5 ways to deal with anxiety

Science-based tips + resources from my own struggles with anxiety

Let’s talk about anxiety for a minute. The debilitating fear. The constant worry. The thoughts that circle around in your head at a hundred miles a minute. The heart palpitations. The shortness of breath. The certainty that everything is going to come crashing down around you.

We’ve all suffered from anxiety at some point in our lives, but did you know that 1 in 7 Indians – or 197.3 million people – were impacted by mental disorders of varying severity in 2017, of which 44.9 million Indians suffer from anxiety disorders. And this is 2017 data, so this number is sure to have skyrocketed.

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Understanding depression: It’s a chemical effect

And empty platitudes like be more grateful do not help.

Can Reiki heal depression? The link between brain chemicals and depression

While scrolling through my Facebook feed last night, I came across a post asking for recommendations for therapists who deal with depression and anxiety in adults. I know, from previous experience, that depression isn’t well understood, and that it is notoriously difficult to find good, qualified therapists. So I went through the comments to see if the lady’s query had been answered and if I could share any recommendations with her.

But the comments were closed. This meant that she had either found the information she was looking for, or people had left their usual unhelpful advice on her post.

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Why it is necessary to embrace the joy of missing out

What it really means to resist the attention economy, focus on depth, find your center and embrace the joy of missing out

Why it is necessary to embrace the joy of missing out (JOMO)

We live in a world that is constantly trying to sell us what we want – or better yet, what we don’t even know we want. When I was still in college and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, one field that I was interested in was advertising. One of my aunts headed the creative department at a leading advertising agency, and in the course of various conversations with her, she asked me this: “how will you sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo?”

This is a question that has stuck with me through the years – and one that I reflect on from time to time. It isn’t so much about literally selling a fridge to an Eskimo, but about convincing someone who has no real need for something to buy said thing. That’s what good advertising and marketing is built on.

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A call to arms: for peace; for love; for unity

I’ve been reading the news these days with a sense of increasing alarm. Everywhere you look, all you see is hatred and anger and vitriol. The spread of fake news and fake paranoia has gripped not only India, but the rest of the world too.

This series of tweets this morning have forced me to speak my mind. Please, tell me that I am not the only one who feels my heart shatter into a million pieces each time we demonise a group of people as “the other”.Continue reading→

In pursuit of passion: India’s first DIY woodworking instructor

I have written before against the popular trend towards quitting your day job to follow your passion, and about defining success on your own terms. But behind this clarity, as is always the case, was a lot of confusion. Books helped a lot when it came to finding my answers, as did long discussions with the husband, who is uniquely qualified to talk on the subject. He is a living, breathing example of someone who has always followed his passion.

His first passion – for sports, and more specifically tennis, he converted into his day job. He’s been teaching lawn tennis since over 25 years, so he is intimately familiar with both the ecstasy and the agony of making your passion into your day job {which is possibly a post for another time!}Continue reading→

Revealed: what women really want!

“I don’t understand what women want!” a male colleague wailed the other day.

To which another one shared this handy photo he had received on what’s app

Come on guys! We aren’t that hard to understand!

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#MondayMusings: Thoughts on the far-reaching social impact of the Trump Presidency

As a general rule, I don’t write about politics on the blog. No matter what my views may be and what arguments and debates I may have in real life or online, I keep all of that away from this space.

But the recent election results in the US have shaken me to the core. And though they have no direct bearing on me, there is no denying the wide-spread social impact of a Trump presidency.

I also think that the time is now ripe to have multiple conversations about righting wrongs – about inclusion and diversity, about the fact of a changing global order, changing race and cultural dynamics, and a shift in the old patriarchal systems and beliefs. And I believe this is a conversation that we need to have globally.
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Imagine a world without words

Among the many worlds that man did not receive as a gift from nature but created out of his own mind, the world of books is the greatest… Without the word, without the writing of books, there is no history, there is no concept of humanity. And if anyone wants to try to enclose in a small space, in a single house or a single room, the history of the human spirit and to make it his own, he can only do this in the form of a collection of books. – The Magic of the Book, Hermann Hesse

Imagine a world without the written word. Without a way to easily access and share humankind’s collective knowledge. A world where books were not a thing, where reading and writing were unknown. What would such a world look like? Continue reading→