Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Watching unpleasant news on TV, late at night, is detrimental to one’s health and well-being. It wobbles our sleep and causes disagreeable side- and after-effects on one’s psyche. This is akin to our frenzied response when we lose something valuable. It brings negative, unhelpful primary emotions. A loss of something which
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR We all know that TV, the eternal baby-sitter, or surrogate mother, is magic potion. Yet, there’s also a huge dark side to TV. TV has not only battered our values, it has also marginalised old-fashioned conversations, at home, and outside of it, including good habits like reading, or watching a stage-play.
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR The quintessential discovery of hypnosis is attributed to Dr Franz Anton Mesmer, MD, the ‘non-conformist’ 18th-century Viennese physician. Dr Mesmer, it is now evidenced, used a method similar to modern hypnosis, or hypnotherapy, with the sole intention of removing neurotic symptoms. Dr Mesmer discovered that when he applied magnets on some
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Ankylosing spondylitis [AS] refers, or relates, to inflammatory arthritis of the spine and other joints. It also reminds one of the bony pangs of rheumatoid arthritis [RA] — which may sometimes progress to bony ankylosis [stiffening, or fixation, of the joint due to the disease process], along with the formation of
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Stress is nothing short of an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent element. It runs in our veins, our mind, and also our physiology. It does not matter whether you are a genius, average, or whatever. Stress transcends us all — although the ‘stress’ that you have, or apprehend the most, may be
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Stress is an inevitable part of our life and existence. While it is agreed that the stress response does not make us ready for instant action, it sure makes way for what is referred to as short-term stress response, famously called the fight-or-flight response. This mechanism clearly involves a rapid switch
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR It does not matter whether you are 65, or 75+. Falling or a risk of some injury is imminent, especially when you are alone at home. The question uppermost in one’s mind is — what if you are not able
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Emotions are not simple phenomena. They are as simple, or complex, as asking scientists, “Why is the sky blue?” Thought and thinking are far more convoluted than we imagine them to be. Just as certain questions and answers in science are riddled with haziness, even when their meanings, or concepts, are
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR There is a good old, also timeless, Oriental aphorism: “If you have a good diet, of what use is a doctor? And, if you don’t have a good diet, of what use is a doctor?” This leads us to the big question: what is ‘good’ diet, or what, in effect, epitomises
Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR When we think of awareness, or conscious receptiveness, most of us go through a state of perplexity. As we become attentive to our emotions, we also think as if we are subject to a plethora of warped emotional feelings. It takes time to understand such feelings — more so, to figure
