The Psychology of Nakedness

Recently, I was talking to a nudist couple from Philippines on a Facebook group who seemed to be overly enthusiastic about their way of living. Nudism(or naturism) is an alternative lifestyle involving social nudity, both in private and in public, and are usually practiced with like-minded people in clothing-optional areas like naturist resorts, public baths and beaches. I had really got no idea of what nudism (or naturism) really is, but after having gotten some enlightenment from the couple I talked to, I started to develop interest in it! It’s nothing like I want to become a nudist myself (and that too in a country where nudity is taken so damn seriously), rather I got interested in the psychology of nakedness.

Have you ever wondered when and why did humans begin to wear clothes? The exact phenomenon that made us to cover ourselves is hotly debated with many individual theories being used to account for it. It has been proven that the urge of making and wearing clothes is not an inherent instinct in humans.  Do you think a baby which is born naked, as soon as it gains awareness, starts to scream for cloths out of embarrassment? No, it doesn’t. Instinct does not tell it to get up and cry for clothes; instinct tells it to scream and yell as loud as possible for its basic needs like milk or whatever.

Looking at the issue from an anthropological perspective, one can argue that the seemingly natal impulse of covering oneself can be a result of what is known as ‘Out of Africa’ theory. This theory is the most widely accepted model describing the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans. According to this model, Homo sapiens first evolved in Africa's rift valley, and while they were yet not far up the evolutionary scale from monkeys, it was difficult for them to survive in the pretty hot climate in Africa with their furry skin. Our ape ancestors spent most of their time in forests and had fur to protect their body from cold, contrary to the woolly, erect hominid walking around under the sun on the hot Savannah. The later would have overheated, and through natural selection lost their fur in order to control body temperature and adapted to life on the Savannah.While human evolved to be less hairy, the problem started to occur when the Ice Age came along. The humans were now cold without any natural protection. The inherent innovativeness of humans caused them to cover their bodies with the skin of animals they would kill to protect themselves from cold. This need for covering their bodies further gained more significance as humans spread out from Africa to the cooler areas of Asia, Europe... etc. Since then, society accepted clothing as a mandatory part of living.  

But do humans really like to wear clothes? I mean if there was no social restriction, would we be really moving around naked in public? It seems to be an interesting question and the answer to it is quite controversial. What if I say yes humans desire to stroll around the streets naked and wish everyone would do the same! Would you fuckin’ believe it? If you’re a Freudian, you certainly would. According to the psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud, our personality is made up of three components—Id, ego, and superego. The id is the set of irrational instinctual trends containing our animalistic desires, fears and repressed emotions;  the super-ego plays the critical and moralizing role; and the ego is the organized, realistic part that mediates between the desires of the id and the super-ego. So under the influence of our Id, we all have the urge to stay naked all the time (and have sex on the road like dogs), but the superego being the seat of morality forbids it like anything. The ego uses defense mechanisms to cope up with our anxieties of not being allowed to have our animal desires like being naked all the times fulfilled.

Over thousands of evolutionary years, we've learned that exhibiting a naked body sends out sexual signals that threaten the security of mating pairs. Society has conditioned us into believing that mating with someone outside the domain of a relationship is bad and Shame is the ideal emotion that enforces this code of conduct. This code of conduct gets encoded into our superego. 

But the urge to enjoy nakedness is still there in the unconscious mind. This is where, as I said earlier, the ego plays its defense mechanism. In psychology, Sublimation is a type of ego defense mechanism where socially unacceptable impulses (like being naked in public) are consciously transformed into socially acceptable actions or behavior (like going to a nudist resort, public bath or beach), possibly resulting in a long-term conversion of the initial impulse. The bottom line is that we all love to be naked from within no matter how much we deny it consciously, but our superego forbids it. While most of the times the urge to stay naked gets repressed into unconscious mind, sometimes our ego lets us enjoy our nudity in socially acceptable ways through sublimation and other defense mechanisms.

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How to accept ourselves and live a happy life?

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During my high-school days, I had a friend named Ravi who always used to ask me about how to increase body weight and how to pack up more lean muscles. I was not a counselor then(neither I was a bodybuilder), but still since my father is a doctor, I’d had an overwhelming repute in classroom, and often my friends would come to me seeking solutions to their health problems(and piss me off). Ravi was really not a very skinny guy— he was fit and had a nice athletic body but surprisingly he considered himself to be thin and unattractive. When I asked him why he’s been so desperate about changing his body figure which indeed looked good, he had no answer to it; or maybe he didn’t want to reveal. I too really seemed to bother less. But now after getting acquainted with psychology pretty well, I can easily comprehended why he used to say that, and I wish I could have been able to help him at that time. The main problem with most of us who’re unhappy with ourselves is that we don’t accept ourselves the way we are.

Learning to love our body just the way it is can be a virtuous choice to make. Self acceptance creates an upwelling of feel-good hormones like oxytocin and dopamine that foster a sense of self-reverence , and helps us become a more enthusiastic person  According to Kay Hutchinson, a former united states senator, “our energy flow changes when we love and accept our physical form just the way it is. That wonderful sense of self-acceptance will naturally attract abundantly supportive people and situations into your life.” Failing to do so will pave an easy way for depression creep in.

