Body Dysmorphia: Bodily Complaints That Never End

Like seen in this gif, all of us have a lot of things to complain about when it comes to our appearance. I wish for a flat stomach every time I want to go out wearing a cute crop top. I wish my thighs wouldn’t get all jelly when I sat down in those shorts. Like Rachel from F.R.I.E.N.D.S., I sometimes have insecurities about my nose too. I wish I wasn’t so tall that I looked like a mother to my BFF when we clicked pictures!

But we can’t have all that we want, can we? And most of us make peace with it (trust me, I try).

However, what happens when slight cribbing about your thinning hair turns into a full blown obsession
with trying out all possible hair treatments in the market? What happens when you start believing in the frantic SMS you type out to your friend—“MY LIFE IS OVER”—when you get a pimple on a date night?

Let me tell you what happens: Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD).

Body Dysmorphic Disorder is a diagnosis that is related to Obsessive Compulsive Disorders in which a person becomes unhealthily preoccupied with a real or perceived ‘defect’ in their appearance. An important point to note right away is that even if there is a bodily shortcoming present, it is perceived and reacted to in an out of proportion manner i.e. a small scar, barely noticeable, near your eyebrow may be seen as disfiguring your entire face, thereby inviting that much unnecessary stress in response to it. The perceived flaw may seem invisible and imaginary to people around a BDD suffered but it is a firm reality to that person who unrelentingly believes that there is “something wrong” with how s/he looks. So, no: This disorder is not to be confused with one’s vanity with their appearance. It is a very real and distress- causing mental health condition.

BDD is different from Eating Disorders

Undoubtedly, eating disorders and BDD both circle around body image issues. However, eating disorders are solely concerned with one’s dissatisfaction with their body shape and size. On the other hand, in BDD, dissatisfaction with body weight is just one of the many other body areas that can become a target of constant depreciation. This is to say, BDD sufferers may become preoccupied with scars and hair, facial structure and skin irregularities like moles or even the looks of their genitalia.

A surprising fact? In BDD, people (usually men) can be overcome by the thinness of their body i.e. a lack of muscle and sturdy body build. So, BDD is not all about feeling fat and becoming obsessively
worried about it. Instead, BDD may be concerned with the complete opposite of it too! In fact, the clinical term for this particular type of BDD is Muscle Dysmorphia.

Another differentiating point between BDD and eating disorders is that the latter entail erratic food consumption patterns: you eat too much or too less or purge and exercise till you drop. However, BDD involves fairly normal eating patterns and the individuals may or may not be of the normal weight. Instead, BDD patients may seek cosmetic surgeries as a means of dealing with their insecurities.

Lastly, while eating disorders are more common amongst females, the prevalence of BDD is more or less same for both the sexes. Nevertheless, there may be subtle differences in the body parts that become trouble centers for the two. For instance, females with BDD usually perceive ugliness in their hips and weight while men are more likely to see it in their body build and thinning hair.

Sure, there seems like a considerable overlap between the two disorders and it is even quite possible that an individual may be diagnosed with both at the same time. This may be so when a person shows irregular eating along with distress about a bodily area other than their waist length.

Tell tale signs of BDD

A person with BDD constantly checks himself/ herself in the mirror or their selfie camera for ensuring that they look fine. They groom themselves to an excessive degree as if they are trying to make up for some irreparable short coming. They may also be the ones who constantly elbow you to ask if they look fine. They need a lot of reassurance.

Now you may be thinking, “Hey, I do that too!” But in order to understand what makes these signs a clinical diagnosis try multiplying the intense insecurity with which these actions are undertaken by 10 and estimate the number of times these actions are performed to be almost always. Some say that individuals with BDD spend approximately 1 full hour each day wondering and worrying exclusively about their appearance!

Often, individuals who develop BDD are said to carry a certain amount of biological vulnerability for the same. However, it is only when biology combines with sensitive social experiences of teasing or rejection related to how one looks during adolescence, is when this disorder manifests. Once the idea of having “not up to the mark” appearance takes roots, their thoughts becoming completely biased—almost as if shining an attentional spotlight—on their negative body image. At the same time, they start engaging in checking rituals mentioned above and slowly begin withdrawing from others out of embarrassment. These behaviors at the crux of the moment may seem like “helping” them to reduce their anxiety levels but carry the potential to emerge into full blown Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Social Anxiety Disorder or Major Depression. Obviously, this hampers interpersonal relationships of the individual and in 1/3^rd of the cases the BDD patient may become delusional! For example, if they see two people exchanging a laugh while passing by them, they will be ferociously convinced that the topic of amusement was their bodily shortcoming. Social isolation inevitably cuts off their support networks and this when combined with repeated failures on interpersonal, academic and occupational fronts (arising from interference caused by their mental illness) pushes BDD patients towards suicide ideation and attempts 10 to 25% times more than the general population.

