Now a days the situation is that, blind men can lead others those who are blind and those who are not at all blind. These people who are blind followers have chosen their fate for misery.They are given their own chances to find out their way, to follow the right path. If people had used their brains instead of hearts to chose a leader, this world would have been a much better place to live in. Of course leaders live in splendour, from the wealth and power gained from their followers. These blind followers are the wealth of every leader. They exploit us, gain from us and when we have nothing to give them they thow us out like waste paper.

I was a blind follower too : I followed my love for money , fame and power. I still find them fascinating. But as life teaches us, these do come to us, if we work without having a look on them.

I have a friend Tom who trades in the stock market. He is at his thirties and much more experienced than me,follows news and gets his calls from Jay an analyst.

I doubted these analysts from long time back because they leave loop holes behind to escape from criticism. But Tom was a blind follower and never gave a second thought. As things turned out, when the big stock market crash came, Tom lost the bulk of his money. So he decided to contact Jay, what he said was, ” I always told you to trade cautiously, stock market is no childs play”. So did Tom learn a lesson?

Fortunately Tom did learn a lesson from that,” I will never follow anyone blindly” He told me later. But unfortunately all men are not a Tom or a Jay. There are dumb followers and good leaders. If you choose a good leader and yet follow them cautiously you have a chance to win. This world is not known to be soft to anyone.

Blind men who follow blind leaders out number , men who follow good leaders. Leadership which does not expect anything in return is the need of the hour.  But most of those leaders will be missionaries or school teachers!. Politicians can never be good leaders, because they expect power in return. Power is the worst wine anyone can drink. power makes people mad,makes them kings.

Learn from your mistakes, have the wisdom to select good from the bad, you are all geared up for life.

Greed can take control of your life, up to a level where you lose everything, hope,happiness everything which you strived for in your whole life. Greed has the power to destroy your life. The important point is that, you should know to draw a line between greed and knowing what you need.

Fear of losing

Fear of losing something is one of those best defences we have against greed. It is this fear that makes us cautious and prevent losses from accumulating.The fear of losing your loved ones makes you care for them a lot more. The fear of disease is what makes you adopt a healthy lifestyle.Fear of cancer makes you quit smoking!

Last week I had some big loss in the stock market. Monday was a  good day, I even made some good profits coming my way. This time Greed got the better of me. I didn’t sell my Options, thinking that it will go even more up on the next day. I didn’t take my opportunity to make money due to my greed.

On Tuesday there was a fall in the market and I should have got out that time, but I didn’t because I thought markets will go up on the next day. But it fell on the next day and the day after that. By the end of friday I had only a quarter of my investment left!

It was not bad after all, because I learned something which would help me for the rest of my life.Some facts which I learned were.

• Be contended with what you have
• Never lose money
• Have a strict stop loss either 5% below your buy price or at the buy price.
• Don’t follow analysts blindly, believe only what you see with your eyes.
• Analysts make lots of money, they get out in time and prevent loss. By the time you get the news only a quarter of your money remains!
• Learn from every mistake you make.

Take control of your life now,because it is still not late. Winners learn fro every mistake but losers won’t. Losers keep on making losses. Be a winner from now on.

The term heartburn is a misnomer because it has nothing to do with heart. The disease got this name because the person experiences pain in the region of heart.This occurs because esophagus is located in the chest and reflux of acid into esophagus is the cause of heartburn.Fortunately, the stomach is protected from its own acid by a special mucous layer. The esophagus, however, does not have any such special protection. If the lower esophageal sphincter does not close completely, the lower part of the esophagus can be damaged by stomach acid. When this happens, heartburn may be experienced.

Continual bouts of heartburn can be a symptom of a more serious condition called gastroesophageal reflux disease or GERD. Frequent or severe heartburn may limit daily activities and lead to further complications such as ulcers in the esophagus.About 30% of adults experience occasional heartburn, while 10% experience heartburn every day. About 25% of pregnant women have heartburn or related symptoms.

Causes of Hearburn

Foods and drinks

Foods and drinks like chocolate, peppermint, caffeine-containing beverages (such as coffee, tea, and soft drinks), fatty foods, and alcohol.

Position of the body

Lying down with head at a lower level or bending over position.

Increased pressure inside stomach

Anything that increases the pressure on the stomach and forces stomach acid backward into the esophagus can also cause heartburn. This is why lifting, straining, coughing, tight clothing, obesity, and pregnancy can worsen heartburn.

