Pratima Shah

   Very often when asked about our happiest moments; each one of us has to think a lot to find them. But if someone asks us about our saddest moments, we have a list to tell them. Why is it so that we remember our saddest moments instead of remembering our happiest moments. According to Neurobiology these sad / bad / unpleasant memories occupy our thought process. The socio - biological reasoning behind this is that we humans have invented many ways and resources to ward off danger / predators / enemies. This instinct made us develop a control through which we controlled our surroundings. This controlling instinct carried with it a baggage of thoughts of how to control others who harm us and in turn be harmed by them too. These bad thoughts led to traumatic events and thus occupied a major portion of our brain.    When a person starts aging, the anxiety within the person starts increasing because of the unpleasant memories that have occurred in her / his life. T...

   Our society has always emphasized on story telling to children during the childhood phase. Many children are habituated with listening to stories and falling asleep. The kind of stories told by parents / grandparents include stories from the holy scriptures, Amar Chitra Katha, Panchtantra, Jataka tales, Chacha Chaudhary, stories depicting valour and patriotism, Cindrella, Snow White, Alice in Wonderland and many more. Our daughters are in love with Cindrella and fairy tale kind of stories where a handsome knight comes over a flying horse and marries the girl and they live happily ever after. These stories create a perception in the mind of the young girls that to live happily ever after one needs to marry a charming and handsome boy and boys think that the girl one marries to has to be beautiful. There is rarely any story that speaks about the girl being intelligent. This is not the case only in India but also in many other countries.    Due to this, two girl...

     There are so many sounds that fall on our ears but we are unaware of them. Beginning from the chirping of the birds, the hum of the bees, the sounds of the horns and the passing traffic we daily absorb so many sounds unconsciously; they just remain in the background of our minds. Listening is in our genes; if we don't listen we cannot respond to anything around us. Listening is an art which everyone must possess.    As we grow up we speak more and listen less. We want others to listen to us but we never make conscious efforts to listen to others. This leads to miscommunication in the world. It is time for us to learn a lot from the ones who are active listeners. When we listen to someone, we make them feel valued, secure and understood. We accept them as they are by loving and appreciating them. You owe a lot to that person who listens, really listens to you. The person may have listened to you and advised you, may have been your guide to the right pat...

     Tim Herrara, Editor of the New York Times Smarter Living recommends that time and again we must take a stock of our failures at the professional front because we learn a lot by our past mistakes. Our mistakes bring us face to face with the bitter yet inevitable truth that - there is no short cut to success nor is there any straight line to success. In 2010, Melanie Stefan, a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh came out with her 'CV of Failures' in an article for the journal Nature . Her only intention in doing this was to make others realize the setbacks of their life at the professional level.    If one begins to make a CV of Failures; I am sure it would be longer than the CV of Success. It will seem depressing when you are putting it on paper but it will definitely remind you of the missing realities / truths. Your CV of Failures would be inspiring for people who have lost hope in life. Experts say that maintaining such a  CV is a powerful ...

     Believe it or not, every addiction has its root in unhappiness. Being addicted to drugs, alcohol, smoking or any other substance works as an emotional anesthetic for a person who is unhappy and in pain. The question that arises is that why does addiction have its root in pain? Our brain grows after our birth. The kind of emotional and physical interactions we encounter determine the development of our brain. The brain's circuitry and chemistry throws light on our individual experiences of life as much as inherited tendencies. For a drug to work in the brain, the nerve cells must have receptors - the center where the drug can bind. Our brain is made of opiate receptors and we all have natural opiate like substances known as endorphins, chemicals that participate in many functions and which regulate pain and mood within us.    As per a survey, infant rates who were less taken care of by their mothers recorded less natural benzo receptors in that part of ...

   Today while taking presentations of the 1st Year B.Tech students, I realized that these children who seem to be very intelligent find it very difficult to speak before their classmates. Despite of giving them the instructions umpteen times; I wonder why they do not pay heed to them? There were barely 1-2 outstanding performances. Despite of making them aware of the kinesics, proxemics, paranlinguistic and chronemic features there were hardly a few who mastered the art. It was not that I had declared the dates of the presentation overnight. But these students always end up keeping things for the eleventh hour. Whatever is done in the eleventh hour never yields you the required result. Yet they always end up procrastinating things.    Public speaking is an art which one needs to master. One needs to practice a lot before the D day. You may feel I am good at talking to people; but talking to people does not make you an effective speaker. To be a successful speak...

Have you ever come across persons who are 'Baba Black Sheep Managers?' This phrase means a person who is always saying Yes Sir, Yes Sir / Yes Mam, Yes Mam, The eponymous character in the nursery rhyme was able to answer the question asked to him in the rhyme but in real life when persons keep on saying Yes Sir, Yes Sir for anything that is conveyed / told to them; it acts as an impediment to effective communication. I wonder how do people fall into this trap of saying 'Yes Sir, Yes Mam'. Most of the time it comes out of nervousness when one is required to address a senior. They may sometimes even want to behave respectfully. This particular behavior of a person may backfire as it puts off the person who is being addressed. Rather than being taken as showing respect towards someone; the person may appear  submissive or may be even as a flatterer. Sometimes a senior may also assume it to be a part of your skill to show that you are lacking in the information / knowle...