Nevertheless, individuals with BDD may have fairly accurate insight about their disordered thinking but may shy away from opening up about their condition to anyone—not even their therapist—for the fear of being misunderstood or absence of knowledge that BDD is treatable. So take out your keen, observant glasses to look out for these signs so that you can help someone who may be in need for professional help to go ahead and seek that help.

BINGE EATING DISORDER: WHAT UNDERLIES ALL THOSE LAYERS OF FAT?

“Let’s binge eat!” my friend squealed.

 “You mean a ‘who-can-eat-pani puri-till-they-drop’ competition? You’re on, buddy!” I replied.

Fill in any favorite food item of yours in the underlined part above—biryani, ice cream, chips, fries—and there you have it, a fun binge eating day with your BFF by your side or a hearty me-time while you catch up on a rerun of your favorite TV show.

I’m sure that all of us are guilty of “binge eating” on some occasion or the other. So much so, that when I introduce Binge Eating as a disorder, many of you will be surprised, maybe worried? However, let’s not jump to conclusions. In order to qualify for a clinical diagnosis of Binge Eating Disorder (BED), one needs to meet the following criteria:

1. When you say that you are going to binge eat, do you mean that you can eat an amount of food so large within such a short period of time (say, 2 hours) that most others may not be able to consume under similar circumstances? If yes, then you’re binge eating.

2. When you are binge eating, do you feel a sense of lack of control—feel as if you can’t stop eating or how much you’re eating? If yes, then you’re binge eating.

3. Binge eating episodes are often associated with eating rapidly as if under the fear of being caught cheating. You hardly taste the food you are so ravenously hogging on! You may eat until you feel uncomfortably full. You may also eat large amounts of food without physically feeling the need to eat. They feel extremely embarrassed about their seemingly uncontrollable eating behavior. And once the sin of overeating is committed, do you feel disgusted with yourself, guilty or depressed about such “rash” eating behavior? If yes, then probably you’re binge eating.

4. Do you feel distress for gobbling down 10 plates of pani puri? Sure, your body might be protesting for an outlet of all that spice. But do you mentally feel troubled for eating and eating and never stopping?

5. How often do you go on binge eating sprees? In order to receive this diagnosis, one must exhibit a compulsive eating episode at least once per week for a span of 3 months.

6. A person has BED if they don’t repeatedly purge all the food that they eat as in bulimia nervosa and only if they are NOT currently suffering from anorexia during which it is possible to have a few episodes of binge eating while still being significantly underweight and meeting all the other requirements for anorexia nervosa.

It may seem somewhat obvious that individuals with binge eating disorder are often overweight. We don’t binge eat fruits and vegetables. We binge eat fats-laced, carbohydrates-rich guilty pleasures. However, making a reverse assumption that all overweight/ obese people are suffering from BED may not be appropriate. Nevertheless, research has repeatedly shown that BED sufferers are over represented in populations that are obese and seeking help for reducing their body weight.

Binge eating disorder is different from anorexia and bulimia wherein the person starts looking abnormally thin and hence receives a lot of attention and sympathy. Instead, BED simply hides under the layers of fat which somewhat seem normal in our trending move towards widening waistlines but at the same time is despised by most. So if a person is fat, you’re fast to assume that he is lazy and undeserving of your help while if a person looks like a moving skeleton, you may raise your brows to form a crease of worry. Although the process of destigmatizing larger body sizes is a long way to go, would it hurt to ask someone you think is struggling and suffering if they need some love and support?  

How to detect if someone is battling against BED?

Since these individuals are very well aware that there is something wrong with them and that acceptance for their enlarged body shape is scarce, they engage in secretive eating. They may eat in normal quantities at the dinner table but if you were to peep into their room or car, you may discover a secret stash of fatty foods or left over wrappers and tins of such foods. They may eat between their meals to be able to eat “normally” in front of others. There have been cases where binge eaters have reported that they have gone “restaurant-hopping” and feasted on foods while driving their way from one restaurant to the other!

A more extreme step would be to actively isolate themselves while eating their daily meals as far as possible because they fear the judgmental looks that will be directed their way if they eat the way they eat.

Mostly though not always, BED is a response that is triggered by depression or anxiety. So if you find a loved one eating erratically and showing simultaneous unruly mood fluctuations then you may want to talk and find out if everything is okay. All of us find comfort in food. When its exam time, I personally find myself eating more amount and eating at more number of times then I do on a normal basis. That’s basically a response to stress. In our brains, when we eat delicious food, it releases the feel-good hormone of dopamine. Dopamine is the same hormone that is also released when we engage in pleasurable activities or even in addictions like smoking. Thus, speaking of the concept of reinforcement again, we can say that binge eating is somewhat maintained as a disordered habit because the release of dopamine in the brain rewards us to continue this behavior.

Low self esteem and exhibition of a “What-The-Hell” logic can also be considered as indicators of BED. These individuals do not believe in their own ability to regulate eating. Thus, even though they may decide to enter a weight loss regime, the moment they slip (which all of us do, with or without the disorder), they may think, “Of course, I am not capable of doing this healthy eating and exercising stuff. Now that I have already broken a diet rule, what the hell, I might as well break all the other rules!”

