CATASTROPHE

I shut the blinds, disguised in darkness,

picking the leftovers of tattered optimism.

Sulking in an effort to fence my mind 

from places where misery hits my loved ones.

For I can't unsee a dying man's breath hanging onto

lips of his woman.

and I can't benumb myself from the horror stretched

along the corpse, 

turning a dead man's dignity to insignificant.

Though what I can dodge 

is the urge to soak in the normalcy.

And nothing calms my sore heart 

but the promise of a silvery world

that lets us be.

Shweta Sharma

Are you in harmony with your hormones?

Ever wondered why you sometimes shriek your lungs out on the first person who calls your name and the very next minute you are cooing by their side to make up for this baffling behavior. Now that I've got you thinking, I'd like you to self-assess yourself on a few pointers. Do you find yourself over-indulgent in shopping as a result of frequent changes in your weight and you can only save the energy to buy them online as an idea of an actual cart leaves you in fatigue? Do you get frequent anxiety bouts when you see more hair clinging onto your brush than on your scalp? Do you experience changes in your body that normally pertain to the opposite gender? Do you miss all the bedroom fun owing to an absent sex drive? If you can nod your head in assertion for more than a couple of questions here, then chances are you are being a scapegoat to your two-faced hormones.

It goes without saying that you cannot let these hormones and their silent partner, your endocrine system, take over whatever's left of your sanity. So here's when you shift your focus to three D's :

1) Diet 

Eating a balanced and rotatory diet can do wonders for your endocrine system. A handpicked diet, consisting of healthy fats (coconut oil, clarified butter, nuts, flax seeds, fish, etc) can assure you an optimal generation of hormones like progesterone and estrogen. For testosterone generation, in addition to healthy fats, you can include eggs, leafy vegetables, and protein in your diet. Replacing sugar with jaggery also pulls the parity in taste and elevates the nutritional density of your dish. 

2) De-stress

We cannot put stress on how important it is to de-stress. Stress elevates the cortisol levels in your body, giving you a complimentary buffalo hump (also known as the Cushing Effect). To manage your cortisol levels, you must be on track with your sleep cycle and not just fetch eight hours of it but also regulate the timings for it. Also, giving just 1% of the total number of minutes in a day to meditation and yoga can make a considerable difference in lowering your stress levels.

3) Delete

We often tend to ignore the endocrine disruptors present in the environment which have underlying effects on our hormones. A few examples of these endocrine disruptors are plastic equipment, unwashed grocery items, chemically treated water, pollution, cell phone radio-frequency radiations, etc. You can use natural detoxifiers such as lemon, cilantro, beetroot, basil, etc to cut down the effects of toxins on your body in case you are not able to avoid the usage of these disruptors completely.

While there are many concluding verdicts for the reparation of your broken ties with your hormones, what you must not brush off are the seemingly small symptoms that they cause. The dangers of untreated hormonal imbalance can be massive and thus shall be acted upon without a delay. So it's time that you stop letting your hormones boss over you especially when you have your 9-5 for that.

Are we chewing on a sustainable diet ?

As much as we love the idea of having an exotic dietary plan hung on our refrigerators ,we cannot deny that what's inside of that refrigerator (in most times) in no way circles around the word 'Exotic'. The logic lying on the surface : Exotic foods cannot be hoarded because of  the price and lack of availability. Exotic healthy food items or imported healthy food items generally carry a price that makes us weigh the nutritional value directly to their price. Also, premium price of such food items makes it difficult for our pockets to stock it up unlike our local food items which are available on our beck and call. So is it a striking plan to put our bets on these 'hard-to-get'  player ingredients ? 👀

I vote no and I can soothe you with an example to support my vote. Example here being : A couple of years back I ordered 2 medium sized Avocados from a retailer online (costing me INR350) with an expectation of spooning the buttery fruit and smashing it, all while imagining the health benefits that I could reap from it. With all the big words put out, breakfast recipes imagined, I was not expecting to receive two unripe fruits I had no idea what to do with. This was one of my many failed experiences with fancy food items. 

One thing I learned while juggling between various food items was that even if you expertise in dealing with them, you cannot continue being reliant on them or reap their full benefits. Especially when we have locally grown substitute for each one of them. We can always chew on readily available nuts rather than putting our hopes in a ripened avocado. Some other local items which ace as substitutes can be : 

• Indian gooseberries for expensive blueberries
• Amaranth/Buckwheat grain for Quinoa
• Curd for Kefir
• Indian Basil seeds for Mexican chia seeds

The above listed examples are neither pricey nor outlying. So let's pledge on munching our way through local superfoods. Also, the more we shoutout to push the popularity of our local products, the more it will benefit our small vendors and of course, none of us would mind a simultaneous social contribution. 😉