Psychoblogical

Those of who have read my blog  http://psycho-blogical.blogspot.com/2019/07/spain-spanish-and-spaniards.html  know that I am a big fan of everything Spanish.  Today, I was missing my Spain trip a bit too much. So I decided to bring a little bit of Spain into my home.  I took it upon myself to make Churros. For those who don't know, Churros are traditional Spanish snacks that look something like this and are mostly eaten with hot Chocolate Sauce. And trust me, they are D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U.S. Now I feel there is something mysterious between Churros and Me.  Every time I have eaten Churros, a story worth telling has unfolded. Let me take you back to the first time I ate Churros. We were in Spain at the time, for a 3-week trip. We had a 'Free Day' that day, meaning we had no fixed plans. We were free to do whatever we wanted to, go wherever we wanted and explore places on our own. We were instructed to come back at an allocated point at a particular time. As per pl...

March 20,2020 marks the beginning of my quarantine life. Now this is something we never expected to happen to us and on that account, we were totally unprepared for what was to come. The current situation is grave. But all we need to do to save lives is STAY AT HOME. Although this might seem easy at first, it definitely is not. Humans, primarily being social animals, are having great difficulties maintaining their sanity in this Lock-down Period.  I, for one, am the living evidence. Albeit I have the opportunity to work from home (which takes up most of my time), I too, have moments where I crave the 'Outside'.  To curb these cravings and to keep busy, I did a few things that I am really proud of (including washing dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, hanging the clothes for drying and the rest...😏). I would like to share these with you and may be you can share a few with me; because frankly, I am now running out of ideas 😜 Lots and lots of cook...

Hello Readers, Today I am going to write about another topic that I am really passionate about. Since a number of days, I had been thinking about penning down my thoughts on this topic. But every time I sat down to write, I felt like I couldn't do justice to the vastness and importance of it. However, a few incidents in the past days gave me a final thrust to write. As we all know, this year, rains caused havoc in a number of cities throughout the country. Mother nature showed her wrath in the form of floods. Day before yesterday, she gave yet another word of warning when she caused whopping destruction in some parts of my very own city- Pune. To the best of my knowledge, there have hardly been any instances of destruction caused by heavy rains in a city like Pune, given its geographical advantage. But then what was different this year? Mother Nature has had enough of it! That's what's different. This year, she just won't digest all the trash we dump. She w...

Hello Readers,  Today, I would like to share with you all my experience of visiting the country of my dreams - SPAIN!  Let us start from the very beginning. I wanted to learn Spanish since I was 14. However, as the saying goes- 'Better late than never'- I started learning the said language last year and Oh My! I fell head over heels in love with it! Needless to say, I was besides myself with joy when an opportunity to travel to Spain presented itself.  I was lucky enough to travel with a group of students from my institute who were equally thrilled about going to Spain. And this crazy bunch of people with limitless energy and curiosity made my travel experience a 100 times better.  _______________________________________________________________ A fair warning: I love Spain, Spaniards and the Spanish language. So I might have biased opinions.  But Spain is unlike any other place I have ever visited. Like most European countries, Spain t...

We are living in an fast-paced age where it seems like we do not have enough time for others, nor for ourselves. We are running in circles from chore to chore, living "per diem". In such a situation, it is necessary to reinforce the practice of 'Mindfulness' into our routine so as to perpetuate mental health. I say 'reinforce', because our ancestors were hitherto reaping the benefits of Mindfulness through practices such as Yogasana, Praanayam, Yoga nidra, Meditation et cetera. . . WHAT IS MINDFULNESS? Cambridge dictionary defines Mindfulness as “The practice of being aware of your body, mind, and feelings in the present moment, thought to create a feeling of calm.” In plain terms, Mindfulness is the practice of focussing on your thoughts and on the information that you receive from all of your five senses at any given moment, Broadly speaking, it is the experience of the 'here and now'. For experiment purposes, monitor thoughts. Note down ...

Hello Readers, Its been a long time since I wrote my last blog. But I was unable to find anything inspiring enough to write about. Now I have finally found it. Today, I am going to write about the importance of NEGATIVE EMOTIONS by sharing my personal experience. So here it goes. For those of you who don't know: I had been preparing for banking exams the last year. I gave many, many exams resulting in failure. But I didn't mind, because my focus was clearing the IBPS clerk exams. My first victory came when I cleared the IBPS preliminary examination that happened in the month of December. After that, I rigorously started studying for the second round which took place at the end of January. And today, April 1,was the D-day! I failed the examination by less than a mark. I started asking myself, "Why couldn't I have scored just 1 more mark?" "Why does it always happen to me?" "What am I going to do in my life now?" Today, the whole day, I ...

Autism is a mental condition that affects around 23 in 10,000 people in India. The attitude of the society towards them, affects autistic people to a certain extent. In this blog, I will try to write about autism and society's view towards the autistic, on the suggestion of a cherished reader. Before I begin, I would like to make it clear that I have not specialized in Clinical Psychology and hence lack the in-depth knowledge about this mental condition. However, I will attempt to write based on some understanding that I have about it. So to begin with, let us understand what autism really is. Autism is a life-long, complex developmental condition. It includes impairments in social development, communication skills and some behavioral issues. Because of the varied range of symptoms, this condition is now also referred to as "Autism Spectrum Disorder". Let us look at a few symptoms: 1. Communication Problems:      Children or adults with autism may experience challen...