We all are foodies in our own right. But when are we pushed across the fine line between normality and abnormality because of a threatened body image is something to ponder on. Keep pondering, keep reading, keep following this series on body image!

ANOREXIA AND BULIMIA: WHEN BEAUTY BONES LOSE THEIR BEAUTY

Demi Lovato, our Disney Star, has confessed, “‘Food is still the biggest challenge in my life and it controls — I don’t want to give it the power to say it controls my every thought, but it’s something that I’m constantly thinking about…Body image, what I’m going to eat next, what I wish I could be eating, what I wish I didn’t eat. It’s just constant…” 

Princess Diana revealed in one of her interviews, “The first time I was measured for my wedding dress, I was 29 inches around the waist. The day I got married, I was 23-and-a-half inches. I had shrunk into nothing from February to July.”

Portia de Rossi, an Australian-American model, actress and spouse of Ellen DeGeneres, has stated in her memoir, “Since I was a 12 year old girl taking pictures in my front yard to submit to modeling agencies, I’d never known a day where my weight wasn’t the determining factor for my self esteem. My weight was my mood, and the more effort I put into starving myself to get it to an acceptable level, the more satisfaction I would feel as restriction and the denial built into an incredible sense of accomplishment.”

These women along with many other celebrity figures have suffered from EATING DISORDERS. An eating disorder is a disturbed pattern of daily food intake (either eating too little or too much) along with high levels of unnecessary distress associated with body shape, size and weight. While Demi Lovato and Portia de Rossi suffered from Anorexia Nervosa (AN), Princess Diana was diagnosed with Bulima Nervosa. At the outset, it is important to note that even though the prevalence of eating disorders is higher in females than in males, we have witnessed several male celebrities to the likes of Eminem, Elton John, Russel Brand and others come forward to be open about their struggles with eating. Another common misconception better corrected at this point is that Eating Disorders are not the “disease of the rich”. Yes, it is through the stories of these high-profile celebrities that we have come to know of maladaptive eating behavior patterns. In fact, Princess Diana was one of the first prominent personalities to disclose her body image related issues which reportedly doubled the rate of women seeking treatment for Bulimia in the Great Britain. This came to be dubbed by the media as the “Diana Effect”. It may also be true that the work industry demands of maintaining a particular “body type” may play a major role in these models, actors, singers or royal family members in developing such disorders. Still, this is no reason why someone you know or love may not suffer from a similar condition.

Anorexia Nervosa

An individual is said to be suffering from Anorexia Nervosa (AN) when s/he shows the following three symptoms:

1.      Severely restricted eating which results in the person being 85% of the expected body weight for people their height, sex, age and physical health.

2.      Fat phobia: Intense and irrational fear of putting on weight.

3.      Disturbed self-perception of body shape and weight such that they view themselves as being fat even when in reality they are actually very thin—at times, dangerously thin.

What do I mean when I say “dangerously thin”?

It means that a person with anorexia may lose so much weight that they may actually be at the risk of dying from being underweight. In fact, research has found that out of all mental illnesses, the mortality rate is the highest for those suffering from eating disorders. This might be so because depriving our body of all vital nutrients to such a drastic extent often results in a number of physiological complications such as weakness and brittleness of bones, muscles, hair and nails; low blood pressure, slow breathing and pulse rate; lethargy and fatigue; heart and brain damage and the possibility of multiple organ failure. Although no longer applicable, earlier the criteria for assignment of this clinical diagnosis to women required that the patient stops menstruating completely. Nevertheless, a majority of women with AN don’t menstruate and experience infertility.

There are two major types of Anorexia Nervosa:

In the restricting type of AN, the individual doesn’t engage in binge eating. They simply refuse to eat or engage in excessively strenuous exercise schedules as a means of preventing weight gain.

However, in the binge eating/ purging type, the individual occasionally engages in binge eating of food items followed by means of ridding their bodies of these extra calories by either self-induced vomiting or use of laxatives and extreme exercising. Nevertheless, these individuals continue to remain significantly underweight as they may not necessarily consume a lot of food when they eat, but even such small amounts may make them feel as if they have binged.

An interestingly baffling quality of an individual with AN is that they fail to feel as if there is anything wrong with their eating habits or body image. They show extremely high self control and don’t experience hunger pangs. They often eat the little amount that they do due to force feeding from family and friends. They are less likely to be overweight in the past. Thus, their desire to reduce weight is often driven by an independent and erroneous evaluation of their own “fatness” rather than the need for seeking approval from others.

Bulimia Nervosa

The diagnosis for this disorder is given when an individual meets the following criteria:

1.      Eating excessive amounts of food containing about 3,400 calories within a time period as short as about 2 hours. This might be referred to as binge eating.

2.      Feeling absolute lack of control over eating while engaged in these binge sprees.

3.      Follow up compensatory purging behaviors like self induced vomiting, use of laxatives and diuretics, other medication, fasting or extreme exercising in order to prevent weight gain.

