Health, Happiness and Humanism

Three Aspects of Love : Romanticism, Sensuality and Sexuality

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sun, 03 Jun 2012 04:31:00 +0000

A reproduction compatible man-woman relationship involving emotions of the two is called ‘love’ between them, with three aspects – romanticism, sensuality and sexuality. Here is a comparative study of these three with differences thereof. These three aspects exist in human relationships only while in most other forms of life, only sexuality exists just for reproduction purposes. Some life forms displaying family ties have sensuality also in their relationships. But romanticism is totally absent in all other forms of life except the humans.

This speciality of romanticism in humans over other forms of life takes root from the highly evolved intellect humans have, absent in other forms of life. Sexuality being a bodily function is found in all forms of life having tangible bodies. The wisdom which exists in some forms with different evolution levels is responsible for the sensuality aspect in the relationship. Thus, intellect, wisdom and physiology, functions of brain, mind and body, respectively, are responsible for these three aspects of relationship, respectively.

Romanticism

Every phenomenon has a reason behind, so is true for romance too. With a relationship not limited to reproduction, another reason for it is the environment and its variations. Mood swings of humans with favourable variations in environment give birth to romanticism in the relationship between two intellectuals even without physical closeness between them. They feel intellectually close to each other and sway themselves with romantic feelings for each other.

All romantic literary compositions are created under favourable environmental factors within framework of a relationship between two love partners. Virtual relationships developed through Internet connectivity thrive on romanticism until the partners meet physically. Through romantic interactions, a loving relationship can sustain for long even without a physical contact, being a pure platonic love.

Sensuality

Sensuality in a relationship is related to physical sensitivity of the bodies and works through touches, kisses, etc which is carried over to a feeling of closely related to each other, even though the relationship may have no sexuality or possibility of reproduction. I know a married couple in deep love with each other but without any sexual interactions for 17 years. The love thrived on sensuality of the two for each other.

Sensuality provides permanency to the relationship with familial ties and affinity. It extends beyond reproduction-compatible men-women couples and goes to thrive all other relationships in the living-beings like in between father/mother and children, siblings, friends, etc. Thus, sensuality is a common factor behind all family and social relationships.

Sexuality

Sexuality is an instinctive element in each living-being for continuance of its own form of life through reproduction. Thus, it is a wild beastly act even in humans carried over by them from their wild past and essential for continuance of human life on the Earth.

Thus, the whole spectrum of compatible man-woman relationship is composed of romance gifted and facilitated by environment, sensuality promoted within four walls of familial ties, and sexuality for reproduction. A relationship may begin with any one aspect of these, but gradually percolates to the two other aspects too to become full-fledged.

Basic question that comes to my mind is that whether a single-dimension man-woman love relationship can survive for long without the need of other two dimensions of it. The question as well as its answer is a complex puzzle for resolution. As far as full-fledgedness of the relationship is concerned, it can’t exist without all the three dimensions. Sexuality in itself is not a relationship but only a means of procreation and it is not limited between a man and a woman but between any man and any woman, thus does not qualify to be called a relationship. It is just a physical instinctive lust.

Sensual relationships are visible all around with no element of romance, but even this doesn’t thrive without sexuality. Sensuality needs familial tie and the family evolves through sexuality only. Sensuality disciplines the sexual relationship from straying. Romanticism evolves and exists in the deepest layer of heart of the persons, and once evolved, may survive even without the need of sensuality or sexuality. It is a pious tie of two intellectuals.

Misdirected Objectives of Medical Services

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 01 Jun 2012 23:22:00 +0000

Medical Services

Current objectives of medical services are to cure the sick to live long with the aim that everybody taking birth finds longevity too. With centuries of faithful implementation of these objectives, great advancements have been made in curing diseases and extend average longevity of the global humanity. As consequences of these objectives of medical services, what we have achieved are enumerated below –

Infant mortality rate has come down, more of those take births are surviving,
Sick persons of all ages are surviving for longer periods of time,
These consequences have led the world to the following syndromes –
More of dependent children than the productive adults,
More and more of old, disabled and unproductive persons surviving on medical aids to them,
Overpopulated globe beyond management,
Escalation to problems of hungry bellies in-spite of increased food production even with unethical and unhealthy production techniques for high production,
Damage to eco-system by overpopulation and unethical production techniques,
Ever new diseases raising their heads needing more investments on medical researche and development,
Deteriorating average health condition of global humanity

All these indicators prove that the humanity is gripped in vicious cycles of diseases and cures and overpopulation with a blow to its desired progress. We must rethink on where we have gone wrong.

The Nature’s Designs on Population

Nature doesn’t care for the sick and weak, and let all those taking birth are left to fend for themselves to survive with application of ‘survival of the fittest’ rule ruthlessly. As a result, many taking birth perish in their infancy for failing to bear the wraths of the tough mother Nature, only the tough survive. This makes the mortality rate during childhood very high with tapering down with advancement of age. Unnecessary burden of taking care of sick children by the healthy thus goes off naturally.

With proceeding on age, those falling sick on the way go on perishing with only the healthy and productive people forming the youthful energetic society. Deaths under aging factor begins after a matured age is arrived at, thus, cleansing off the society of all those aged and unproductive. This enhances the death rate at old age.

The result of high death rates in childhood and old age are that the human society remains youthful and productive all the time naturally, without needing any cures for the sick, disabled and unproductive. This working of nature keeping the society productive and youthful is graphed in the picture.

Humanism – individual to Humanity level

Overpopulated Globe

Why do we care for the sick, disabled and unproductive? The undisputable answer would be ‘to be humane’ to the needy. This is highly erratic strategy and can’t be called humanistic for its being purely individualistic. We are caring for individuals – sick and unproductive, to put their burden of survival on all those healthy and productive. In the process, we are carrying a huge burden of unproductive sick children and aged persons and overpopulating the globe. Human society has become, by and large, unproductive, incapable and sick. Thus, in the name of humanism for the individuals, we are working against humanism for the whole humanity on the globe.

If the medical services, instead of curing diseases and caring for the sick, disabled and unproductive persons, work for better health of energetic, youthful and productive, we will be serving the humanism and global ecology in a much better and healthier way. This is what logic states and we need not be emotional about working against the humanity and the humanism in overall terms.

Boost up Your Love Life

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Thu, 31 May 2012 22:42:00 +0000

All living beings have instinctive sexual desires with the main purpose of reproduction. The humanity over the globe discovered two more reasons for sexual interactions –

Satisfaction of Emotional Love, and
Pleasure of sex-play

With these discoveries, natural instinctive reproduction was also regulated through artificial means such as contraceptives etc, to provide a prime importance to physical pleasure and emotional satisfaction out of the sex-play. These are found to strengthen and enrich intellect of the persons, the superior-most asset of humanity over other forms of life.

Sex-play, apart from boosting intellect, drains vital energy of the bodies of those involved in a sex-play. This drain is more in quantity and quality for males than that for females. Therefore, continuance of sex-play requires regular compensation of the loss of vitality to the body in the form of nutrition through intake of foods. Reality of modern humanity is that it is drained out of its libido - the sexual desire and energy, of the body, through routine stresses of competition and bad working styles and environment for most of the people. Unreal commercial displays of libido are awakening desires in the people to be as sexually energetic as displayed in the commercials, creating a huge demand of ways and means of boosting libido. To meet this demand, enough research has been done and more is being done on ways of boosting libido. Here are a few suggestions for the boost.

If there is one thing that humanity can boast of improving continuously on its progressive march, it is the speed of working. We have moved from bullock-carts to spacecrafts age, from manual logging of events to computerized data processing. Speeds of operations are thus improved to millions of times in about last 3 centuries of scientific progress. This is one factor which has been working as the biggest drain on human libido.

Slow Down

Sex-play involves long leisurely hours of love-making which the modern progressive humanity can hardly afford. Therefore, pleasure of sex-play has become out of bounds for the progressive humanity eating away its libido. These losses of pleasures and libido are not only habitual but have become genetic too over a few generations of progressive societies. This is well evidenced by frequent wars for the display of libido about 500 years back in the human history while none bothers for it today. Therefore, the first lesson on boosting libido is to come down on speed as far as family life of an individual is concerned. Have the pleasure of love-making in a leisurely way through reserving all the nightly hours for a full-fledged session.

Rediscover the Desire Element

The libido is not restricted to sexual desire but also involves vitality – the life force critical to overall health and well-being. Sexual desire on satiation provides pleasure that boosts health and well-being, hence vitality. But its remaining unfulfilled creates mental stress that eats away vitality. Therefore, for containing vitality depends on how one handles his/her desires. Either have a lifestyle not to have sexual desire, or satiate the desire with free mind for long hours of sexual pleasures. Diverting attention to intellectual activities helps in regulating sexual desire to a great extent.

