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Insomnia

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Sleeping is a vital activity to keep our mental and physical being healthy. Not getting adequate sleep can lead to many chronic diseases, one of them characterized as insomnia. Although “insomnia” is a commonly used word, it’s clinically diagnosed using polysomnography, which is a series of tests to understand different parameters of sleep. It is a gold standard for diagnosing sleep-related disorders. Insomnia is identified with hyperarousal symptoms i.e., irritability, risky or destructive behavior, elevated flight-or-fight response, and difficulty concentrating and sleeping. They are often divided into day and night-time symptoms. Studies have shown that personality traits like being self-critical, and suppressing emotions – basically unhealthy emotion regulation – along with neurobiological and genetic dysfunction are considered predisposing factors of insomnia. Mostly, stressful life events along with predisposing factors can lead to insomnia. Majorly, most of us get acute insomnia...
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Nightmares

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Haven’t you had those dreams that wake you up frightened in the middle of the night, breathing faster than usual and relieved that it was just a dream? It means that you probably had a nightmare. Many researchers distinguish a nightmare from a bad dream on the basis of the after effect, i.e., did it lead to awakening from sleep; however, it remains debatable. Nightmares are termed “scary dreams,” and dreams are often described as a combination of things happening around you and some past memories. Therefore, nightmares are referred to as just dreams involving an off-putting emotional response (the most frequent being fear, although people also report anger or sadness as the main emotion in their nightmare). They usually arise in the REM (rapid eye movement) part of sleep. Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan It's known that our sleep has five stages divided into REM and non-REM cycles. In the REM part, the brain is active and we have dreams full of narratives, characters, and plots. And...
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Gut Bacteria and Anxiety

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We always say “I had a gut feeling,” but does our gut really feel about something? Gut and feel? Weird right? To our surprise, it doesn’t only feel but takes care of our health too.  The gut, often referred to as the second brain, is known to be connected to our brain through the gut-brain axis. Additionally, research also shows that this connection is influenced by gut microbiota (the microorganisms that reside along our gut, which are responsible for various functions namely, nutrition, drug metabolism, and protection from pathogens).    Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan Scientists have linked the influence of gut bacteria not only to our immunity but also to our mental health. Being anxious is a common term used nowadays, and this is characterized as an experience that is the body's response to stress, also termed the “psychological equivalent of physical pain.” A common form of anxiety called “situational anxiety” is often experienced in situations like job interviews, ...
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Mystery of memory

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Do you ever wonder why you remember certain things very clearly, some very faintly, and some things not at all? Some childhood or past experiences just stick with us whereas others just don’t bother to stay in our brains for long.  Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan In simple terms, anything to be stored in our brain as memory has to pass via “memory compartments” for the brain to judge if it is even important to keep for a long time or not. This judgment is mostly based on how important or effective the thing is or how it affected us, though many other reasons remain unknown. Memory is broadly classified as short-term and long-term. However, many more subtypes are known depending on the experience and category the memory belongs to. For example, things that you remember about yourself are referred to as “autobiographical memory, ” and “working memory”  comes into action when you are listening to a thriller story while trying to figure out who the killer is.  Illustrated by ...
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Science vs Pseudoscience

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Remember those days, when the first question in the exam was,  “What is Science?” And we would just think and think, and write the definition we learned by rote. Most of us probably don’t even remember that definition now, but if someone asked you today what is science? Can you define it?  The term that is so commonly used but yet a bit tricky to explain, right? In simple terms, anything that you observe and can be proved by experiments becomes science. But the problem with this definition is the question: “so what you can’t observe or prove is not science then?” Because science does not have these clear defined limits, it creates a loophole, which gives rise to concepts like pseudoscience.  Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan Pseudoscience comprises beliefs, notions, practices that occur in the world in the name of science without actually being fact or evidence based. For example, a very popular trend that is coming up where anyone claims to have produced a “Covid-19 treati...
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Digital amnesia

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Do you remember any five phone numbers from your contact list? Do you constantly surf the internet for the tiniest bit of information? Do you feel helpless with your memory without looking into your gadgets? If yes, you could be one of the victims of DIGITAL AMNESIA.  Illustrated by Drishya Unnithan Digital amnesia is when you have difficulty in remembering things like phone numbers, or important dates because you are assured your phone is going to do it for you.  DA is forgetfulness, a loss in your memorizing power,  because of too much dependence on the digital platform for its memory. The use of devices for storage of information is believed to be a way of making up new space in our brains for new information. However, we have become too reliant on these devices causing our memory to short-circuit. Not only does it affect the memory power, but also concentration, or as we like to call it the ‘attention span’. Instances like not reading articles just due to its length, ...
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