In this episode of Nature, Naskar & Neurons, Neuroscientist Abhijit Naskar clears the air around mental illness and gives two simple tricks to keep the mind well.

Further Reading: http://www.amazon.com/What-Mind-Abhijit-Naskar/dp/1535080558



Transcript:

Every day I receive several phone calls and emails requesting advice on various mental issues. And what I see in those requests is a lot of misunderstanding about mental illness. So, in this video I'll mention six things that you need to know about mental illness.



Number 1.

Mental illness is no different from physical issues that you face in your everyday life in terms of significance and impact. They both occur every now and then when your anatomy is not feeling well. But that does not make a person any less competent in his or her actions, unless that person is specifically diagnosed with a severe mental or physiological condition.



Number 2.

Every human being one way or another suffers from some sort of mental issues in daily life, just like people catch a common cold, every time the winter strikes.



Number 3.

Anxiety, depression, Attention deficit - all these issues have been exaggerated by the environment to such an extent that their negative impact on the individual's mind has increased exponentially. They would be much less severe if you could just deal with them without any pre-conceived stereotypical notion about mental illness.



Number 4.

There are various severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, conversion disorder, epilepsy - which do indeed require special attention from medical professionals. But my advice to you is never make any early conclusions on the impact of certain mental issues unless you are told by a doctor otherwise.



Number 5.

Various everyday mental issues such as anxiety, depression etc can be easily healed with one simple trick. If you could make this trick a daily habit of yours, then your mind would be much more healthy, just like daily jogging keeps you physically fit. The trick is that you need to get rid of your emotional junk on a daily basis. You need to take someone, a friend, spouse or anybody who's faithful to you, into confidence and spit out all the things that bother you on daily basis. As I have said in my book Neurosutra - it is better not to hold your feelings inside too much and express them to a dear one freely, than to pay thousands of dollars to a psychiatrist for the same outburst of emotions later. So choose the closest person to you and vent all your issues out to him or her.



Number 6.

Along with venting your issues to a dear one, there is one specific workout that has amazing effects on your mental wellbeing. It is what you simply know as meditation. If you go to a gym, and ask the trainer that you want a specific workout for your belly, he would put you on workout session specifically effective on the belly. Likewise, the best workout for your brain is meditation - not one of the best - the best. In various of our neuroscientific studies meditation has shown to improve mental health to a great extent. Meditation allows you to be emotionally more stable - it improves your memory - your judgement - and basically your entire mental universe gets a renovation with daily practice of meditation.



So the bottom line is - every human being has issues, me, you, everyone - that's what makes us humans - talk about your issues with your loved one and along with it, practice meditation on daily basis - and your mind shall be healthy. And when your mind is healthy - you are healthy - because you are your mind.



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