For a fulfilled lifestyle, isolate your family life from the speedy working environment and slow it down to fuel your sexual desire and its satiation.

Cultivate your Sex drive

Whatever be your age, having vitality and sexual gratification is your right through regulating and giving physical dimension to your sexual desire. A feel of sensuality and its satiation is a great way of having the feel of being in the prime of life at any age. Give yourself a right in this regard.

Satiation of sexual desire has positive contributions at physical as well as at emotional level. At physical level, it balances blood pressure, strengthens immune system and promotes release of feel-good chemical dopamine. At emotional level, it calms down temperament and sparks to promote intimacy in relationships taking the libido beyond the bedroom.

The first casualty of sex drive takes place in feeling shy about discussing sex even with a general obsession for it. Since it is a health issue, we must be able to discuss it like we discuss our food ingredients and habits. Posing as a puritan in the face of sexual obsession adds to physical and mental health complications.

Hormonal Balance

All health issues including dried up libido are caused by hormonal imbalances, restoration of which is essential for overall health and being active again on libido front. This requires clinical tests on what you need to add to your diet and what subtract. But beware of cures through drugs, these may have side effects and may be risky. Go for a rich diet of whole grain foods, fruits and vegetables, etc to get everything you need in natural form. If you like milk, go for goat milk.

Adrenal fatigue which develops by remaining down for long time need be taken care of first before rich-dieting. At the root of every health problem is the digestion malfunctioning. Take care of it with priority.

Sync your Brain-Mind-Body

Synchronization of brain, mind and body begins with conduct sync of thoughts, words and acts. Be honest and truthful to yourself and to others to get a moral boost up. That would improve your strength of character and boost up your happiness to have a telling impact on your health. Finally,Vipassana may help in the sync.

Throw Away Stresses

Career or professional ambitions and bad relationship with the life partner are major causes of stressed lifestyle. See if you can tame down your stresses through readjustments in yourself, or go for radical changes. Career or professional achievement can’t be more important than your health, wealth can’t provide you the joys of life. Give top priority to your health and relationships.

In case of a relational problem, don’t succumb too much to carry on a bad relationship. Throw it out if need be to start afresh with someone more compatible. It is never too late for a new beginning.

Rekindle your Sensuality, Sexuality would follow

Sensuality is basically being sensitive to others particularly to the partner for the sweetness of the relationship. Conversely, sexuality is having sex without bothering about the sweetness of the relationship. This aberration develops when we avoid being pragmatic or live under stresses. So, focus on the sweetness of the relationship, the much needed healthy sexuality would come up naturally.

About sex, whatever desire comes to your mind, talk it out with your partner without suffocating that in your mind. Sexual pleasure is your natural right and there is no restrains needed on this front. You may be wild beast for enjoying yourself, but with the consent of your partner.

Conscious Realization of Joy under Routine Situations

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 28 May 2012 22:44:00 +0000

Joy

Life, in itself, is not a fun for the multitude of problems faced by humanity as a whole and by individuals in their routine lives. Other side of this coin, called life, is taking things lightly for their being beyond one’s control, therefore, without worrying for the problems all around, look for pick up moments of small pleasures, like smile of a child, and realize them as gifts of human life. In essence, joy may be realized by everybody in his/her routine ways of life. Psychologists have found ways of how an ordinary person may have feelings of happiness. For this, some conscious efforts by the person are recommended.

Enjoy Goodness in Others

The society, by and large, is led by selfish persons and compromising with them is not acceptable for any person devoted to human morality. But the whole society is not composed of such persons only, there are innocent children comprising about 30 percent of population, there are poor helpless persons making up to 20 percent of the population, and may more such groups of people who are not bad. A seeker of real joy must get pleasures in the company and improving strength of these people instead of cursing those responsible for all the social evils. So, instead of seeking goodness in all, seek good people for having the pleasures of their company.

Have Breaks in Busy Schedules

Those who keep on chasing money, fame, authority, vices, etc, without knowing any limits thereof, fail to enjoy life. Relaxation is the key to joy. Persons are not busy because they had to be like that for natural reasons, but for reasons of their misplaced goals and erratic working. In 1976, when I took over as head of a department in a manufacturing unit, I found many bundles of pending papers on the desk accumulated by the previous head for his indecisive nature. These took 3 days of mine for disposal, rightly or wrongly, and then, as a rule, every incoming matter was disposed of on the same day with no pending papers on my desk. This released a lot of my time for concentrating on real issues of improving productivity. Everybody around had a sigh of relief, and I used to find enough time for relaxing and focusing of critical matters. Subordinates were enthused to take responsibilities and perform batter.

Relax

A friend of mine has invited me to Australia for a change. I don’t have much of money to survive there and she promised me for getting some work for earning money there. I told her that I would like to work for only 2 hours a day to earn just enough for my survival, rest of the time shall be reserved for enjoying. Conversely, my brother on retirement from a government job with a hefty monthly pension wept bitterly for losing Rs 35,000 a month by retirement. To satisfy his lust for money, he has opened a shop where he keeps busy from 9 am to 12 midnight, earns a lot, and is quite happy now. This example of two of us underlines two diametrically opposite philosophies of life. People’s opinion may differ on these, but everyone would support that the joy of life is in relaxing and enjoying.

Enhance your Self-esteem

Honour of any kind is always a source of joy for everyone, but it can’t be obtained forcefully. A person’s good deeds, if recognized by others, the person, are honoured. The sure test of a deed being good is that the person him/herself feels proud of enhancing his/her self-esteem. Self-esteem is also the seed of earning honour from others. So, for having joy, one must aim at enhancing self-esteem , everything else including the joy would follow.

Converse to this, disrespect of the self by others as well as by the self hurts the person and robs him/her of all the joys of life, leading to a bad mood when nothing can be enjoyed. Therefore, avoidance of such situations and persons is the best remedy as one can’t cure all the maladies of the world filled with nasty people and made up of nasty situations. Limit your involvement to a select group of people and situations that boost your self-esteem, the source of all the joys of life for an individual.

Move out of Fatal Fate to Self-controlled Destiny

Victory is a great cause of joy for everyone. The concept of fate, designed by enemies of humanity to degrade it, develops the mentality of defeat and dependence on somebody unknown, making matters of life to appear beyond one’s own control. This mental syndrome of being dependent and defeated may be cured by moving on to the destiny concept wherein the person decides on his/her destination and make efforts to make his/her destiny.

Joy of being in control of the self and source of the decision, small or big, is a matter that provides much needed boost to personality and the joy of it all. Be the doer by yourself.

Diffuse Worries

Every worry is more in the mind than in the body. When feeling worried, sit calmly to consider the source of the worry, and keep on moving deeper and deeper until you reach the primary source itself. With the thoughts moving on the worry surface and probing it deeply, the worry gets dissolved or resolved. Its thought dominates you until you are afraid of it. When you face it boldly, it gets diffused.

Recall Happy Moments

Have a close look at a smiling child and imagine when you were at that stage. How happy you were. Recall your first intimate interaction with your beloved/lover, how pleasure-full was that point of climax. Being a father/mother for the first time and looking at the infant for the first time,... wOw, how amazing. Such moments are innumerable in everybody’s life suppressed under routine loads of work, miseries, ambitions, struggles.

Free yourself from the routine for a few moments daily to recall and enjoy your moments of joy. You will notice of having more opportunities of enjoying such joys within your routines too. Today, while I was travelling in a public bus full of passengers, a child jumped on me from his mother’s lap on my looking at him with a familiar smile and a slow whistle.

Record Happy Moments Deep in the Memory

Intensity of information recording in memory varies in direct proportion to the number of sensory and action organs involved in the event – source of the information. On listening to a melodious song, close your eyes and imagine yourself in enacting the words forming the song. A tasty food is not just for sliding down the throat but a source of joy through its look and presentation, its flavour and fragrance, its taste and nutrition, its provision of contentment, etc.. Enjoy every bit of events through maximum number of your organs.

Gov't okays adding magnesium to drink... JPost - Health & Science

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 28 May 2012 01:43:00 +0000

Netanyahu, Litzman launch pilot project to restore magnesium to drinking water that is lost in desalination.

Gov't okays adding magnesium to drink... JPost - Health & Science:

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The Super Spurious Food Ingredient : Sugar

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 25 May 2012 23:59:00 +0000

Sugar reaches our body in too many forms, and is harmful to health if the person is not having compatible physical activities to consume energy provided by the sugar. Most of the vegetables, fruits and whole grains have enough sugar in natural form enough for an average person. Therefore, any sugar taken with tea or coffee, sweet meats, beverages, processed foods, etc is superfluous to the body and damaging to health. The most dangerous sugar is white crystalline sugar used with foods for sweetening purposes, for its chemical contents added to it in manufacturing process. Another big sources of sugar are the foods rich in starch and carbohydrates such as cereals like wheat, particularly when used as refined flour form. The carbohydrates too get converted to sugar in the body and the sugar too is a form of carbohydrate.