Drugs

Certain drugs can loosen the lower esophageal sphincter and cause heart burn.These include blood pressure and heart medications, and the asthma drug theophilline

Many substances directly irritate the lining of the esophagus and can contribute to heartburn. These include spicy foods, citrus fruits and juices, tomatoes and tomato sauces, cigarette smoke, aspirin, ibuprofen , and medicines for osteoporosis.

Symptoms

The pain of heartburn is described as a burning feeling in the chest. Often, the sensation may spread up into the throat, jaw, arms, or back. That’s why heartburn is often mistaken for chest pain due to a heart attack. Stomach acid can also affect the respiratory tract, causing asthma, hoarseness, chronic cough, sore throat, or tooth damage.

Treatment for heartburn

Medical treatment.

Antacids medications, acid production inhibitors(H1 blockers and Prton pump inhibitors) are the mainstay of treatment. If symptoms persist even after these steps, surgery is the next step of treatment.Antacids containing calcium carbonate are the most potent in neutralizing stomach acid.

Lifestyle Modifications

Lifestyle modifications is very much essential for treatment of heartburn.These lifestyle modifications are usufel in case of mild disease and preventing progression into full blown stage.

Stop smoking

Limit alcohol intake.

Avoid large meals.

Avoid caffeinated drinks and chocolate.

Reduce lifting weights and straining immediately after food intake.

Avoid lying down within 3 hours of meals

While sleeping, raise the head end of your  bed a bit using bricks.

Lose weight if you are overweight.

Low doses of Cimetidine, Ranitidine(rantac), Famotidine or Omeprazole or Rabeprazole.

Practice Yoga

By following these simple lifestyle modifications, we can prevent heartburn and lead a full filling life.

Necessity is the mother of all inventions, does hold true in this case also, Necessity is the mother of all friendships.

Almost all friendships start this way( about 99.9%). The necessity can be yours or this newly found acquaintance of yours. Let us think about some situations where friendships form.

Case 1

You are at a party, none of your relatives or acquaintances are at the party. You have nothing to do, everything just seems to be boring, so you have 3 options.

1. Go and join a group or join someone for a talk

2. Wish that someone, who feels as lonely as you, came to talk with you.

3.Just stand and enjoy the party in your own way, leave when it is over.

So out of these 3 options, you will have made friends if you followed the first two.

Case 2

A need arises, and no one is there to help you, when this person comes by your side and help you out.

Consider this situation:

You get into a road traffic accident and people at the accident site blame you a lot as you have caused the accident, you wish” Oh! Someone help me out of this”.No one emerges and you are a desperate man, when someone comes out from the crowd and saves you from the crowd. You are so thankful to the man, and it grows into a good friendship.

Case 3

You know this person for long and doesn’t even care to look in his direction, you absolutely dislike this guy because you dont like the way he behaves. So this goes on for years until one fine morning a need arises, you need a room to stay, and no one else is having a room to share, but this guy does. You think a lot, and decides to approach him,because there is no other way. A mutual understanding develops and it may turn into two options:

1. You discover that your assumptions were wrong. Actually this guy is a nice one, and behaves to you in a friendly way. You enjoy a lot, cracking jokes, playing games and so on. So you decide to get rid of the old impression you had, and become good friends with him.

2. You recognize that this man is so worse than you thought he was. No way you can stay with him, so you just get out of his room as soon as possible.

Case 4

Friend of your friend becomes your friend.

At the movie theater you meet a friend of your friend, while you are with your friend!. So there is no way to escape other than get introduced to the new friend. You stay with him for a while, and recognize that he is a good guy and decides that, it would be nice to have such a friend. You meet up later and get each others phone numbers and stay in touch.

Many more case scenarios exist, but this post will go on wthout end,on mentioning all those.These cases have a common factor, necessity.

Necessity is the mother of all friendships.

“See I’m alone, and what shall I do now?”

Why don’t you just shut up and do something worthwhile?

The most important lesson I learnt from Bible was this, no one can save you if you cannot do it yourself. You do not earn anything from BEING  anxious,you don’t get any interest if you deposit it in a savings account.

So what is the use of being anxious? Of course you  can increase your precious stress level and hence  contribute to raised  Blood Pressure and tension headache!

Tension can cause tension headaches which doesn’t go away even on taking medicines or taking a bath ( Taking a cool bath will relieve most of the headaches).Cooling off the stress is the only treatment for headaches of stressful etiology.

I used to get anxious over a whole lot of things, I cannot count them, the list is endless. What a WORRYBOY I used to be!

