Convincing Ourselves

Is there such a thing as too little food? Well, there is surely is. Eating too little, going on a crash diet or leaving out a food group for no obvious reason are all examples of a haphazard, rash approach to managing health and weight. The main reason why we tend to go for these crash diets are  1. Impatience. 2. We want to look good rather than be healthy. The above two points usually manifests themselves in a ‘deadline’ usually around a wedding, a holiday or some other social event. As important as it might be for our egos to look for other people, the reality is that that we only look as good as we feel, and nothing good comes quick. One of the most extreme ways in which such black and white thinking becomes reality is anorexia and bulimia. Anorexia is, of course, something I myself have struggled with. I have had loved ones who have struggled with Bulimia. Anorexia is essentially a killer, as it has the highest mortality rate of any mental heal...

O ne of the very basis of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is Positive Statements that are used to replace negative statements once they are identified. On the internet, in the self-help space as well as the New Age community, these are known as affirmations. However, I believe those practicing Affirmations can learn a bit from CBT and related therapies such as DBT, and expand the way they talk to themselves. The idea is to give themselves evidence of what they are telling themselves. The simplest way to do this is to add ‘BECAUSE’ after the affirmation or positive statement you are repeating to yourself and improvise from there. For example, if your statement “It's easy for me to eat healthy food”, just add ‘because’ after it…so it becomes “It's easy for me to eat healthy food…because”….eg “I understand the value of health” or “I enjoy healthy food” or “I enjoy taking care of my body” and so on There is really no limit to how many statements you can have after ‘...

Everyone grows up admiring someone. We may admire our father. He seems strong and powerful yet loving. We may admire our teachers in school, who seem to know the answer to everything, we may even admire a cartoon character that we can relate to. Whatever the case, we all admire people and often aspire to be like them. Even though many believe that having role models means we may be 'fan boyish', 'unoriginal' or 'hero worshiping', I believe role models have a huge role to play in helping us becoming our potential and for many having a role model can be life changing. Showing Purpose: One way in which role models can help us is by showing us a purpose in life. As a young kid myself, I was very much inspired by Edison and wanted to be an inventor myself. This never  materialized ofcourse but it set me on to a path where I was curious to discover new things and without a doubt made up who I am today. Even though I did not know Edison, whatever I read about hi...