Slowing Down is the Smartest Way to increase Happiness Quotient

The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything in a snail's pace. Not it is a Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some per-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world   - Photo by Daniel Monteiro on Unsplash

We live in a time when things are moving so fast that many of us have difficulty living our lives in more full and meaningful ways. We find it almost impossible to slow down, mainly because there is a cultural taboo against it. In contemporary society, the expression 'slowing down' implies laziness, inertia or slacking off on the part of the individual who chooses to decelerate. Words such as 'fast' and 'slow' are powerful connotations projecting societal values. Take for example, a person who is fast; she/he is presumed to be someone who can accomplish more in less time. The faster one can produce, the further ahead she/he can get in their profession. On the other hand, a person who is habitually slow accomplishes less and in all likelihood won't be successful in life.

Happiness Quotient

On the other hand happiness quotient is the measure of presence or degree of happiness in a person. But it is not always depend upon on an individual. In this complex, interrelated and interdependent

Photo by Tanja Heffner on Unsplash

world, external factors play a decisive role in one's being happy or not. But that does not mean there is no control in hand. There is, and an individual who understands the dynamics of societal functions also understands the ways to cope up with thorny issues. She/he learns to remain floating even in the worst disasters. So it is clear that Happiness Quotient is relative and achievable.

  

Unhealthy Working Practices

It is against contemporary capitalism that extols the virtues of speed, productivity and accumulation of wealth that we find increasingly difficult to practice what Gandhi believed

there is more life than increasing its speed

We seldom ponder the human cost of capitalism. In the relentless pursuit of speed, efficiency and material possessions we end up spending inordinate amounts of time in modern-day exhaustion, which frequently make us error prone, angry, depressed and ill. Millions all over the world now pop pills to seek relief from stress, insomnia, hypertension, migraines, gastrointestinal problems, to name but a few, all brought on by unhealthy working practices. Even young people in 30s are now experiencing high burnout from this frenzied world of work.

Karoshi

The work ethic of high speed and ruthless efficiency probably has had the worst impact in Japan where the locals have word in Japanese for death by overwork, which is called Karoshi. Although the Japanese Government recently reported that there have been 143 victims of Karoshi, many work groups have put the death toll from overwork in Japan in the thousands. In order to keep up with the fast paced world of business, some people even more coffee just to survive. Potent stimulants like amphetamines have become quite popular among many white-color professionals across the world. They use these stimulants to get a euphoric feeling and alertness that usually lasts for most of one's workday. The side effects of amphetamines are several. They are very addictive and users of this stimulant come down with acute depression, anxiety and violent behavior. The contemporary work culture of haste has also affected our mental and emotional health.

Time Sickness

In 1982, Dr Larry Dossey ,an American Physician, coined the term 'time sickness' to explain the   

Dr Larry Dossey PC his official website

obsessive concern we have about time, which we think is always fleeting ; there isn't enough of it. So we need to go faster to keep up. If we use use Dossey's term. then quite possibly most of the whole world is suffering from time sickness. Many of us have become obsessed about losing time that we desperately try to save every last scarp of it in order to get our things accomplished. In the recent past, Klaus Schwab, founder and president of World Economic Forum, emphasized in the most blunt terms the importance of speed in contemporary societies,

We are moving from a world in which the big eat the small to one in which the fast eat the slow

Everywhere we go we find a mad race against the clock. According to the British psychologist Guy Claxton, living a life of acceleration has become second nature to us, Claxton is of the opinion that

we have developed an inner psychology of speed, of saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day.