While an average person needs only 10 teaspoons of sugar from all sources, the consumption pattern in USA is more than double of this. In India, the consumption is even higher. The results are increasing cases of obesity, diabetes and other health problems like hyperactivity particularly in children.

A heavy dose of sugar in diet, through refined sugar in sweet meats or the sweeteners used in junk foods and beverages, reduces efficiency of white blood cells and the effect continues for five hours. Since white blood cells are integrated to immune system of the body, the immune system remains paralyzed for these five hours after a feast on sugar-rich foods. Any invading virus during this duration becomes a victor easily.

Blood sugar Regulation

In the body, pancreas and adrenal glands work to regulate the blood sugar level. Whenever sugar in any form is consumed, it immediately reaches the blood streams in the form of glucose. At this, the pancreas make insulin to carry glucose to body cells for being used as energy, thus, lowering the blood sugar level. If this is too sudden, blood sugar level may go lower than the desired level, forcing the adrenal glands to release adrenal cortisone to bring the blood sugar to normal. If the sugar doses are frequent, pancreas and adrenal glands may have to overwork leading to physical disorders such as early menopause, adult-onset diabetes, hypoglycemia, chronic fatigue etc.

Basic purpose of eating is to provide nutrients to the body but the sugar, in any form, is depleted of nutrition. When the sugar is eaten, it requires nutrition for metabolism which is drawn from the reserves in the body. When there are no reserves in the body, the body fails to metabolize fatty acids and cholesterol, leading to high cholesterol and triglyceride levels. Moreover, depleting body of its nutrition reserves means deficit of essential minerals in the body leading to immune deficiency. Diseases like depression, attention deficit, asthma, etc may attack such a body depleted of nutritional reserves.

Junk Foods

Nutritionally void junk foods like candy, corn syrup and highly processed foods like superfine wheat flour used in white breads, etc. Are rich in sugars or get converted to sugars and deplete the body of its reserves making the person to develop chronic diseases. Foods rich in natural ingredients like whole grain legumes, vegetables and fruits provide enough of everything the body needs, particularly the minerals, vitamins, fibre and proteins. As a general rule, just avoid or minimize carbohydrates in your food for leading a healthy and happy life.

Necessity of Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 18 May 2012 21:42:00 +0000

Cooking Food

Cooking of hard foods on fire is an age old tradition, to improve palatability and digestibility of food. Palatability of food is mainly improved by addition of spices and fats in the food which get easily mixed up and absorbed in the food through cooking. All food items used by humans are not digestible in raw form for their having stabilizing substances as natural preservatives of food items. These stabilizing agents get neutralized by cooking which may include boiling, roasting, burning, baking, warming etc. of the food.

Characteristically, all food items get softened by cooking making their disintegration into micronutrients easier during digestion process in gastrointestinal tract. More a food is stable, more inhibitors it has against disintegration more it needs cooking period and temperature, as a general rule. Food grains including cereals and pulses are the hardest food ingredients need more processing and cooking before eating than the fruits which are the softest foods directly digestible by living-beings. In digestibility, vegetables fall in between food grains and fruits. Animal flesh as food items also need cooking essentially for improving their digestibility and palatability.

Another great way of improving digestibility of cereals is to sprout them and then steam them a little with addition of some vegetable oil, salt and other spices to improve palatability of the grains.

Food grains have three components – bran, germ and kernel in them. While bran and germs have a great variety of micronutrients in them essential for human body, the starchy kernel principally provides bulk to the food and the most difficult to digest. Cereals are surpassed in proteins and many essential phytonutrients by pulses, nuts and seeds. Therefore, traditional presence of cereals may easily be eliminated from human food if substituted by adequate amounts of pulses, nuts and seeds, thus reducing the need of cooking. However, whole grains such as quinoa, amaranth, millet, oats, barley, rye, buckwheat, kamut, and spelt can provide a variety of nutrients in concentrations and can be substituted to traditional consumption of wheat. Wheat is one of the hardest grains needing a lot of preprocessing – grinding to flour form, baking of loaves, before human consumption.

Although food-grains and meats have been in human diet since the humans developed agriculture to produce them about 2500 years back, recent researches indicate that these should find a minimum proportion in human food from health point of view which puts stress on consumption of green vegetable and fruits for their richness in phytonutrients - dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, etc. The food grains are needed in food for supplying proteins to the body essential for growth.

Uncooked yet Healthy

From digestibility point of view, fats are the hardest food items which are also essential for growth. In addition, fats enhance palatability of the food, hence have a popular role as a food ingredient. Excess of fats proves detrimental to health for reducing digestibility of food and adding unnecessary fat to the body. Fats in the body work as storehouses of energy for emergency purposes when the body may be required to survive without food in contingencies.

Astonishingly, fatty oils as food items don’t need any cooking for their digestibility. On the contrary, cooking damages their natural taste and nutrition value. Cooking, however, mixes fats with other food ingredients making them more palatability than before.

In pre-agriculture human history, the stress was on non-cultivated vegetable foods such as seeds, nuts, seeds, berries, tubers, roots, leaves, etc obtainable from a variety of plants and trees. These are still valued as important constituents of human food and many of these don’t need any cooking before consumption.

Where Does My Help Come From? « Godless Living

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:35:00 +0000

Where Does My Help Come From? « Godless Living:

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The Only Way to Win a Relationship

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 15 May 2012 00:07:00 +0000

Neither opposites nor similar attract each other for establishing and keeping a relationship. It is the complementary statuses of both for each other bring them closer and keep them in a lifelong relationship. Being a complementary for someone else may be a natural gift for some persons and when he/she finds such a person close-by, mutual attraction is the natural outcome for a lifelong relationship. But in a densely populated and complicated world, finding a natural complement is highly improbable, therefore, development of relationships between two complements in a natural way is a rare thing while each of us needs to be in a relationships with others to have a wholesome social life. This makes it imperative for each of us to find a complementary person for being in a relationship. This is best achieved by a person through becoming a complement for someone targeted for the relationship.

Mutual needs

Becoming a complement for someone is neither easy nor possible in all cases of a desired relationships. Being a complement too has some preconditions between the two to be checked up for trying a relationship. The most important of these preconditions are that the two should be compatible to each other in age, built-up and tastes for life. Secondly, the two should have similarities in their mental make-ups except a few differences that make the complement to each other. Once these preconditions are ascertained, one has to make efforts to be the complement of the other if not already. For this, he/she is required to find out what are a few deficiencies and differences in the other with respect to him/herself, and whether he/she is mentally prepared to complement these with strengths of him/herself.

I take an example for explaining the concept of complementing. Let us say there is a woman who is highly sensuous and a man who is cold about sexuality, but not impotent. The two persons would be complement to each other if most of their other traits match. In fact of practical life, the woman’s high sensuality need be tapered off while coldness of the man need be wiped off. These may be achieved only if the two have other similarities and live in togetherness. Then only, the two would compromise on their sexualities for the sake of the other.

Complementing each other's Wants and Needs

A relationship can’t be established if both are not willing for it and are not ready to make sacrifices for the relationship in the way of complementing for each other’s deficiency. A relationship fails, even if the two desire it, if anyone does not have deficiency for being filled by the other person. In a case in my thorough knowledge, a man and a woman love each other but the two fail in establishing the relationship because the two fail to realize their respective deficiency to be filled by the other. Both feel to be self-reliant hence, don’t need each other, though both have their own weaknesses for loving each other.

A condition for establishing a relationship is the needs of the two and an assurance that the other would satisfy the need. Unless such a need is realized and the satisfaction is assured, the two won't come close to each other.

Differentiating Persuasion from Assertion

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 11 May 2012 11:38:00 +0000

In our routine life, we, on most of the occasions, either involve in persuasion or assertion on our viewpoint depending on whether we feel weak or strong as compared to the other person. In persuasion, we try to make the other person agreeable to our viewpoint, while in assertion we try to force our viewpoint on the other. While a persuasion is done using logical reasoning to support the viewpoint, in an assertion, we try to use our authority over the subject matter to make the other person agreeable to the viewpoint. Thus, persuasion is more humane than an assertion as it provides liberty to the other person to agree or not. In an assertion, the efforts are continued until the other person agrees thus leaving no option for him/her to disagree.

An assertion becomes easily effective if it has the support of logical reasoning thus an element of persuasion may be included in an assertion. Conversely, in a persuasive effort, things become easy if the other person is convinced of our authority on the subject matter and fears an assertion if he/she is not persuaded. In-spite of this, result of a persuasion depends on the other person while that of an assertion depends on the asserting person him/herself.