4.      Exhibiting this cycle of binge eating-purging at least once per week for a period of 3 months.

5.      Sole dependence of self esteem on body weight and shape.

6.      Binge eating-purging episodes shouldn’t exclusively occur at the time of meeting all the symptom requirements for anorexia.

An important fact to support the last point is that an individual with bulimia is almost always of the normal weight or slightly overweight which results in failure to make a diagnosis most of the time. In addition, these individuals are very well aware that their eating styles are maladaptive and so their ritualistic binge eating & purging is often kept a secret. Consequently, suicide rates are somewhat higher in this group than those with anorexia as a strong sense of embarrassment is felt by individuals with bulimia. Further, they have a fairly realistic perception of their body shape but are dissatisfied with whatever weight they are at. Their disorder usually is an off-shoot of some critical comments from a significant someone in their life or due to other stressful life situations like marital conflict. For instance, Princess Diana has reported an incident where Prince Charles held her love handles and called her chubby which led her secret journey into the depths of bulimia. Thus, differing from anorexia in important ways, sufferers of bulimia have often been overweight at some point in the past. Also, they are likely to experience strong hunger pangs which when combined with emotional instability may lead them to engage in impulsive eating.

Medical problems undoubtedly follow such erratic feeding patterns. Ipecac syrup used for inducing vomiting have severe toxic effects if taken regularly in large doses. Self induced vomiting also results in dental decay due to the high acidity of thrown up material. This binge-&-purge cycle often causes dehydration which may result in permanent gastrointestinal damage, fluid retention in hands and feet, and heart muscle & valve destruction or collapse.

These disorders compel us to spend a moment of introspection about how body image troubles lead to such severe mental disturbances in something as basic as feeding yourself. Stay tuned for upcoming posts on other related conditions stemming from bodily insecurities.

The Insecurities Underlying Our Love Handles

The Hindu Festival of Lights—Diwali—is just round the corner. And with Diwali come gifts, gatherings and of course, FOOD! From delicious ghee laden laddoos to deep-fried, savory namkeen; one will surely find themselves hogging on all the possible extra but yummy calories in their daily menus during this festive week. This ditto scenario is witnessed be it Diwali, Christmas, Eid, or any other festival.

Quick questions:

1. How many of you would hesitate before giving in to the urging demands of your sweet tooth?
2. How many of you would feel guilty & reprimand yourself after the festivities are over for having lost control over your diet?
3. How many of you wouldn’t even touch the fatty foods for the fear of turning into a fatty you?

My guess: Most of us, to varying degrees of course.

The ideal body type

The “ideal body type” is often a perfect hourglass figure for females and V shaped torso for males. This ideal, however, goes much beyond the idea of “fat is bad” to entail the requirements of fuller lips

and Kardashian hips for females and facial hair that can be flaunted during No-Shave-November for males. It demands fair, waxed-of-all-bodily-hair skin for females and tall, muscular, biceps-endowed frame for males. The list can go on. But two important notes to be made here:

First, the lists are heavily differentiated for the two sexes and any crossover between the two is more or less frowned upon (E.g. a “too tall” female can expect herself to be fired with a slew of mean comments).

Second, the list is so specific in its requirements that it fails to capture the uniqueness of all individuals. Consequently, it labels anyone who doesn’t fit in, as either fat or any other form of ugly. Ipso facto, my waist line of 30 is as imperfect (although a little less unacceptable) as someone else’s waist line of 36. Nevertheless, all of us are lesser creatures in front of that woman who is bestowed with the perfectly tiny waist of 24 inches.

How did this “hunger for the ideal body” manage to creep into our psyche?

The perfectness quotient enshrined by this ideal that as often showcased and praised in media is next to impossible yet aspirational. “Someone on the big screen was able to achieve it. So why can’t I?”—this is the logic that is often invoked by our minds when acceptance for what we are is already available scarcely in the society that we live in.

Most of the movies we watch portray stereotypically fat characters as having a stereotypically tragic story—one of low self confidence, gullibility and failure in matters of school, love and career (E.g. Think of Sweetu aka Delnaaz from Kal Ho Na Ho). In real life too, the “fat guys and gals” are reduced to nothing but a point of joke, criticism and rejection—no one wants to date or befriend a “fatty”, the “sit-on-you-and-kill-you” joke is a classic and a million other ways have been discovered to label them not good enough.

Time to rethink if this is really funny

It might be “just a joke” to you. Others along with your “fat or dark skinned friend” may even laugh with you, irrespective of really being comfortable with it. But a deeper consequence results at a psychological level when body shaming becomes a part of our everyday conversation. In psychology, reinforcer is a term used to denote positive and negative environmental responses that strengthen a particular behavior. Thus, unquestioned transmission of body shaming in everyday communication reinforces us to laugh at the next “fatty/ blackie” we see, reducing that person to nothing— embodying no talents or positives—beyond their undesirable body type.