Superficial Living

Living in a world of speed has rendered our life superficial in several important ways. When we are in haste, we can only focus at a surface level without having the time to go deep. We are unable to make genuine connections with either people or the world around us. We are in such a hurry that we often forget to fully appreciate the food we are eating or the people with whom we are interacting or places we are visiting. We are either texting, looking at the screen on our smart phones or busy taking selfies or other pictures to post immediately on social media. In this busy bustling times, we seem to have lost the art of taking. It slowly shutting out all the background noise and distractions and simply enjoying the stillness of the moment. In his novella, Stillness, Milan Kundera has warned us in no uncertain terms, about the downside of leading fast life

When things happen too fast, nobody can be certain about anything at all, not even about himself

Slow Movement

The slow movement, which is about promoting slowing down the pace of life, has started in several

Carlo Petrini

cities, especially in Western Europe. This movement was started in 1986 by Carlo Petrini who protested against the opening of a McDonald's restaurant in Piazza di Spagna in Rome. Petrini's protest sparked the creation of slow food movement . Over time, the slow food movement became an important part of the sun-culture, which impacted several important facets of human life.


 


In 2004, Carl Honore wrote his best selling non-fiction  In praise of Slowness, where he describe the Slow Movement thus:

The Slow philosophy is not about doing everything in a snail's pace. Not it is a Luddite attempt to drag the whole planet back to some per-industrial utopia. On the contrary, the movement is made up of people like you and me, people who want to live better in a fast-paced, modern world. This is why the Slow Philosophy can be summed up in a single word : balance. Be fast when it makes sense to be fast and be slow when slowness is called for. Seek to live at what musicians call the tempo giusto - the right speed.

The Slow Movement is not  organized by any single group. People who are genuinely interested in expanding the movement beyond Europe, run the movement. Now the popularity of this movement can be seen in the United States, Australia and even in Japan. The Slow Movement has had a big impact in several areas of our lives such as Cinema, Food, Living Style, Travel and much more.

Cinema  

Slow films characteristically consist of resistance to rapid movements and intense emotion and devotion to realism. This is accomplished by long takes, slow camera movements, unconventional  use of music and sparse editing. Extensive studies on the art(s) of Slow Cinema are gaining momentum.

Food 

Slow Movement is completely opposed to the idea of fast food. Under Slow Movement, food is produced organically and prepared in traditional ways all for the promotion of good health and complete enjoyment. The slow food needs to be consumed in a leisurely way savoring every morsel.

Living Style

This involves making conscious decisions about structuring one's life to give a sense of meaning and fulfillment. It emphasizes quality rather than quantity.

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Travel

Slow travel is not about traveling from one location to another. It is about immersing oneself in the cultural milieu of that place. It involves staying in the same place for a while to establish meaningful connections with that place and its people. The mantra is taking one's time to soak in the experience without the slightest hurry in the world.

Photo by Robert Metz on Unsplash

           
The Slow Movement is about slowing down to savor what we eat, how we travel, how we consume, how we produce and most importantly how we live. The slow movement exhorts us to practice stillness, contemplate, relax, spend quality time with family and friends and let our minds and interactions wander without the constraints of time. Although there is pressure in prevailing socioeconomic conditions, however we can certainly embrace many of the values that are espoused by the Slow Movement either on an individual level or collectively as a family. Some of these lessons include :

1. Stop rushing through life so fast that we forget who we are
2. Stop using turbo-speed in every thing that we do. Use judgement when it's okay to apply speed and when it is not.
3. Stop doing everything all at once and instead, become more present and mindful.
4. Slow down to locate the energy in us to make meaningful connections with the world we live in.

Final Thought

Now is the time to decide what kind of a life we want for ourselves - a life of maddening speed, which is aggressive, controlling, superficial, stressed and impatient, or a life that can be calm, receptive, intuitive, patient, reflective, helping us establish meaningful connections with work, people, culture and food- pretty much everything. The choice is clearly ours. In the words of the former Prime Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, we can learn how to

-- govern the clock . not be governed by it.

            

                        

In Giving We receive - a practice that breaks our persona

Every act of obedience recognizes that there is a higher authority in our lives.. that there is Lord over us who is entitled to honor and respect 
Photo by tony fortunato on Unsplash

Carl Jung,   the Swish psychiatrist defines the word persona as

a kind of mask, designed on the one hand to make a definitive impression upon others, and on the other to conceal the true nature of the individual.