Neuro-linguistic programming, with a set of powerful practices, such as assertion and persuasion, for facing others with confidence, is important for self growth. Such practices, though fake at sometimes, help in motivation of the person to a level higher than his/her present level. For this a number of neuro-linguistic programming techniques are discussed on a user-friendly site about ‘job motivation’.

Practicing Happiness

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:41:00 +0000

Religious and spiritual preachers tell the world that a person’s role in a performance is of no value, but he/she simply gets the credit for the performance by being just a media of what was slated for happening naturally. This also means that no one can be happy by his own designed performances and practices, but it is predestined to come to some individuals through divine grace. This is how the cunning anti-social elements degrade value of working from human minds to make everyone a domain, non-performer and submissive to psychologically, economically and politically rule over them. Thus, all religions have political designs behind them.

The fact of life is that happiness does not come just by expecting it through divine grace, but one has to perform for getting it and practice it in his/her routine life. Thus, happiness is not resulted by a particular lifestyle itself but is a lifestyle for an individual.

Illusion of Seeking Happiness

Happiness remains elusive to all those who seek it through other means like wealth, professional successes, life coaches, etc but is easily achievable to those who directly practice it every moment of their lives. It is not attached to a result to be achieved at some point of time later, but is the proess itself to be adopted in life right now.

Happiness is not a philosophy, art of living, spiritual practice, religious following, etc but is a pure science of living naturally and is the subject matter of the greatest of human sciences – psychology. To sum up, happiness is not a physical act but a mental process and the seeker is needed to practice it all the time of his/her life.

The most scientific definition of happiness is ‘a chain of emotional experiences of a pleasant and purposeful life’. These experiences can’t be cultivated through artificial means but are realizable through seeking while living naturally. For this, a shift in psychological focus from seeking to realizing it is all that is required of an individual.

Playing the Role

Happiness is not a social phenomenon but is an individual’s emotional experience. The greatest cause of losing happiness is ignoring what is available and looking for what is unavailable. While on an average, people have much more things needed for leading a happy life than those for which they are deprived of. Once a person decides to be happy under all circumstances, he/she needs nothing more to be happy.

At the core of every person, independence forms the greatest cause of happiness while the greatest cause of unhappiness – dependence on others, arises only when a person desires to have more than what he/she naturally have through his/her independent resources. And the greatest of these independent resources is one’s hard-work to fulfil his/her needs of life.

In the global humanity, more persons fell sick for worrying for not having enough sound sleep than for not getting the sleep itself. The body demands and acquires sound sleep in accordance to its natural needs. In most of the cases, not getting sleep means the body is not needing it. Therefore, it should not be a cause of worrying and being unhappy. Similarly, more persons are worried for not being happy than those really not happy.

Principle of an action evoking a complementary reaction is the universally applicable and unbridgeable phenomenon. Therefore, one can be contented with playing his/her earnest role in a given situation directed towards the objective. The result would follow in accordance to the efforts made. Worrying for the result or for not getting it as desired is not going to help in any way.

Baseline Happiness

Happiness is a way of life of some people practicing it continuously. Those who think of being happy on getting something never achieve happiness because as soon one desired thing is achieved by them, another demand raises its head to postpone the awaited happiness. The happiness realized continuously is called baseline happiness because it is spotted with transient pleasures and pains as life moves like a stream through positive and negative events, but the baseline happiness continues without getting much affected by the transients.

It is this happiness one must acquire as a way of life irrespective of good and bad events passing through. Such happiness is created by choices, attitudes and thoughts of a person affecting his/her quality of life, thus sowing seeds of happiness in more lives.

Necessity of Cooking Food

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 07 May 2012 11:40:00 +0000

Baking of Loaves in Indian Villages

Three Health-promoting Seeds

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 04 May 2012 19:20:00 +0000

All seeds are characterized by a hard protective coat on the surface which is rich in minerals, fiber and often indigestible substances. Their endosperm are rich in fats, hence difficult to digest. Therefore, seeds are difficult to digest but rich in nutrients. For this reason, these are often crushed to fine paste or powder or chewed thoroughly to ease the digestion process.

The digestion process involves two main activities – regular flow of bowl through the digestion tract and breaking down of food into micronutrients through chemical reactions. The bowl movement is facilitated by presence of fiber in the food while breaking down into nutrients needs addition of chemicals to the food. These chemicals are saliva in the mouth while chewing, acid in the stomach and bile in intestines. These additions are ensured only when the body is well prepared and attentive to the process of digestion with knowledge about type of food to provide the desired chemicals. This also needs enough chewing of the food in small portions with full enjoyment in a relaxed mood.

Since seeds are already rich in fats, their roasting in oils during preparation make them more difficult to digest. Their soaking in water until softened, crushing and chewing are highly recommended. For some seeds, steam cooking or dry roasting may be necessary.

Most of the seeds are rich in fiber and this richness is higher in small seeds like flaxseeds and chia seeds than the large ones like sunflower and pumpkin seeds. Flaxseeds contain 3 gm of fiber in each tablespoon, while the same amount is available in twice the amount of Almonds. This makes smaller seeds to help in regular bowl movement, but their chewing and breaking down into micronutrients is more difficult and many small seeds may pass through the digestive tract in their original form. Grinding of small seeds to fine paste form, often called seed/nut butter may be necessary for their full digestion but this curtails their shelf life to a maximum of two days if kept in a refrigerator.

Some popular seeds are profiled below for general reference –

Sesame seeds

The earliest oilseed known to humanity, sesame, is used in culinary and in traditional medicines for its nutritive value as well as preventive and curative properties against many diseases. The seed is rich in dietary fiber, omega-6 fatty acids, flavonoid phenolic anti-oxidants, vitamins and minerals. The seed is obtained from an annual herb Sesamum indicum of Pedaliaceae family, widely grown in India, Burma, China, Nigeria, Sudan and Ethiopia.

Sesame seeds are found in white, brown and black colors, of almost oblate shape having pleasant nutty flavour and high oil content of up to 40 percent by weight.

The seeds are rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acid oleic acid which helps in lowering bad cholesterol (LDL) and increase good cholesterol in the blood thus eliminating heart problems. The seeds are highly rich in dietary proteins (18 gm in 100 gm of seeds) essential for physical growth. Presence of sesamol and sesaminol make it an excellent anti-oxidant. B-complex vitamins, folic acid and many essential minerals – calcium, iron, manganese, zinc, magnesium, selenium and copper present in the seed make it one of the best curative and preventive food against many diseases.

Some persons are found to develop allergy with consumption of sesame seeds or oil, hence, a little precaution is needed is using these seeds.

Pumpkin seeds

Pumpkin fruit is one of the best vegetables on the earth having a long shelf-life when in ripe condition, and its seeds have both nutritional value and disease preventive and curative properties. Seeds are used to extract oil also and in some parts of central Europe, pumpkin is cultivated as the main oil seed crop. Seeds taken from fully ripe fruits have one edible kernels in each seed, which have a creamy nutty flavor. The hulled and roasted kernels are known as pepita in Central America and are widely enjoyed as a precious food item in desserts, as snacks and savory dishes.

Each 100 gm of pumpkin seeds provide about 559 calories for their having proteins and fats, apart from being rich in fiber, vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants. The seeds are rich in mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) like oleic acid, helpful in regulating blood cholesterol at optimum level.

Consumption of pumpkin seeds promote calmness of mind and sound sleep for their having some neuro-chemicals, therefore, known as the natural sleeping pills. Gutamate present in these seeds is used in synthesis of GABA, an anti-stress neuro-chemical. These seeds have good quality of enough proteins, amino acids, vitamin B-complex producing chemicals. Pepitas have richness in anti-oxidant vitamin E.

Further, these seeds contain essential minerals such as copper, manganese, potassium, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc and selenium. The richness of these seeds in manganese makes them to develop resistance against infections by the body through driving out harmful oxygen free radicals. Consumption of these seeds is found to cure prostate and ovarian cancers and prevent a kidney disease diabetic nephropathy.

Flaxseeds

Other names for flaxseed are linseed and Alsi (in Hindi) with Linum usitatissimum as its botanical name obtained from an annual herb flax plant. It is rich in fiber and mucilage - a gummy substance. Both of these swell up when coming contact with water, thus adding bulk to stool for smooth movement of the bowl through the gastrointestinal tract. For this reason, flaxseeds are used as a laxative too apart from its medicinal uses in curing many health problems. The seed contains oil rich in alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), an omega-3 fatty acid helpful in curing heart diseases, inflammation, arthritis and many other health problems.

Omega-3 fatty acid works in conjunction with omega-6 and omega-9 fatty acids which are found in olive oil. Therefore, flaxseed butter should be taken along with olive oil.