 

Barbie (Left) v/s Emme Doll (Right)

Next, the availability of innumerable cosmetic surgery    procedures and beauty products essentially perpetuate the    idea that we are NOT OKAY the way we are and that there is always “something better” in store for us. Who would imagine that this all-time-optimistic-phrase could be twisted to play with our psyche and make us consumers (or aspiring consumers) of these so called enhancers?

In one study by Dittmar and colleagues (2006), it was  found that exposure to images of Barbie dolls (reflecting the 36-24-36 ideal) increased bodily dissatisfaction than exposure to Emme dolls (a doll with realistic bodily proportions) or neutral images, in girls as young as 5 and 6 years old! Imagine how seemingly harmless toys are so shaped to slyly corrupt our body image i.e. our own view about our own bodies!

Thus, these are some ideas that help explain the hesitance, guilt, self- deprecation, self- hatred and self- constriction that exists within most of us in varying degrees and very well reflect in the answers that you provided to yourself for the 3 questions I asked you at the beginning.

How to respect your body type?

1. Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall: All of us are aware or even guilty of using the many camera filters that are available. What makes you think that movie stars or even your friends at work may not be using these filters to look “better” than they already do? And even if a picture is #unfiltered, always remember that only the best of your moments find their way onto social media. So your bedroom mirror is where you want to find your true beauty—looking only at yourself, drawing no comparisons, especially with the Photo shopped media pages.
2. Care for a little history? : Among our ancestors, roundness of body was indeed a sign of wealth and attractiveness as indicated by various stone age figurines and paintings found all across the world. This is so because those times were marked by food shortages and so voluptuousness was indeed a beautiful feature. Thus, embrace your curves for they were not always a bad thing and who know, you may eventually be able to bring them back in vogue for time-appropriate reasons!
3. Body beyond beauty: Appreciate your body for the tool it has provided you to achieve your many aspirations than being simply wound up in figuring out how beautiful an instrument it is. For instance, value how your body helps you achieve little things like cycling to school or dancing in the rain or hug a loved one.
4. Is the “ideal” really beautiful? : What the ideal body type tends to bring along with it in terms of wealth, suitable romantic partners, self confidence, societal acceptance, and prestige may have more to do with it wrongfully being perceived as beautiful than it actually being beautiful. Maybe we care more about these by-products than about achieving the ideal itself. But since they all tend to more or less CO-OCCUR with the ideal body type that is described, we tend to wrongfully assume that the ideal body type CAUSES these by-products to occur. If causation was true, how do you explain the success of personalities like Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Bhumi Pednekar and many others who don’t meet the “ideal” in certain obvious ways? Thus, breaking this incorrect linkage will go a long way in questioning the beauty stereotypes.

The above described methods can be handy in dealing with the milder body-related insecurities that most of us have. But, do you know that some individuals suffer from full-blown psychological illness categorized as EATING DISORDERS due to ill-formed body image? What are these and how they can be dealt with will be covered by a series of upcoming blog posts. Stay tuned!

Change is the Rule, Adaptability is a Choice

Would you dip your hand in a completely opaque box without knowing what’s in it?

Would you try some outlandish food item without attempting to find out what its ingredients are?

Would you mind taking your evening stroll around an unknown part of the city?

Chances are that you won’t spontaneously show an excited head nodding agreement to engage in these activities. This is because most of us Fear the Unknown. In the mildest of its forms, fear of the unknown is our hesitance to try something new, something different, or something that has CHANGED. Evolutionarily, fearing the unknown helped our ancestors survive the rough realities sprinkled in their way by Mother Nature. By being apprehensively skeptical about attractive yet untried fruits/ roots or by treading extremely carefully and in groups in untouched habitats, they saved themselves from falling into traps or getting poisoned. Thus, this fear is somewhat passed as a part of our genetic heritage and becomes activated in varying forms and degrees even today, given particular circumstances. The most common way in which this hesitance manifests itself is in the face of an impending change or transition.

Change is the only constant— everyone seems to be bringing up this philosophical axiom all the time, right? But, does portraying this idea as a “normal aspect of daily living” make it any less discomforting? Sadly, no. Sometimes, change may seem to be appealing and worth trying. Nevertheless, it requires us to step outside our comfort zone which essentially fluctuates our motivation and frustration levels while pursuing this new path. For instance, most of us as children were super excited to switch from using pencils to pens. However, changing the way we grip the pen, the amount of pressure we need to apply for smooth flowing ink and, of course, the obvious change in handwriting was a nightmare that most of us must have had to endure.

Thus, we are all surrounded by changing realities in all spheres and at all ages—whether for good or for the worst. How can we adapt to change so as to ease our way through this process?