To be in the highly demanding social atmosphere we often try hard  to develop a viable social persona, knowingly or unknowingly, consciously or unconsciously: a flexible persona relates to the outside world, in identification with our professional presence which inhibits psychological development. A professor identifies himself with textbooks, a state minister thinks her/his state as her/his own political party, a factory manager draws her/his all attention towards her/his organizations budgetary obligations, so on so forth. Thus Jung argues in his book 

^Memories, Dreams, Reflections (London 1983) p 416. 

The result could be

the shallow, brittle, conformist kind of personality which is 'all persona', with its excessive concern for 'what people think'.

 ^Anthony Stevens - On Jung (London 1990) p 43

- an deflective state of mind

in which people are utterly unconscious of any distinction between themselves and the world in which they live. They have little or no concept of themselves as beings distinct from what society expects of them.

  ^ Terence Dawson in P Young- Eisendrath and T Dawson , The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge 1977) p 267,

The stage was set thereby for what Jung termed enantiodromia - the emergence of  repressed individuality from beneath the persona later in life.

the individual will either be completely smothered under an empty persona or an enantiodromia into the buried opposites will occur.

 ^ Barbara Hannah Striving towards Wholeness (Boston 1988)  p 263

Enantiodromia

It is a principle defined by Jung that the super abundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite. It is similar to the principle of equilibrium in the natural world, in that any extreme is opposed by the system in order to restore balance. When things get to their extreme. they turn into their opposite. In the repression of psychic forces that are there by cathected into something powerful and threatening. This is in the line of Yin-Yang of Taoism.

 PC Angelo Benuzzi- The Ourobos in the State

In particular, Jung used the term to refer to the unconscious acting against the wishes of the conscious mind, updating the Greek concept akrasia in modern psychological terms. (^Aspects of the Masculine chapter 7 para 294) .

Enantiodromia. literally 'running counter to' referring to the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course time. The characteristic phenomenon practically always occurs when an extreme, one-sided tendency dominates conscious life. In time equally powerful counter-position is build up, which first inhibits the conscious performance and subsequently breaks through the conscious control.

(^"Definitions" ibid, par, 709)

Enantiodromia is typically experienced in conjunction with symptoms associated with acute neurosis and often foreshadows a rebirth of the personality.

The grand plan on which the unconscious life of the psyche is constructed is so inaccessible to our understanding that we can never know what evil may not be necessary in order to produce good by enantiodromia and what good may very possible lead to evil.

(^The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy tales, Collected Works 9i par 397 )

Now 'In Giving We Receive' - How it helps to overcome the paradox of  persona ?   

Referring Bible; Luke 6:38 ESV 454 

Give and it will be given to you. Good measure , pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it, will be measured back to you.

Few more times 'giving and receiving' are referred in the Bible 

PC 4catholiceducators.com

Every act of obedience recognizes that there is a higher authority in our lives.. that there is Lord over us who is entitled to honor and respect. Due to our temperament, personality or circumstances. we may find some commands relatively easy to obey. Our submission is really tested in the areas where our own nature and situation make obedience more difficult. For most of us money is one of those areas. Our wallet is often the last citadel to fall to God's rule and even when it does fall, it gets rebuilt and re-secured again all too quickly. If only we could remember that Divine Lordship is not a threat; rather it's the place of  greatest safety.

In a video of Innana Sarkis, the philosophy of 'in giving we receive', is beautifully illustrated.

    

Final Thought

Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous and indifference toward the wicked.