Raw and unripe flaxseeds are found to be poisonous hence should not be eaten. Further flaxseed substances function as estrogen in the body, therefore, women with diseases, who are pregnant or breast-feeding should avoid these seeds. Their use while the person is under medication is also not recommended without consulting a doctor.

Four Sources of Inspiration – Instincts, Genes, Intuitions and Logical Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Wed, 02 May 2012 03:52:00 +0000

Each of us gets inspired from any or many of the four sources of moulding our thoughts and hence directing us to act accordingly.

Instincts

Naturally designed attributes of life with the sole objective of continuity of life in the Cosmos are called ‘basic instincts’ and are survival and reproduction. These are common in all forms of life including all flora and fauna in the Cosmos. Subject of psychology so far is limited to these two instincts only, but I intend to go beyond these two instincts to include some basic traits of humans due to their particular evolution to be the highest form of life in the Cosmos.

I assert that ‘seeking comforts’ and ‘having curiosity’ are also instinctive attributes of humans leading them to keep on thinking for more comforts and probing newer horizons of knowledge – known as sciences. Incidentally and surprisingly, these two attributes work in opposite directions to each other but still coexist in all humans in different proportions. Apparently, seeking comforts leads to inactivity while curiosity leads to high level of activity. But in fact, these two attributes work as complementary to each other – seeking comforts leading to curiosity, and curiosity feeding the human search for comforts.

Genes

Genetic information inherited by each of us from our respective ancestors are another great source of thoughts of an individual. Even in siblings, these thoughts may vary widely putting a question mark on their genetic origin. The fact remains that each individual carries genetic information from all his/her ancestors of thousands of years, with some genes becoming more active than others, some may even be hyperactive while some others may be dormant. Genetic thoughts of a person are determined by active genes, leading to variation of thoughts even in siblings.

Intuition

Intuition is generally considered as a thought that evolves from within a person’s mind without any input from sensory organs. For this reason, it is often attached to Divine inspirations etc. I beg to strongly differ on this notion on intuition for the gross misuse of the term causing immense damage to human psyche. Intuition of a person is his/her natural response to a problem which springs up from the person’s mind based on what he/she has been taught of by his/her parents and society since his/her childhood. Since, these teachings remain deeply embedded in his/her mind, these spring-up subconsciously whenever their applicability is in sight of the person. For this, the person is not required to make any conscious efforts.

Logical Reasoning

Logical reasoning requires real human intellect while all the three other sources discussed above don’t need intellect and hence are not limited to humans only but are common to all animals on the earth. Therefore, logical reasoning is the only source of thoughts indicative of existence of human intellect in the person. A precondition of application of human intellect for logical reasoning is the person’s brain is free from instinctive, genetic and intuitive biases known as traditional beliefs. This freedom is often called ‘open-mindedness’ of the person.

Logical reasoning uses experiential information stored in the person’s memory and his/her analytical capability to arrive at a decision in any matter before him/her. This empowers the person with wisdom to act with discretion and is time-consuming exercise for the thinking process to complete and reaching a conclusion.

Analytical thinking or logical reasoning on one side originates from open-mindedness or freedom of thoughts of the person, on the other hand, it undermines his/her belief system and even causes disbelief not only in customs and traditions but also in scientific theories. With this disbelief, he/she tends to review everything he/she faces within his/her area of interest. This is the principal source of all the scientific developments and advancements in human civilization so far, hence, is the most precious asset of humanity.

Out of all the four, the first three need not much of conscious efforts by the person but come out in a natural way, due to natural or social reasons and cause outcomes accordingly. But the fourth type of thoughts – logical thoughts, need conscious efforts by the person which many of us consciously avoid and which human society, generally composed of conformists and those bound with traditions and orthodoxy, discourage us to do. This provides a special place in human evolution and history to analytical thinkers as bold, courageous pioneers of the humanity. These are always few in number but play vital role in evolution of human civilization and scientific developments.

The most glaring benefit of logical reasoning to humanity is in the field of morality. While instinctive, genetic and intuitive resources of a person may lead him/her towards immoral actions, the logical reasoning not only puts a question mark on immorality but also ensures maintenance of human ethics and morality.

Health and Happiness at Senior Age

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 06:06:00 +0000

It is a general presumption that physical fitness and cognitive health deteriorate as age advances of a person beyond 60. Based on this, many governments have fixed retiring age of their employees at 60. The main task of senior citizens is to fight out these presumptions and maintain physical fitness as well as cognitive health. And, with some interest in the matter, it is possible for everyone to win to different degrees through well designed strategies. Here are a few ways of achieving the desired goals.

In my village, old persons usually wear loose light coloured kurta-pyjama to display their seniority. I, at 64, have re-begun wearing colourful tee-shirt and contrasting trousers. This has changed people’s perception about me, and I too feel younger in the new attire.

Do, what can be done

Family circumstances during youthful days compel many of us trying to do what we can’t and leaving behind what we can easily do. The principal advantage of senior age is that children get settled and the person is free from compulsions of maintain a family. Still, maintaining the self is desirable for everyone whether the children support the senior person or not. Maintaining the self, particularly, at senior age is easy needing little money, provided the person maintains himself in good health. All crazes for selective food, clothing and shelter naturally end with arrival of seniority, if not these need be quenched for happiness at the senior age.

At this age, it is easy to be selective of the tasks to be performed. The selection should be based on a single criterion of what is possible in doing rather than struggling with impossibilities and great difficulties. Once you do a possible thing, the success provides happiness and this improves your performing efficiency and probably, you may feel that earlier consideration of impossibilities for some task may get eliminated by itself.

Arousal of old Passions and Dreams

Under family compulsions, a youth ignores doing what he/she is passionate about. At senior age, those things of individual’s passion may be taken up easily. Since the person has a passion for them, achieving success becomes easy, providing unbound happiness to the person. The principal purpose of doing something must be happiness that comes on its own when a person is able to pursue his long-neglected old dreams.

Maintaining Cognitive Health

Dementia is the usual thing during seniority of age but it may be fought with will for winning. There is a general rule as regards to one’s ability – ‘use it or lose it’. Dementia sets in because old persons don’t exert to remember things, such as telephone numbers of close friends and family members. Second thing is your acceptance of forgetting as natural fallout at seniority. If you conduct yourself as a youth, you feel the youthfulness and effects of aging keep themselves away from you.

Some more things to do to avoid deterioration in cognitive health are suggested below –

Keep busy with mental work, say thinking on some particular issue, even if doing something about the issue seems infeasible.
Play games like Sudoku, word puzzles, etc in your free time. But choose them with increasing difficulties day by day, to stretch your mental faculties.
Discuss in forums, formal or informal, about what you mental exercise - such as reading a book, you took up and what did you feel about the topic.
Avoid passive entertainments such as viewing television wherein you are not allowed to participate. Of course, current news may be watched to remain updated.
Take up new studies on topics of your interest and try to do some research into the subject.
To maintain memory, try to associate information with some unrelated matter. Through this, you will be able to remember both the things with the help from each other. For example, a person with name Sukhdev (meaning happy lord) looks unhappy and miserable by face.
Maintain yourself and your obligations, such as paying your bills, without leaving them on others to keep yourself well-engaged with life as a responsible person.
Be open-minded in listening to others’ viewpoints and think and rethink on the matter in the new-light.

Legumes are Essential for a Full Fledged Diet

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 13:35:00 +0000

All legumes belong to fabaceae family of plants for their grains developing in pods on seasonal crops, important of which are Pea, Green gram, Black gram, Bengal gram, Lentil, Soyabean, French bean, Cow pea, Pigeon pea, etc. Commonly, these food grains are called pulses.

legumes

With many American unaware of natural legumes as a diet constituent for their dependence on processed foods and having a bad health score, American Diabetes Association, American Heart Association, American Cancer Society, U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, etc. have put legumes as a key food group for optimizing health and preventing many chronic diseases for their having many phytonutrients that with Anti-inflammatory benefits, Anti-oxidant support, Blood sugar regulation, Cardiovascular health, Anti-cancer benefits, etc. Their recommendation is a minimum intake of 3 cups of cooked legumes per week. However, other researches find consumption of 5 to 8 cups of legumes per week by an average adult.

For cooking legumes as a part of food, the general practice is to take their seeds, in full or bi-parted and de-hulled. In the processes of bi-parting and de-hulling, their germs are lost causing a loss of many useful nutrients of the food grain. Although, coverings of many pulses have useful nutrients but many have indigestible substances in them and prevent digestion of other nutrients also. Therefore, while de-hulling may be useful, their bi-parting and losing germs is not recommended. The easiest and harmless way of de-hulling pulse seeds is to soak them in water for 8 to 12 hours when the seeds grow by 50 to 100 percent in size, and rubbing them together between palms to peel off their skins.