1.  Expect discomfort but don’t lose sight of the exhilaration waiting at the end: Knowing and imagining what one is likely to encounter given our past experience with change can prevent us from painting an unrealistically rosy picture of this process. Plus, expecting that there will be a difficult period even though not knowing exactly what it will entail, helps to reduce the uncertainty levels and allows us to exercise some control over our situation, thereby, directly influencing our perceived fear of the unknown. It is important to place ourselves in the centre of this whole dynamic and realize a position of active power than passive helplessness. Although “expecting discomfort” might inculcate a slightly pessimistic outlook; this can be counterbalanced by a positive belief that once the change (irrespective of it being good or bad) has occurred and dealt with it will bring an exhilarating moment of peace.  Why? Just because the process is over and done with!

2. Refrain from cementing the change into a “new old”: What makes change overwhelming is our tendency to settle so comfortably in previously occurred changes that make them seem like they have always existed as it is. For instance, when we move from school to college, we form a new circle of friends and acquaintances. This requires quite a lot of effort, investment and adjustment. Still, when we are to move from college to work, the same anxiety of meeting and making new acquaintances seems burdening once more because we have too easily cemented our college friendships into a “new old of our social circles”. Rather, being aware that a tweaked routine is in fact tweaked will serve as a reminder that other lifestyle changes will occur and we’ll have to accept and adapt to them as well. Thus, always carry the nostalgia of that rigorous reshaping process you had to undergo before landing up with a great bunch of people who helped you survive college! Key Takeaway: Openness to experience helps facing changes head strong.

3. Don’t just think, do: You’re going to be a first time parent? Read a book on parenting. Moving to a new city? Look up the internet for various amenities available in the vicinity of your new home. Have the college prom to go to while your dancing skills suck? Take a few classes. Sometimes when changes come well announced, the best way to prevent ourselves from bouncing off the wrong foot is to prepare for them in small yet concrete, action-oriented ways than simply building castles in the air.

4. I choose future: What to do when changes are impromptu in nature? Well, for starters, don’t think about “What you’d done to deserve such unpleasantness?” Bad things happen to good people and that’s a reality check we must all maintain. Instead, a study has found that individuals who cope well with change are those who think about what can be done now and in future given that the change has already occurred than expending all their energy only in tracing “meaningful causes” from the past that help explain their dire circumstances. This is called showing existential courage. 

5. Slowing down doesn’t equate to failure: At the heart of our fear of the unknown is our fear of failing at this new thing that life has thrown at us. And when does this sinking feeling of failure start setting in? When we are seemingly stagnant, getting nowhere, just watching things as they go haywire. Yes, your performance charts may show dipped ratings. Yes, you may not meet your self- expectations. But guess what? IT’S OKAY. Reiterating a recent and relevant example from my life itself, I’ve been unable to put up blog post for the last month or so because of the transformation that my schedule went through as I moved from graduation to post graduation. This was a personal failure to me at some level. Weekly submission deadlines, power packed lecture schedules with bulks of information to consume, group projects, 3 hour daily commute, earlier than expected semester-end examinations and many other changes had pushed me over the edge in the days I took a hiatus from blogging. It was overwhelming. It was new. I may even venture to say that, “It was CRAZY.” Every week I wanted to pick up my laptop and start penning down some ideas for a new post. But somewhere deep within I knew that it wasn’t going to happen. And once I had this acceptance at a conscious level, it was easier for me to settle down to face the challenges one at a time—slow at pace, strong willed at heart.

Hence, concluding with a beautiful quote by Fred Emery, “Instead of constantly adapting to change, why not change to be adaptive?”

Absentmindedness Explained

Want to read some “funnily relatable” stories?

⮚A few years ago, I accidentally kept my phone in the refrigerator and had a hell of a time searching for it in my whole house later! Checking the refrigerator was of course the last thought on my mind. Because, who in their right senses would keep their phone in the refrigerator in the first place?

⮚I am routinely yelled at by my mother for forgetting to fetch something she asked for on my way home from college. She must have literally called when I was some 3 stations away and the request has already slipped my mind by the time I reach my stop. My mother, however, has come up with a smart idea for ensuring that I do my job. Say, what? Stay tuned till the end to find out THE ULTIMATE TRICK!

⮚The other day, I walked into the kitchen wanting to get myself a glass of water. Strangely, when I lifted my eyes off the mobile screen, I couldn’t remember why I was there. So then I strutted back into the living room and suddenly the purpose of standing dumbfounded in the kitchen hit me.

I can only expect these embarrassing stories to bring a knowing smile on most of your faces. Yes, all of us have ‘been there, done that’ in our own little versions of ABSENTMINDEDNESS. To define this term in the words of psychologist Daniel Schacter would be to call it an error arising due to break down of communication between our attention and memory systems. More simply put, lapses of attention and forgetting to do things is what we call being absentminded. Although, absentmindedness can be a major indicator of various psychological disorders like depression, post traumatic stress disorder, etc., very often absentmindedness is what normal individuals experience to a more or less degree on a daily basis.

Causes of Absentmindedness:

In the aftermath of a blind struggle for restoring my vision after forgetting where I kept my glasses, I often wonder: WHAT MAKES ME SO ABSENTMINDED?