Patanjali Yoga Aphorism I 33

If we meet someone who is happy in her/his way of life, we are inclined to envy her/him and be jealous to her/his success. We must learn to rejoice in it, as we take pleasure in the happiness of a friend. If someone is unhappy, we should feel for her/him, instead of despising her/him or criticizing her/him for bringing misfortunes upon herself/himself. The virtue of others is apt to irritate us, because we take it as a reflection upon our own shortcomings. We are tempted to sneer at it and suggest that it is only hypocrisy. On the contrary we should delight in it and see it as an inspiration to ourselves to do better. As for the wicked, we must remember Christ's words :

Be not overcome of evil

If someone harms us or hate us, our first instinct is to answer her/him with hatred and injury. We may succeed in injuring her/him, but we shall be injuring ourselves much more, and our hatred will throw our own minds into confusion. So we must practice indifference toward the hurts we receive from others. We must go behind the wickedness of the wicked and try to understand what makes them treat us in that way. Very often we shall discover that we ourselves are partly to blame for their attitude.

Not to further complicate the discussion, we find that every act of giving weakens and even breaks our sinful and selfish nature, the more blissful grace spreads in our hearts. Yes money or kind leaves our pockets, but also sin leaves our hearts. That is a great deal, priceless actually.

Our proper approach toward our fellow human beings is summed up in one of the first of monastic vows:

The bees seek honey. I will shun the habit of the flies and follow that of the bees. I will refrain from finding faults in others and look only for the good. which is in them.

That is a vow which we should all take and try to live up to.
                 
               
            

How Trypophobia is not a real phobia at all- Scientists reveal

Trypophobia is a fear or disgust of closely packed holes. People who suffer have a feel of queasy when looking at surfaces that have small holes.gathered close together  -- Image from CNN.com

Trypophobia -Overview

The term, Trypophobia, which was first heard in 2005 and gained popularity on social media, has quickly become buzzword online for the adverse reactions some people experience when looking at an image of closely packed holes, such as honeycomb, lotus pods,or sponges. Some people have reported anxiety upon viewing such images, but the phobia is not yet recognized as a medical diagnosis. The word is derived from the Greek trýpa, meaning "hole" and  phóbos, meaning "fear".

What is Trypophobia ?

Trypophobia is a fear or disgust of closely packed holes. People who suffer have a feel of queasy when looking at surfaces that have small holes.gathered close together. Not much is known but some common triggers are reported from them who suffers, for example

• Honey Comb
• Lotus Seed pods
• Coral
• Strawberry
• Bubbles
• Condensations
• Aluminum Metal Foam
•  Pomegranate
• Cantaloupes
• A cluster of eyes
• Aerated Chocolate
• Stacked Industrial Pipes viewed end on

Animals including insects, amphibians, mammals, other creatures that have spotted skin or fur can also trigger symptoms of Trypophobia.

Symptoms

Despite their innocuous nature, images of above triggers can induce a variety of symptoms including cognitive changes that reflect anxiety, bodily symptoms that are skin related (such as itchiness, goose-bumps etc.) and physiological changes ( such as nausea, breathing trouble, irregular heart and pulse beat etc.).   

Mathematical Properties that can relate the Symptoms

It appears that it is the configuration that holds the key to the emotion that the images induce. Individuals who do not profess trypophobia still find trypophobic images aversive, although they do not experience the emotion. They do so because the configuration gives the image mathematical properties that are shared by most images that cause visual discomfort, eyestrain or headache.

Images with mathematical properties cannot be processed by the brain efficiently and so brain require more oxygenation. The discomfort occurs while looking the images with mathematical properties therefore normally people avoid such images. Trypophobic images among those that are intrinsically uncomfortable to look at.

Images of contaminants such as mould and skin diseases can provoke disgust in most people not just those with trypophobia. This disgust is probably an evolutionary mechanism that promotes avoidance and has survival value.

Images of mould and skin lesions have mathematical properties similar to those of images that are trypophobic. They also may induce a large oxygenation of the brain in addition to being generally uncomfortable. Perhaps discomfort is a useful mechanism not only for avoiding excessive oxygenation, but also for rapidly avoiding objects that provide a threat in terms of contamination. It may be that in people with trypophobia, the mechanism is overworking.