Important to be noted here is a precautionary measure about Soyabean, the only legume having a considerable amount of fat in it. This legume contains many health-promoting substances, but has some harmful substances too. Its consumption in any form as a food item is therefore, recommended after thorough boiling of its food grains, even for oil extraction.

Green Vegetables

Some legumes pods or their green seeds are usable as green vegetables. Important of these are French beans and Green Pea. While French beans are cooked along with their pod shells, green pea grains are used for cooking. Green peas are found to have tremendous health-promoting substances in them.

Peas are classified as Pisum sativum having three variations. Green peas are mildly sweet in taste and have starchy texture and deserve to be considered as an exotic food for their health benefits. They contain a unique assortment of health-protective phytonutrients such as polyphenol, which is found to protect against stomach cancer, sapponins, phenolic acids, flavanols, etc. For these constituents, green peas provide anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant benefits.

Green peas have small amount of omega-3 fats in the form of alpha-lenolenic acid (ALA) and omega-6 fatty acids. These fats play critical role in digesting fat-soluble nutrients like beta-carotene and vitamin E contained in the legume.

Natural Manures

All legumes are environment friendly in the sense that these are nitrogen fixing crops, hence, need no nitrogenous chemical fertilizers for growth. Their roots with the help of bacteria in the soil absorb nitrogen from the atmosphere and convert that into forms useful to the crop. From this nitrogen fixing activity, even the next crop in the same soil gets benefitted. After their pods are picked up, their plant remainder easily deteriorates to replenish the soil with more nutrients for the next crop.

What is Digestion of Food

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 07:53:00 +0000

Digestion of food in the body means extraction of nutrients from food intake in a given time frame between two meals and extrication of refuge from the body. At physical level, this process begins with chewing the food in mouth and ends with excreta leaving the body through anus. Teeth, tongue, throat, stomach, small and large intestines and rectum of a living being participate in this process. At mental level, the process of digestion begins and continues as the person thinks of food before its being served. Such thoughts and chewing of food stimulate preparations and release of various chemicals to the food as it moves from mouth to the anus.

For a successful digestion process, two process mechanisms play critical roles – gradual movement of food from mouth to the anus and breaking down of food into nutrients while the food passes through intestine.

Movement of Food

Food sticks in intestines when it has superfine ingredients in it like the superfine wheat flour, wheat products not cooked well, etc. Opposed to this, food containing high amount of fiber in itself not only easily moves in the tract but cleans the passage of previously stuck food particles. For this reason, leafy vegetables and fruits help in free movement of food.

If the movement is not free, the food remaining in the body for a long time gets rotten leading to problems of indigestion, loose motions, gas formation, etc leading to many more diseases in the body. If the food contains ingredients which deteriorate faster than the digestion process, or if some portion of the food remain undigested for long and staying inside the tract, that also leads to sicknesses.

Decomposition of Food

Decomposition is the main purpose of digestion through which the food ingredients like carbohydrates and fats are decomposed into nutrients like proteins, vitamins, minerals, etc. the body needs and consumes for its maintenance and growth. For this, the body adds many chemical substances to the food while it is at various places in the body like mouth, stomach, intestines, etc. In the mouth, saliva is added first to the food to facilitate easy slide of the food in the tract. The saliva contains enzymes alpha-amylase that helps in breaking down of carbohydrates. Then, at the root of the tongue, another chemical lingual lipase is added to the food to chemically react with the food for digestion.

In the stomach, the food is treated with acid making it finer, homogeneous and liquefied to facilitate its further flow into the intestine. The intestine walls absorb nutrients and water from the liquefied food inside and send them to further processing or absorption to other parts of the body. After this, the remaining portion in the intestine is sent to rectum for disposal as excreta.

For more guidance on promoting digestion, please read a previous post on this blog.

Free Applications : Great Gifts for YOU

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 23:51:00 +0000

There is none who has not enjoyed playing games on computers, iPhones and mobile devices. This entertainment is now available free from many websites for downloading, an additional cause of happiness. Just try some free iPhone apps.

I am an atheist, hence, like to have help from friends not God. Most of other persons around me are not like me and depend on mercies or gifts from God. They too confess that the God does not come to help by himself but sends some person as his emissary to help them. Thus, both ways, help comes from persons like you and me only.

Free iPhone apps include popular games, like Angry Birds, Sudoku, Zomble Farm, etc., the most adventurous ways of improvement of skills, the real purpose of all games andsports. Of course, apparently games and sports add happiness to life. I have come across one such site Freenew which has free downloadable apps for computers, iPhones and mobile devices using Android operating system. Better you learn about FreeNew by visiting the site by yourself.

Free applications are such gifts from knowledgeable persons who keep on developing applications for helping common computer users who can’t afford to buy every software they need to make their respective computers full-fledged tools for convenient and entertaining. There are many free applications that are available free for downloading from various websites on the Internet which empower the computers in amazing ways. Such apps are available not only for computers but for iPhones and Android too.

How to Enjoy and Promote Food Digestion

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 00:39:00 +0000

A food item must be enjoyed all possible ways before actually eating it to inform the gastrointestinal system about the food expected to reach it for digestion. This information sends signals to mouth, taste buds, stomach, intestines and liver to be prepared with adequate quality and quantity of chemical substances needed for extraction of maximum nutrition out of the food and utilize it for repair and building the body. These preparatory operations may be imagining, touching, watching, smelling and tasting the food ready for being taken.

Enjoying the Food through Imaginations

If you are in the vegetable market to buy vegetables for the next cooking, colors and glows of fresh vegetables invite you to begin the digestion process through your imaginations about how the food shall be prepared for being served before you for eating. If you are the cook, an additional dimension of vegetable fragrances emanating as you cut them for cooking is added to your digestion process. While cooking, you may be required to sense the hardness of the food through touches to provide you additional pleasures. To have such pleasures about your food, you need to have attitude, aptitude, interest and inclination of focus on your food.

Even if you are too busy otherwise to involve yourself in buying vegetables and cooking the food, even then the digestion process may begin much ahead of actually eating the food. When the person serving the food invites you to the dining table, the first signal related to digestion is triggered through listening to the invitation and your imagining how tasty and sumptuous the food, you are going to take, would be.

Enjoyments through Seeing, Smelling and Tasting

On the dining table or floor, as the food is presented to you by caring and loving hands and smiles, second phase of digestive process begins. You see the tantalizing colors, fragrance fills your nostrils and then try a little bit of food reaching it your taste buds. Wow, your body begins to feel the nutritive power of the food in your dishes.

Again, it is not the food that provides you any nutrition, but your attitude and aptitude for the food does that making you feel better and healthier through seeing, smelling and tasting the food made ready for your intake.

Critical Enjoyment of Chewing the Food

Final stage of your conscious participation in enjoying the food is chewing which has multiple purposes triggering a series of physical, physiological and psychological reactions in the body and brain. The teeth crush the food to smaller particles thus increasing surface area of the contents, with simultaneous release of saliva from the inner lining of the mouth cavity mixing up with the food. Physical significance of saliva is converting the chewed food to paste form and lubricate it so that it moves smoothly through the esophagus. So, more you chew, finer it becomes, and easier becomes the process of its movement downwards to the stomach. The test of right amount of chewing is that food must slide down on its own instead of its pushing into the throat. Smaller the quantity of food in the mouth while chewing, better the chewing.

Second use of chewing is bringing the food contents in good contact with taste buds providing taste and flavour of every constituent of the food. The taste buds, on knowing quality of the food constituents, send signals to digestive system to release adequate quality and quantity of chemical substances to digest the food fully. Every food has a number of separately identifiable ingredients which need be mixed well for digestion. Chewing process does this function well, to send a homogeneous mix of food down the throat.

Chemically, the saliva contains enzymes alpha-amylase for breaking down carbohydrates, and lingual lipase released at the root of the tongue begins the first chemical reaction with the food for digestion.

With inadequate chewing and hurried swallowing of the food down the throat, large food fragments create difficulty in food movement and remain undigested up to the last. Such portion of food gets rotten which may cause vomiting, infatuation, dysentery and other digestive problems. This food not only goes waste, it becomes the principal reason of sickness of the person, hence, proper chewing of food plays critical role in keeping the person healthy.

Food is acid-treated in stomach to become finer and more liquefied for easier and gradual movement through small intestine. This also depends on proper chewing of the food and its mixing with the saliva.

Apart from physical and chemical processes in digestion, brain too is highly involved in the process regulating release of chemical substances to extract nutrients from the food, and then using these nutrients properly at the cellular level through their rational distribution throughout the body. This is facilitated by the brain on getting signals from taste buds while the food is being chewed.