Depth of processing researchers Craik and Tulving have a simple explanation to offer. In their experiments, Craik and Tulving (1975) presented their participants with words and asked them any one of the following questions relating to that word. Suppose the word is “blue”, the questions that could be asked are:

1.  Is the word written in capital letters?
2.   Does the word rhyme with “flew”?
3.   Is the word a kind of color?

The first question requires shallow processing of the word as your answer is dependent on the meaningless analysis of physical characteristics. The second question demands moderate processing of the word which requires us to mentally pronounce blue and flew to detect acoustic similarity. This comparing task is slightly meaningful. The last question entails the deepest level of processing as it appeals us to use our cognitive resources to recall the word’s meaning and decide whether it fits in the category of colors. On a later recall test of these words, participants were more likely to report words to which they answered type 3 questions than otherwise. Thus, the deeper level at which information is processed, the better it is remembered.

What happens when we are absentminded is that we process information around us, even the actions we ourselves are performing, at a very shallow level. Thus, as the information isn’t recorded properly in the first place, its retrieval at a later point in time is also disrupted.

Another explanation for absentmindedness comes from The Invisible Gorilla Experiment by D.J. Simons. Some of you must have watched this video (others, can follow the link) where you’re asked to count the number of passes a group of basketball players make while a gorilla costume clad person occupies the screen space for almost 5 seconds. Having read this description, you may think that if you were to be asked whether you saw “something unusual” while being absorbed in the task you were instructed to hyper focus on, you would still be able to point out the obvious presence of the gorilla. However, research findings show that most of us would in fact exhibit inattentional blindness to the presence of the gorilla because we tend to notice unexpected stimuli only when it fits with other stimuli in the scene. So, I failed to notice keeping my phone in the refrigerator because it was an unusual place to keep one and it obviously doesn’t share any similarities with the things I typically store in my refrigerator.

A retrieval cue is something that helps you bring to mind previously stored information. However, absentminded forgetting occurs when you fail to notice this cue or have too many memories associated with the same cue. For instance, it is quite possible that I forgot why I walked into the kitchen because I didn’t look at the water bottles (cue) lined at the end of the kitchen platform. Or, I forgot to fetch milk on my way back home because the shop I had to buy it from isn’t a distinctive cue, rather is a simultaneous reminder of the fact that my friend lives in the apartment above, I quarreled with the shopkeeper once, I ran into an acquaintance at the shop the other day, etc.

Tips and Tricks to deal with Absentmindedness:

         1. Provide yourself with rich details about what you have to remember. For instance, if my mother has asked me to pick groceries on my way back home, I am likely to remember performing this chore if I put some thought into deciding where exactly I am going to shop and which route I should take to reach that store.

         

     2. Use events rather than time as a cue. This is so because time based cues (e.g. “call Mom at 11 a.m.”) are isolated and easily forgotten if you lose a track of time. Instead, associating events can have the domino effect. So, if you make a mental note of “calling your mother after washing dishes” then your performance of one task will invariably remind you of performing the following task.

    

          3. Habituate yourself into keeping certain things always in the same place. For instance, ALWAYS hang your car keys on the key chain stand when you enter your house. Chances are that you’ll find them on the stand even when you can’t recall putting them there in the first place.

          4. My mother is my accountability buddy. She ensures leaving me a Whatsapp text within 15 minutes from hanging up to ensure that I have done my job. Having someone to report to or maintaining a checklist in plain sight (e.g. on your car dashboard v/s the glove box) goes a long way in reducing absentmindedness.

  

     5. Wondering why I remembered that I was thirsty when I returned to the living room? Because our memory is quite context dependent i.e. things in our environment which we haven’t consciously decided to focus on can serve as retrieval cues. Thus, to remember something you’ve forgotten, try going back to or visualize the context in which you were thinking about it in the first place.

Ordinary humans have limited attention spans and memory storage capacity. THE ULTIMATE TRICK to reduce absentmindedness is simply to work on tactfully allocating these cognitive resources to our advantage.

Are babies always bundles of joy? : Postpartum Depression

     ⮚She exhibits a depressed mood most of the day—her sense of being sunk in an ocean of sadness.

        ⮚She seems uninterested in everyday activities from which she earlier derived pleasure.

     ⮚She eats too much or too little—her appetite has gone haywire.

     ⮚She sleeps too much or too little—her good night’s sleep has become a distant dream.

     ⮚She moves around lethargically, almost dragging herself to get things done…or conversely, she is agitated in all that she does.

     ⮚She feels worthless. She feels guilty.

     ⮚She can’t get herself to concentrate or decide on the tasks she is passively performing.

        ⮚She maybe thinks, maybe plans, maybe attempts committing suicide.

     ⮚She doesn’t use any substances. She can’t place a finger on any medical condition that is causing her such distress and impairment of functioning.

Yet, here she is with her baby in her hands. The beautiful baby she’s been awaiting. Or, at least she should be awaiting the baby? She doesn’t feel any motherly feelings that she should be feeling. Or, should she be feeling them automatically at all?

