transforming them into some sort of proxy of those goddesses. Many people used to visit their homes with lots of queries and grievances. These people used to ask questions and this possessed woman used to provide answers. These questions covered a variety of topics, personal as well as social. Questions like: will my son get a particular job, when will my daughter get married, will there be enough rain this year to get a good crop, my daughter-in-law give birth to a baby boy or a girl. People used to ask anything and this possessed person used to give very brief answers. This question-answer process was very interesting and entertaining for me. I am sure no one bothered to check the accuracy of these answers, but they came every year to ask these questions. I have no idea how this superstition started, but I saw it in UP as well as Maharashtra (the two states where I lived in India).

My own grandmother also used to get possessed by some deity once a year. I mostly saw women being possessed by some deity, I am sure there were men also who suffered from this problem, but at least I didn't witness any such incident. As a kid, it was really scary for me in the beginning as these women, when possessed, really used to behave in a very strange manner, but slowly I realized that they were not going to harm me and I became more curious about these incidents. When I started doing some research about this I realized that this is a type of psychological problem. This problem can be cured with proper counseling and medical treatment, but hardly these people get any medical attention to manage this issue. The victims (like my grandma) and people around them all believed so much in the divine nature of this incident that they refused to accept that this was a medical issue. The victims used to get so much attention and importance that they also didn't feel that there was any problem with them and they should seek some medical advice to address it. After knowing all this I really started feeling very bad for all these people (including my grandma). I also realized that many people used to do these things knowingly or unknowingly to seek that extra attention and respect that they never used to get during their normal lives. I think this is why I saw mainly women suffering from this problem as their status in the family or in society hardly gave them any authority, but this phenomenon used to give them a chance to be a dictatorial authority at least for a day every year. I am glad to see that now these incidents have reduced significantly, there are still some isolated incidents but largely this practice is gone for good. I hope that if anyone finds someone in their family or friend circle suffering from this problem they seek proper medical help to address this issue as this is a curable condition. Superstitions should be challenged and eliminated not respected and preserved as a part of culture.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. http://antisuperstition.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=145

Depression is real and it hurts, let's talk about it

Recently I watched this very interesting discussion on NDTV where famous Hindi movie actress Deepika Padukone and her mom discussed the problem of depression that Deepika faced very recently. In this discussion, they touched on various topics associated with mental health, including the huge stigma or taboo associated with discussing such issues openly in many societies. The stigma associated with any type of mental issues is so huge that not only society but the families and many times people themselves who suffer from such problems refuse to accept that there is any such problem and as a result, many people suffer silently. Depression is not uncommon, it is more common than we think. Most of us have to deal with it at some stage of our lives. I think depression and anxiety are two of the most common mental health issues that almost every one of us goes through the only difference is to what extent they affect our day-to-day life. Many of us live our entire lives trying to battle with these problems, we are so scared about what people might think about us that we don't even mention these issues to anyone, not even our close ones.

I think we need to accept one thing first, mental health-related issues like depression and anxiety are common, and they affect many people, so, it is better to acknowledge this and talk about them without any reservations. Today's high-pressure, fast, and somewhat isolated lifestyle has made all of us more prone to face these issues. It is not that people from previous generations never faced any such problems but maybe they never had proper platforms to discuss and debate any such issues, fortunately, we have such platforms and we should make good use of them. When I was in India I always thought that having a mental health issue meant something very shameful and one should try as much as possible to hide these things, this is what I was taught. I have seen many families (including my own) trying to hide any such issues even from people within the family because they think that if people know about this thing their family will get a bad reputation and society might look differently to all members of their family. This fear and concern is often reaffirmed by the very negative attitude of society towards mental health-related issues.  

Without proper knowledge of any issue, it is very dangerous to react just based on some common perceptions, this is what happens all the time in this case. Mental health issues are like any other health issue, people facing such issues need the same type of attention, support, and medical care that others facing any nonmental health problem. We don't consider people having flu or cold or cancer or diabetes or high blood pressure weird and crazy, we don't socially boycott them. We don't treat them with contempt or act like something is wrong with them, so, why do many of us react differently when we see someone who is going through depression or panic attacks or some other mental health issue? First of all, we need to remove this stigma, this is the biggest hurdle in dealing with this issue. Let's accept that we all (or most of us) face some degree of mental health issues, therefore, we all need to work towards getting rid of this stigma which has done more harm than good for our society. Sooner we learn to talk about mental health-related issues without any bias or prejudice better for all of us. Mental health issues are real and people suffering from it don't need prejudice, stigmatization, or sympathy. They need everyone's support, acceptance, and unbiased medical as well as social treatment. Let's hope that we as a society can come out of our own mental weakness and learn to accept that mental health issues are like other health issues, there is nothing special or weird about them.

Thanks for reading and please share your views on this topic.

[Copyright: Vinay Thakur. Please contact the author for re-posting or publishing]

Links:
1. 'I Felt Empty And Directionless': Deepika Padukone on Her Battle With Depression
2. Read The Heart-Wrenching Open Letter To Deepika Padukone