Six Lessons for Collaborative Working

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 03:20:00 +0000

With each of us being involved in multifarious endeavours needing multifaceted capabilities, collaborative working or teamwork has become more dominant in life. The information revolution has enhanced importance of collaborative working. Collaborative working needs culture of a person that is entirely different from that of a unitary working. Therefore, those who are cultured and accustomed to unitary working need to retrain their minds afresh to collaborative working.

In a new social project in my hands these days, I have new collaborator who works with me and many others, but is deficient in skills of collaborative working. He keeps on looking when any of us does something and when the task is finished criticises the doer for not doing the task in a different way. This hurts many of us. This experience induced me to write on what to do and what not to do in a collaborative working.

1. Go ahead not backwards

Everybody in the team is unique and has ways of doing things in his/her own way and this way may be different from your ways, but not necessarily worse than yours. After a task is done by another person, don’t criticise the way it had been done because your saying is not going to undo the doing. Instead, suggest the next step of improving the outcome in a friendly way. Your utterance of dissatisfaction will unnecessarily put a wedge of bitterness in the team towards each other. However, your suggestion before a task is begun may be liked with gratitude. Earn gratitude, not bitterness.

2. Self-righteousness is fatal to collaborative working

Every task may be done in many different ways but only one way is the best way of doing the task under given circumstances. Discuss various ways of doing a task without insisting on your righteousness. Relative education and experiences do matter in choosing the best way, pay regards to them along with your humble suggestions.

3. Have margins for collaborators

Since everybody is unique and essentially different from you but not necessarily worse than you. So, don’t compare others with you and wish them to be like you. But pay regards to their individual uniqueness and try to make the best use of this presuming that every uniqueness is an incomparable asset to collaborative working. Once you accept this, you will have margins for others strengths and weaknesses.

4. Distribute work with trust on others’ capabilities

In a team, distribute work and let each one do his/her share of work in his/her own way. Give your opinions and suggestions for a discussion for reaching the best possible strategy but only when you are asked for such a thing. Show your superiority by your performance on your share of work. This may induce others to ask for your suggestions and advices.

5. Know your own weaknesses and strengths of others

Firstly, we must admit that different persons are weak and strong in different areas of human life and that each of us too has some weaknesses. The purpose of every step of human life is to improve upon what is existing, particularly, of the self. This is possible only when we know our weaknesses and the sources through which these weaknesses may be removed. With certainty, these sources are strengths of others. With knowledge of these two things, we may move forward to convert own weaknesses to strength through learning and inspirations from those who are strong in the areas of our own weaknesses.

For eliminating one’s weaknesses, he/she must essentially know and accept them and then try to improve upon them through learning from others having strengths in those fields. In the same spirit, appreciate others and accept your mistakes fast before others point out them.

6. Pay attention to your conduct without boasting about your characteristics

Others are not concerned or affected by what characteristics you may be having but by how you conduct yourself with others. So, to improve your image on others pay your attention on your conduct which may be modified to be better than your characteristics for the time-being in the interests of team-spirit and collaborative working. On practicing a better conduct, your characteristics too get improved.

Remember that your image on others has a greater value than your real-self. Your image on others keeps on working for all the 24 hours while your real-self works for 6 to 8 hours a day. So, try to build a better image.

SuperGreens for Health

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 09:43:00 +0000

Many urban societies on the globe are not in a position to find enough of green vegetables in their diets and rely on processed foods for survival. To provide them with enough of chlorophyll, some health-serving companies have brought forward food supplements with high concentration of chlorophyll and made them available to health-conscious chlorophyll-deprived persons through medical stores. Such products are termed ‘supergreens’.

Supergreens are available in three forms – dry powder, juice and fresh green pulp, produced from young grasses of cereals such as wheat, barley, alfalfa, and algae obtained from water reservoirs, harvested at their peak nutritional value. Out of these, dry powder form is the easiest to reach the needy humanity on a wide scale. These greens in their natural fresh form are as good as green leafy vegetables but can’t be made available to urban societies, hence their powder, juice or pulp form. These grasses are grown in open sunny areas to prevent bacterial growth and inclusion of environmental toxins in them. For converting to powder form, young green leaves of cereal plants or sea algae are dried in shade at low temperatures under hygienic conditions and then pulverized for making them convenient for transportation and storage. Since, many pounds of fresh green leaves give out a few grams of dry powder, the powders are super rich in chlorophyll, hence termed as ‘supergreens’.

Health Benefits of SuperGreens

Inclusion of green leafy vegetables in diet has been found useful for maintaining good health for their having chlorophyll in abundance which works as a powerful antioxidant, thus preventing chronic diseases like cancer. It maintains acid-base balance in the body and improves blood circulation for its structure like that of haemoglobin in the blood. Thus, an important key to human health is consumption of chlorophyll through regular diet.

Supergreens provide health benefits through three processes –

Reducing inflammation,
Enhancing detoxification of the body, and
Maintaining a proper acid-base balance in the body

Chlorophyll helps in throwing out toxins from the body via the liver. Additionally, functioning of detoxification processes in the body improves. Cereal grasses and algae, like green vegetables, have high capacity of absorbing stellar oxygen radicals thus reducing accumulation of nefarious free radicals in the body making a healthier disease-free body. Since, free radicals play havoc with body cells causing diseases like cancer, heart problems, inflammations, etc neutralization of these through phytonutrients provided by supergreens, probability of such diseases diminish.

During workout exercises and tough physical activities, muscles get unduly stretched, needing repairs, supergreens help the muscles in coming to normalcy fast. Green juices and pulps quench chronic inflammations in the body which, otherwise, lead to degeneration of body cells, tissues and organs. Acid-base balance in the body is maintained by high alkalinizing effects of greens.

Some Popular Sources of SuperGreens

As aforesaid, supergreens are derived principally from two types of plants – greases and algae. We have peep into these sources.

Wheat Grass : Young plants of wheat contain chlorophyll up to about 70 percent of their volume. Additionally, these contain considerable amounts of amino acids, beta carotene, digestible fiber, vitamins B and C and antibacterial enzymes. Vitamin K present in wheat grass helps in blood clotting and is known to fight diabetes. This grass can easily be grown at home, chewed, juiced, or pulped, or even dried to powder form.
Barley Grass : Superhero of supergreens, Barley grass, is rich in essential amino acids, enzymes and vitamins – C, E and K, along with minerals like iron, calcium and magnesium. Its powder form has high levels of superoxide dismutase – a powerful antioxidant. It could also be grown at home easily.
Alfalfa Grass : In India, alfalfa grass has been a popular green fodder for animals with the name ‘rizka’ or ‘raazika’ and resembles clover. Its English names are lucerne and pulple medic. It may be grown easily in a kitchen garden and is highly rich in minerals like iron, calcium and magnesium, and eight essential amino acids apart from a rich source of beta carotene.
Spirulina Algae : A fresh water bluish-green algae commonly growing in any stagnant water in lakes and water ponds. 60 percent of it by weight is protein apart from vitamin K, mineral iron and beta carotene. It has multi-faceted health benefits including quelling inflammation, stopping cancerous growth, and improving digestion.
Chlorella Algae : This algae has thick walled cells, hence digestion of it in natural form is not possible for humans. Its preparations use technologies to crack these thick cell walls making its essential fats, vitamins, minerals and phytonutrients available to humans. This algae needs more research.

GMAT – Gateway to Top Class Management Career

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 14:22:00 +0000

For the brightest career in the field of business management, an aspirant must seek guidance of some experienced GMAT preparatory institution having GMAT experts on its faculty. This GMAT review is a brief ‘what and why’ for a world-class MBA aspirant to get through the to the gateway of a successful business management career.

Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is the gateway for a top-class business management career through admission to world’s greatest business schools. For all those aspiring for a business management career, there is nothing better than passing this test and get admission in a business school of your choice based on your merit.

Since, the test is conducted on global basis, it is a tough test for the aspirant’s capability, hence needing strategic preparations for passing the test. Services of expert guides for preparation of the test are available from many well reputed GMAT preparatory institutions. Better the institution, more the chances of getting admission to a business school of one’s choice. What ultimately matters for passing the admission test is thinking skill of the aspirant. Thus, GMAT preparation is more of an exercise in intellectual development of the student rather than cramming some given passages and following a pre-laid track.

After qualifying in the test, the aspirant is required to appear before an admissions committee of the business school opted by the student. Therefore, a preparatory institution’s role is not limited to guiding the student to pass in the admission test, but to prepare the student for the ultimate interview for the admission. For this, the preparatory institution must have enough knowledge about various admissions committees of the business schools.

Being Owner of Life of the Self

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:26:00 +0000

The Sun was hot and the atmosphere was dusty. Whole day, I had been busy in an open field on a social project. Heat and dust made me feel tired and sleepy by the evening when I was back at my home. Against my mood, I wished to write some articles, so sat on my desk. A question rose in my mind whether I am the owner of my life or not. If I were the owner I would not have felt the pressure for writing against my physiological and psychological states. Who is the real owner of my life? I pondered over.