The answer varies. Some of us gloriously bask in the post pregnancy glow despite hours of painful labor and impending sleepless nights. Some of us don’t. For those who do, KUDOS! However, for those who don’t react this way; let’s not make them feel ‘sidelined, abnormal and stigmatized’.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of mental disorders (DSM-5) is published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) for the purpose of helping mental health professionals around the world diagnose and treat persons with mental health issues. Although popularly referred to as Postpartum Depression (PPD), in the scientific terminology used by DSM-5 the above mentioned pointers are symptoms of a condition called Major Depressive Episode with Peripartum Onset. The same checklist of symptoms is also used to detect the presence of Clinical Depression. However, the signifier of Peripartum Onset is used when the individual starts showing at least 5 of the given symptoms(including at least one of the first two) anytime between the 9 months of pregnancy to 4 weeks from delivery of their infant. This means that the symptoms exist primarily due to the presence of a newborn child and the kind of life changes this entails.

Risk Factors contributing to PPD

Motherhood is universal and so are the problems accompanying it. This is to say, any woman can suffer from Postpartum Depression.

If we were to reinterpret all the symptoms from the perspective of a newborn mother, we could say that the pervasive sadness primarily emerges from the sudden drop to normalcy of hormones like progesterone and estrogen that phenomenally rise during the pregnancy period. While this is often responsible for what we call "baby blues" i.e. a shorter, less intense period of depressed mood found in a majority of new mothers; why it leads to PPD in some women and not others is a little unclear. Further, looking after a helplessly dependent baby is a demanding job in itself because of which the mummy often overlooks the nutritional requirements of her tummy. Having a fussy baby that is difficult to put to sleep negatively impacts the mother’s sleeping cycle. And mind it; sleep deprivation can be a serious physiological contributor to PPD.

The needs of the baby start having an upper hand over needs of the self. There is a huge curtailment in the kind of freedom young parents enjoy before childbirth. A lot of responsibility is now placed on their shoulders. The kind of reorganization in life and roles that the entry of a child brings in is unfathomable, even if the pregnancy was a planned one. So imagine; when the pregnancy is unplanned or imposes the requirement of upbringing the child singlehandedly due to divorce/separation/ death of spouse, wouldn’t the struggles multiply manifold? Also, experiencing birth complications in the present pregnancy, miscarriages in the earlier ones or PPD following previous childbirths may heighten the risk of developing this disorder. Over and over again, it is also said that a prior history of depressive disorders experienced firsthand or by a family member can predispose individuals to PPD.

Naturally, suffering from postpartum depression takes away the ability of a parent to provide fully for the child. The mothers in such a predicament often fail to feel ‘motherly enough’ —i.e. they can’t establish an instant connect with the tiny human that they so preciously created. This leaves them feeling confused, worthless and guilty because they see themselves as being a ‘bad mother’ who doesn’t fit the conventional image of a nurturing primary care giver.

An important point to note down here is that PPD majorly affects women but it doesn’t spare men in some cases either. Motherhood is difficult and so is fatherhood. Men are socialized to not give in to emotional pressures but a life altering event such as having a baby can crush their emotional fences down. Sometimes the father may be an alone sufferer of PPD for reasons that are similar to those mentioned above while many other times, the combined demands of a babbling baby and a seemingly unsupportive partner suffering from PPD can push men over the edge.

What PPD is not

Many women willingly stay away or are forcefully made to stay away from their children if they openly express their depressive thoughts because they are by default seen as being dangerous to their own child. This error in judgment is a result of misinformed media reports regarding ‘women who killed their children while experiencing a bout of postpartum depression.’ However, women who commit such deeds are plagued by postpartum psychosis which is a different and rare disorder wherein individuals experience distorted reality and come to be guided by their delusions that might precipitate them to commit infanticide.

What can you do?

One thing that is clear by now is that postpartum depression is not something that individuals call 

upon themselves by choice. So,

          1. Break the stigma: It’s time to stop constructing a socially validated image of a flawless mother which we knowingly or unknowingly force women to pit themselves against. Let every woman be ‘her kind of mother’.

       

      2. Accept: It’s time to embrace the idea that men have emotional insecurities surrounding childbirth too.

      3. Let’s talk: It’s time to provide an open and safe space where parents can express their frightening PPD-related thoughts. And let this space not only be a therapist’s room but also any and every place of social meeting: homes, playgrounds, workplaces, train bogeys. Let this be a topic as natural to talk about as child birth is.

      4. Be equals: It’s time to start supporting your PPD-affected partner and take equal work load for all the chores related to home, work and the baby. Don’t underestimate the power of a good night’s sleep. Make sure each of you get at least one block of uninterrupted sleep that helps you wake up fresh.

     5. Seek professional help: It’s time for us to realize that unlike baby blues, postpartum depression isn’t soothed only by comforting words. It will require a combination of medications and psychotherapy for social support to show its full impact.

     

     It’s time to help PPD struck parents unleash their bundle of joy.