I don’t know why I ever got so worried over such trivial matters, but the matter was serious those days.

So what do,I do now, when i get anxious or worried, as people spell it? I don’t draw in a gulp of air, i don’t sigh, I don’t show it on my face.Then what do I do?

I just do the work I am doing, may be just sit there. At this instant the thought crosses my mind, do i gain anything from it? Absolutely nothing, I even lose my concentration. I just leave everything to god( See this is where god comes into the play!) and just leave the subject as a whole. It has become something like a habit now, now I feel I am just COOL!

I learned this from my friend at school and college, who used to be very cool. So cool that he would never bother about anything. Nothing could make him worry.How the hell did he do this? He was so cool that everyone wanted to be like him. But there is only one man like him, but you can learn something from him.

This is what I learned

“Please don’t worry about being worried!”

It is a known fact, that the more number of times we do the 3r’s,  more embedded a fact becomes into our brain. Though I do read, I myself feel timid to recite it, and not to mention revising!

Use all sensory modalities

While learning, try to use all our sensory modalities.

1.Vision

Look into pictures. A picture is worth 100’s of words and a video is worth 100’s of such pictures and a real life experience is worth 100’s of such videos.

It is the eye, which is most valuable tool in learning process. If we learn a fact try to verify it with our own eyes. You are less likely to forget it!

2. Touch

Touch and feel, the object we intent to study. Writing in fact is a way of touching. The more we write the more we remember.

3 . Smell

Though it may seem funny, smell has a role in our studies. Smell and see. You never forget an occasion filled with wonderful aroma.

4 .Pain

Have you ever forgotten the punishment from your class teacher? It is less likely that you forget such bitter experiences.

Pain in the other sense means, the effort we have pumped in, our devotion to our work.

“Take pain in doing your work”

5. words

The power of words need not be over emphasized. In fact learning process is accelerated by reciting loud. Though it may seem childish, it helps us a lot.

Recite recite recite.

I have been doing this market game for over 1 year, I made some profits at first( What people call beginners luck). At that time markets were good and went up every day, and I made neat profits. Now things are a bit different, if one day the market is up, next day it is down.

As it is human nature, to go for more profits within a short time, I decided ti jump into option. I took index option( nifty option). Today was a bad day, ahead of the inflation numbers. I had a put option, and could have made a lot of money, but I couldn’t handle the pressure and had to give up the profits and ended up with a call option in a market which is going down.

So my next aim, is to learn to maintain my cool, whatever the matter is.Losing money is something which everyone hates, I too hate it. So I am planning to do something about it.

1. Don’t take advice from others which jeopardize your chance to win.

2. Learn and be updated with the market moves

3.Don’t forget key dates

a. Inflation numbers announcement date.

b.SEBI meeting date.

c. TRAI MEETING

d. Futures and options expiry

and many more….

So learning to live with the markets is a matter. learning to live life is another matter. I experienced the anxiety, fear, greed an everyday trader experiences. I could feel my heart pumping hard, beating fast. If I cannot control my emotions and stress I wouldn’t live enough to enjoy all the benefits life has to offer me!

Some tips to manage stress

• Try to identify your own stress triggers
• Adopt techniques which work for you - we all cope with stress differently
• Be aware of your own symptoms of stress
• Accept yourself and don’t try to be perfect
• Take action to tackle your problems
• Look after yourself physically and mentally
• Be positive

So waiting to see whether market beats me or I beat the markets. Hopefully I suppose I would beat the market!

I found this article interesting:How to Maintain Your Cool When What You Really Want to Do is Smack Your Husband

Behind him,a girl, her face reveals her agony,

A woman was at the back of the pack,

She seemed to be a cripple, the pain obvious on her face,

They belonged to the same family,

I was lost in thought for a while,

What would have brought a whole family to the doctor,

Is it scabies or tinea?

Or is it, hepatitis or  chickenpox,

I am the doctor and I will have to diagnose

There I was sitting, bewildered,but determined to find the cause.

Hence I began to examine the man,and found Swelling around the knee,

He was febrile and appear to be tired,

There were patches on his face,

And gave a history of mosquito bites,

All his neighbours were affected too,

All others showed the same findings,

Soon came to the realization,

The vector is a mosquito and the signs are consistent with,

A viral etiology,

I ruled out all other causes and came to a solid diagnosis,

It was nothing other than Chikungunya.