Like the majority of persons around, I felt obsessed with giving out highest possible productivity, rather than enjoying my life. The productivity obsession owned my life. I was taken aback with this revelation to me, hence could write nothing and went to bed to have some rest and a nap. After being for 4 hours in bed, I am back on the desk for writing with a feeling of being the owner of my life. The rest, nap and the feeling of owning my life are not only rejuvenating to me, I have the pleasure in working with high productivity.

What makes the Difference

The foremost sign of a person being the owner of his life is that he/she does what he/she loves to do in a way of his/her liking, at the time of his/her choice. This translates to the fact that the person is free from compulsions. Being free and on the work of his/her choice, the person gives out his/her best possible performance.

Some persons may have external compulsions of working in ways prescribed by others, but most of us impose intrinsic compulsions on themselves without much of external reasons. These intrinsic compulsions may be for lust for wealth, career ambitions, professional achievements, etc making the persons moving in a vicious cycle of restlessness. All such intrinsic compulsions may be put in a single phrase of ‘productivity obsession’. This syndrome adversely affects performance of the person, thus lowering his/her productivity with no love left for the work. Thus, the person loses the edge he/she aims at having at his/her best while at work.

The Happiness Factor

Generally, people have misconceptions that –

Success means accumulation of wealth,
Accumulation of wealth means happiness

Thus, they intend to find happiness in wealth and they seek it in successes through rat races of chasing each other for grabbing the wealth without even knowing how much wealth they need to be happy.

The reality of life is not that successful persons are happy, but that only happy persons succeed in their endeavours. Accumulation of wealth beyond a minimal limit for survival has no relationship to happiness. Therefore, right way of living is to seek and realize happiness in every small thing of pleasure like smile of a child, a good health, a loving life partner, etc. Key to this realization of happiness in small pleasures lies in another realization - owning the life for oneself under own command to seek happiness. Only such happiness remains permanent with the person and he succeeds in every endeavor he/she takes up.

The Productivity Syndrome

In your incidental free moments, what comes to your mind? In most of the cases, it is looking for something to get busy with productive work to seek more wealth. The wealth one gets takes him/her to seek more productive work, then more wealth. The cycle continues to the extent when one loses free moments, success remains undefined and happiness a far away dream when he/she would have infinite wealth under his/her possession. With no free moments, the person gets exhausted of all his/her energy and gets sick and hence unhappy for ever with life mortgaged to seek wealth.

Another approach to life, on having some free moments, is to seek happiness in small pleasures scattered all around like smiles of children, smiling at other persons to induce their smiles back, etc. This feeling of well-being and happiness would make the person to succeed in whatever he/she does, to give out his/her best productivity at work providing him/her more of happiness. This leads to good health and hence happiness for ever with ownership of your life.

The Key

Thus, the key to permanent happiness lies in how you spend your free moments – in an illusory search for happiness through wealth, or in looking for happiness in small pleasures all around. This way you own your own life. So, when you have free moments, don’t think of curtailing them or utilizing them for productivity, but enjoy them and try to find ways to increase them thus enhancing joy in your life. If you bring a smile on a child’s face and his/her smiling back at you provides you unparalleled joy unobtainable from trillions of material wealth in your possession.

Uses of Spinach and Care in Cooking

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 14:16:00 +0000

A brightly green leafy vegetable available throughout winter season is ‘spinach leaves’ with multiplicity of uses in recipes, and nutrients available from it are beneficial to body’s various bio-mechanisms like digestive system, blood circulation system, bone formation, etc. Glycoglycerolipids present in spinach and responsible for photosynthesis in plants, protect lining of the digestive tract from damages, thus eliminate possibility of inflammatory problems in digestive tract.

Anti-oxidants available in spinach eliminate stress-related problems, it regulates and keeps balance in blood pressure thus helps cardiovascular system. Additionally, spinach strengthens bones. Fresh spinach leaves have vitamin C in abundance which, in turn, protects many phytonutrients available in spinach and promotes their digestion.

Baby leaves of spinach works as an attractive, delicious and nutritious addition to various salads. Finely cut spinach leaves after boiling in water and then fried in a small amount of edible vegetable oil with spices like cumin seeds, garlic, etc is highly popular recipe of India called ‘saag’ is eaten with wheat or maize loaves. To such a ‘saag’, other green leaves of mustard, pigweed, methi, etc are also mixed with those of spinach to provide various flavors and nutrition.

Lightly steamed spinach mixed with boiled and crushed potato, cheese, etc and suitably spiced and fried in a small amount of vegetable oil make a healthy dry vegetable. Finely cut and salted spinach leaves may be used for stuffing loaves made of wheat or maize flour. These leaves get softened and adequately cooked when the loaves are baked. Boiled and meshed spinach leaves are also used for stuffing loaves.

Care in Cooking

Bright green color of leafy vegetables like spinach is due to chlorophyll present in the leaves. The criterion for the best cooking is that this bright-green color should be retained even after cooking. For this, cooking of green vegetables should be done with minimum water, heat and time. Spinach like leafy vegetable take only 5 minutes for this.

With cooking for long or at high temperature, the color changes to olive green or gray-green indicative of damage to critical nutrients of the vegetable. Chlorophyll molecule originally present in the leaves has an atom of magnesium at the center of its structure. Rest of the structure is similar to that of hemoglobin in human blood which has an iron atom at its center. When cooking with high heat or for long, the magnesium atom of chlorophyll is replaced by hydrogen atom resulting in alteration of chlorophyll into pheophytin which is of olive-green or green-gray color. Retaining the chlorophyll structure in the cooked vegetable is the challenge before the cook. The 5 minute cooking should be done with minimum of water at low heat so that the vegetable is cooked by steam only without any boiling. This way only, original flavor, nutrients and color of green vegetables are retained.

What to Eat

noreply@blogger.com (Ram Bansal) — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 11:18:00 +0000

If am asked to answer the question ‘what to eat?’ in a shortest possible way, then I would say ‘whatever food is easily available’. The word ‘easily’ has two hidden senses embedded in it –

The food should be produced locally,
The food must have been produced in that season.

And these two norms, one spatial and the other temporal, are the most important requirements of a food for being health-promoting. Why it is so, let us examine and understand.

Local Production

Local Food of Northern India

Climatic conditions all over the globe vary widely from the freezing cold to scorching hot, from sandy dry to dripping wet, varying seasonally. Under such climatic variations, what food items are produced at a place in have all the ingredients to fight out and survive with the climatic variations. These ingredients work to strengthen the immune system of life forms existing there.

Quality of produce in a climatic zone is affected like the life forms, including plants, in that climatic zone adapt themselves. The foods too get adapted to the local climate along with their mother plants. Therefore, locally produced foods prove to be the best health promoting to people living there. Foods produced in different climatic conditions don’t have such climate-oriented ingredients for protecting and promoting health of people.

Seasonal Production

A food-grain getting matured say in summer season has the heat providing ingredients acquired by it from the solar heat of the summer season. This food-grain is available as food for human consumption during the next winter season when body-warming ingredients in the food are desired. This applies to various seasonal produce available as foods for the next season. A food produced in cold season may promote growth of the body but it lacks in body-warming ingredients, hence is not fit for consumption in winter season.

Arrival of spring season is marked by availability of green leafy vegetables in abundance which are well known for rejuvenating the body. The body needs such foods after awakening from long winter slumber.

As various seasonal variations work to balance ecological system of the globe through natural diversity, the foods produced in different seasons work to balance the body’s growth and maturity through diversity of foods.

An important point about seasonal effects on growth and maturity of food items is that a green food available in a season produces its seeds at the end of the season. Thus, green foods and their seeds are available for use as foods in different seasons. Let us take the case of French beans – available as green pods during winter and getting matured at the winter end, making the seeds available for consumption in summer. The climatic influence on a food is stabilized in the process of maturing only making it suitable for eating in the next season. Before maturing, it may easily be consumed in the same season.

These two points brings us to the point that we should eat locally produced foods being produced by nature in the running season if eaten raw, or in the just preceding season if the food item is eaten on its maturity.

Trading channels, under globalization efforts of people, are making food items produced at one place available at every place on the globe. This leads to availability of food items produced in one climatic zone all over the globe. Secondly, artificial preservation techniques make food items produced in one season available in all the seasons of year. Further, hybridization of plants make them capable of producing out of season. Though, these three practices help humanity to keep balance of food production and availability to all the people, thus mitigating hunger from the face of the earth, a lot of non-local and out-of-season, hence unhealthy, food items are available to people on the globe with respect to place and time. So, we need to be highly careful about what to choose for eating at a time out of all the available food items. The simplest criteria of local and seasonal foods serve the purpose well for keeping good health.