 

More from Disgust

New research by Emory University in Atlanta Georgia which was published in the open-access journal Peerj.com on 4th January 2018, shows that it may not be phobia at all. While phobias are triggered by the emotion of fear. It concludes that trypophobia is more likely driven by disgust instead..

In the study, they used pupillometry to differentiate fear and disgust reactions to images of holes. Pupillometry provides a measure of pupil size, which is regulated by dilator and sphincter muscles.  Crucially, these two muscles are differentially influenced by activity in sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous system. There is much evidence for a relation between fear and activation of the sympathetic nervous system, known for triggering a “fight-or-flight” response.

A fear response includes an increase in overall cardiovascular function, namely heart rate acceleration  and a response in the dilator muscles, prompting pupil dilation (i.e., larger pupil size). By contrast, disgust is largely characterized by a response of the parasympathetic nervous system, known for “rest-and-digest” functions. These functions include slowing of cardiovascular functions, specifically decreased heart rate  and a response in the sphincter muscles, prompting pupillary constriction (i.e., smaller pupil size).

Figure 1: Example stimuli from each stimulus category used in Experiments 1 and 2.

(A) Images from the holes category known to elicit an aversive response in trypophobes and the general population. (B) Images from the threat category generally associated with a fear response in individuals with snake and spider phobias (arachnophobia and ophidiophobia, respectively) as well as the general population. (C) Images from the neutral category used as controls in Experiment 1. (D) Images from the control category (i.e., controls for the pupil grating response) included in Experiment 2

 Source https://peerj.com/articles/4185/

Experiment 1 was conducted among 41 undergraduate students of average age of 19.84 years and out of them 30 are female.

Figure 2: Pupillary waveforms across time for each stimulus type in Experiment 1.

The x-axis reflects trial time in seconds (s) and the y-axis reflects the percentage of pupil-size change from baseline, such that greater percent change corresponds to a smaller pupil size. Shaded colors represent standard error of the mean (SEM).

Experiment 2 was participated by 44 other students ,average age of 19.60 years among them 30 are female. In the result,  sample of 2 participants were removed for technical reason.

Figure 3: Pupillary waveforms across time for each stimulus type in Experiment 2.

The x-axis reflects trial time in seconds (s) and the y-axis reflects the percentage of pupil-size change from baseline, such that greater percent change corresponds to a smaller pupil size. Shaded colors represent SEM.

   

  

The research suggests that smaller pupil size report feelings of disgust, rather than fear, which is characterized by larger pupil size. That is because a fearful response involves an increase in cardiovascular functions, such as heart-rate acceleration, prompting pupil dilation as a result of perceived danger.

On the other hand disgust is associated with the opposite- the slowing of heart rate as a result , smaller pupil size- in response to perceived contamination.  

The American Psychiatric Association does not recognize Trypophobia as an official phobia. Their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5) states

More research is needed to understand the full scope of trypophobia and the causes of the condition

 

Risk Factors  

Not much is known as the risk factor linked to trypophobia but people across the globe have reported major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. There are two different study conducted in 2016 and 2017 have confirmed relation of these disorders with trypophobia,

(Ref NCBI) and perj.com -Fear of eyes: triadic relation among social anxiety, trypophobia, and discomfort for eye cluster

Diagnosis and Treatment

As Trypophobia is not yet officially recognized phobia therefore Doctors are more likely go with symptomatic treatment with consultation patient's medical, psychiatric and social history. 

However for phobia there are different ways that can be treated. The most effective form of treatment is known as exposure therapy. It is a type of psychotherapy that focuses changing some one's response to the object or situation that causing discomfort. 

Another popular treatment for a phobia is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT combines exposure therapy with other techniques to help for managing anxiety and keeping thoughts becoming overwhelming.
Apart from these there are some ways to control phobia that includes

• Medication with proper guidance from a medical practitioner
• General talk therapy with a counselor or a psychiatrist
• Relaxation techniques such as yoga , deep breathing
• Physical activities and exercise to manage anxiety
• Mindful breathing, observation, listening etc to help cope with stress.   