Chikungunya has become an endemic in Kerala, which is hailed to be numero uno, among all the states in India as far as the  health status is concerned. What makes Kerala so prone to chikungunya is, numerous pools of water and rubber plantations. It is the ideal place any mosquito can dream of!

The disease is characterized by severe pain and swelling on large joints of the body. These symptoms follow mosquito bite, and similar complaints may be present in a whole locality.

the only modality of treatment for this disease is absolute bed rest and oral antipyretics(paracetamol) and analgesics to relieve pain.

The more specific details are given below:

Causative organism: (Systematic name in 1997) Chikungunya virus
Alternative names: Buggy Creek virus
Alternative disease names: None

ICTV Acronym CHIKV
Properties: Family: Togaviridae
Genus: Alphavirus
A positive-sense, single-stranded RNA virus.
Vector involvement: The disease is spread by culex mosquitoes.

Symptoms

Sudden severe headache, chills, fever, joint and muscle pain are the commonest symptoms.

Key Diagnostic Tests.

Detection of antigens or antibody to the agent in the blood (serology)
ELISA is available
An IgM capture ELISA is necessary to distinguish the disease from dengue fever.

Differential Diagnosis(Similar diseases)

Dengue fever

Symptoms and effects.

After an incubation period of 3-12 days there is a sudden onset of flu-like symptoms including a severe headache, chills, fever (>40°C,104°F), joint pain, nausea and vomiting. The joints of the extermities in particular become swollen and painful to the touch. A rash may sometimes occur. Hemorrhage is rare and all but a few patients recover within 3-5 days. Some can suffer for joint pain for months. Children may display neurological symptoms.

Medical and Physical Countermeasures.

Vaccination (Immunoprophylaxis)

A vaccine is not available.

No specific therapies are available.

Supportive care

Symptoms are treated, e.g. with analgesics and anticonvulsants.

Paracetamol
Ibuprofen

Decontamination The virus is killed by common disinfectants, moist heat and drying. The vector (a mosquito) also needs to be controlled with insecticides.

Chikungunyavirus

Chikungunya virus is highly infective and disabling but is not transmissible between people. It would most likely be dispensed as an aerosol or by the release of infected mosquitos. The disabling joint pain and fever, the lack of a suitable animal reservoir in Western countries and its lack of lethality make it a very “clean” weapon that could be used against key civilian installations. The name comes from the Swahili for “that which bends up” that is a reference to the positions that victims take to relieve the joint pain.

Those with Alzheimer’s who were less fit had four times more signs of brain shrinkage than those who were fit.

“People with early Alzheimer’s disease may be able to preserve their brain function for a longer period of time by exercising regularly and potentially reducing the amount of brain volume lost.

“Evidence shows decreasing brain volume is tied to poorer cognitive performance, so preserving more brain volume may translate into better cognitive performance.”

This study gives evidence that if you exercise regularly you can prevent Alzheimers. Smoking also prevents Alzheimers. So it all sums up to:

” A smoking jogger never catches Alzheimer’s”

NB: The above sentence is not meant to promote smoking in any way. It is just a reminder that every coin has two sides, so smoking has bad effects which outweighs its benefits.

People, especially women take up arms and prepare their ammo to fight, when the word tobacco or smoking is uttered. It is as if, tobacco is the worst thing which has ever originated! Don’t forget it is not the stimulant but the smoke which is dangerous to man. What if we can get rid of the smoke and use nicotine only? Not only would it be beneficial with respect to its stimulant effect, it may also help to boost memory.

Cigarette smoking has produced many cancer patients and many families have been orphaned. What if the villain can turn into the hero? Yes, it has almost become reality, with removal of the smoke component. Now a days nicotine patches are widely prevalent. These patches on being applied to the skin gives long lasting stimulant effect avoiding the risk of tobacco smoke induced cancer.

The thought of the masses is clouded with fears of tobacco, but have you ever thought of the advantages? Though disadvantages overweight advantages, I am listing some advantages of tobacco:

Tobacco helps in preventing Azheimers disease

Tobacco protects against ulcerative Colitis( A chronic disease of colon)

Tobacco helps to boost memory( The latest addition)!

The list continues….

NB: I have to recollect the full list. Will edit the list and fill it at the earliest.

Source: Smoking improves memory

NB: As a doctor I always advice patients to avoid smoking, but it is the right of every citizen to know whether there are any benefits too. The benefits of smoking is outweighed by harmful effects by 1 million times. Smoking causes lung cancer which is the most common cause of death due to Cancer among males.