However medication is tested for treating other phobias and anxieties but little known for their efficacy treating Trypophobia.

It is proven that by changing behavioral pattern and little modification of life style anybody can face boldly anything like phobia. Such as 

• getting enough rest
• eating a healthy and balanced diet
• avoiding caffeine and other similar substances 
• reaching out to friends, family and other support group to connect with other people managing the same issues
• face fearful situations head on as often boldly as it comes  

Final Thought

Recently Trypophobia received significant media attention and American Horror Story featured a trypophobic character and trypophobic advertisements promoting the story line. some people were disturbed by the imagery and criticized the show for insensitivity towards sufferers of trypophobia. However it is obvious that by the increased media attention people become aware of the situation and encourage more research on the matter.    

  

A Teenage Girl rescued by the SexWorkers in Kolkata

The volunteers of the organization reached the
residence of the said Sex Worker and rescued the girl -
Photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash

A report published on 29th December 2017 on a local Bengali Daily Ei Samay which have made us dumbstruck. The report stated that a girl of about 16 years left home whenparent scolded her for doing badly in the Test Examination for
appearing 10th Standard Board Examination. With grief, sorrow and anger she fled home on last Tuesday 26th December 2017 afternoon. She boarded a bus from Dankuni to Shyambazar. After arriving there, she started walking aimlessly and finally reached the nearby red-light area at Shovabazar. Where she met a woman who is a sex-worker and eventually took shelter at her residence for the night.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash

An autonomous body of the Sex Workers is working in that area for
rescue of trafficked girls and women . Same kind of organizations are functional
at several red light areas in the state. The report had stated that in
couple of years they had rescued 862 teenage girls and 222 women from
being trapped in forced prostitution.

On the basis of the report from their source, the volunteers of the organization reached the
residence of the said Sex Worker and rescued the girl.

Twist of the Story

The girl initially was very reluctant to provide her home address and
phone nos to contact her parent . She was annoyed to return home as
she may again be punished by her parent. After several failed attempts,
the rescuers ultimately called the Police for help.
 

Finally by the joint effort of the Police and rescuers
the parent could finally bring their child back to home.

Too much Pressure

The above real life story may be symbolic to the pattern of our
prevailing societal condition. A parent lay pressure by having on the
kids to succeed , the behavioral pattern of a child may affect very
fast and sometimes the symptoms are irrecoverable. They are
paralyzed of fear of not doing well and by obvious fall out they
won't actually learn and succeed like others , to whom they are every
time compared so often. As a result the affected kids , teenagers take
irrational steps like fleeing home, attempting for suicide, murdering
and other anti social activities which stun the Social Scientists,
Psychologists and all of us.

Need of the Hour

Photo by Loren Joseph on Unsplash

As a parent we often do not see or recognize any disability is
persistent in our children. The symptoms of ADD , ADHD, Dyslexia,
Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia are grossly overlooked and ignored by most of
the parents all over the world. Most cases parents are not aware of
the mental health issues or even knowing the issues, they are
reluctant to acknowledge for a fear of loss in position in the society.

Recently I had raised the issue while working with dyslexia , a senior
teacher Smt Mahuya Ray gave us a beautiful advice that we need to learn
and renovate easy to accept social terminology to address the issues related
to mental health.

 

Final Thought

Children with learning problems need guidance and understanding from
parents, families, teachers to reach their full potential and to
succeed. For school going children frustration, blame, anger may have
built up within a family before child is diagnosed. Parents and
children may need special help to overcome negative atmosphere. Mental
health professional can educate parents , teachers and children about
the symptoms and how it affects a family as well as society. They
will also be able to help the children and their parents, develop new
skills, attitudes and ways of reflecting each other. An all around
awareness program is highly needed in all corner of the world.