Often depression occurs when we constantly feed ourselves with  negative thoughts and tend to hate ourselves for our natural traits over which we have got no control over. When we accept our bodies and start loving it, we start to develop affirmative surge of thoughts that avow how beautiful and good we are.

  

Besides learning how to accept our body, we must also learn to accept our personality. Personality is a unique attribute of an individual projected in the form of emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns. It is typically split into components called the Big Five personality traits, which are openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Normally, these components are steady over time and allegedly attributable to a person’s inheritance rather than the upshot of one’s environment. But these allegations are sometimes challenged by other school of psychology which says that environment plays greater role in shaping ones personality (Nature vs Nurture). I settle on the belief that both genetics and environment are equally influential in shaping ones personality, more or less in a 50-50 proportion. The 50 percent of our personality that’s based on genetics can’t be changed so must be accepted while the remaining 50 percent which are susceptible change can be looked upon as something that we can amend if the situation demands so.

As social beings, we are conditioned to believe that loving oneself and taking pride in our achievements is egoism and arrogance.  That’s pure bullshit. We are all valuable designs of nature(or God as you may call it) and there's nothing wrong in reckoning ourselves in the same respect as we reckon anyone else. It can be tempting at times to be hard on ourselves but we must learn to be strong enough to overcome this temptation. We must understand that disliking or hating ourselves is a destructive mental conditioning, and it does no good to anyone. As human beings, we all have dignity and pride, and there is not much difference between the 'great' and 'not-so-great' in the eyes of God.

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Can binaural music alter your brainwaves?

To cope up with a stressful and demanding lifestyle, and enhance my creative performance, I recently decided to start daily meditation. I looked on internet for some of the best ways to meditate, and was literally inflamed with curiosity when I came across the term: Binaural Beats!

The concept of binaural beat is quite a recent psychological breakthrough. It has become quite notorious these days for its stimulatory effects on human mind. There have been many allegations about the psycho-stimulatory effect of binaural beats—it can help people memorize and learn, quit smoking, deal with erectile dysfunction, perk up physical performance etc…. It has also been claimed that binaural beats can stimulate the effect of recreational drugs making you feel really high and escalated. Now that sounds interesting, right!

To understand the effect of binaural beats on mind and realize it’s role in producing relaxation states or altered states of consciousness, it’s important to understand two psychophysical terms: Binaural Beats and Brain waves.

What are brain waves?

It’s difficult to comprehend the concept of brainwaves without having a basic knowledge of wave dynamics and neurology, but to put in its simplest form, Brainwaves are the electrical undulations produced during coordinated transmission of electrochemical signals through neurons in brain. They’re measured by a device called electroencephalogram and are not actually waves in the terms of traveling waves in physics. Different types of brain waves as administered during particular mental states are:

Beta waves (Active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration, arousal, cognition, and or paranoia)

Alpha waves (Relaxation (while awake), pre-sleep and pre-wake drowsiness, REM sleep, Dreams)

Theta waves (Deep meditation/relaxation, NREM sleep)

Delta waves (Deep dreamless sleep, loss of body awareness)

What are binaural beats?

Binaural beats are produced when two coherent sounds of nearly similar frequencies are presented one to each ear with stereo headphones or speakers. The brain integrates the two signals, producing a sensation of a third sound called the binaural beat.For example, if a frequency of 100 Hz is played in one ear and 106 Hz is played in the other ear, a binaural beat of 6 Hz is created by the brain.

The concept behind binaural beats is pretty simple:  If someone receives an auditory stimulus with a frequency in the range of brain waves, the predominant brainwave frequency is said to move towards the frequency of the stimulus. In psychological terms, this process is known as entrainment. For example, if a normal, awake person is subjected to a binaural beat of frequency of around 7 hertz, the beta wave which is predominant in that wakeful state will drift towards the frequency of binaural beat, and thereby get lowered. The lower the brain wave frequency, the more relaxing the mental state.

While the above conceptualization has been scientifically testified and substantiated, there are other contentious assertions of binaural effect. For example, it’s hypothesized that by using particular binaural frequencies, an individual can stimulate certain glands to produce desired hormones. Beta-endorphin has been modulated in studies using alpha-theta brain wave training, and dopamine with binaural beats.(Wikipedia)

Yogis who’ve been into meditation for years are able to produce low frequency brainwaves on their own, but it’s quite difficult for us to do that on our own. This is where binaural beats come into help. They are simply an easy way to get the brain to the low frequency states that are needed to work with the subconscious mind, and produce a relaxation effect whose intensity depends upon how low the brain waves are.

I have heard of some powerful binaural beats that make you feel high but I feel they work different for everyone.

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Is casual encounter better than affair?

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Before I even speak a word further, I should make it clear that this post is in no way trying to promote casual encounters over affairs. It’s just my own interpretation and I’m on no account trying to advocate recreational sexual practices like swinging, booty calls, one night stands, open relationships or whatever.  The purpose of writing this post goes hand in hand with the disclaimer policy of the blog.

Recently, I came across an awesome book by Roberto Hogue—Real Secrets of Sex: A Women's Guide on How to Be Good in Bed. The author points out that great sex is all about freedom and being everything you’ve always wanted to be. It’s all about knowing that the only limits you have in regards to your own sexuality are the ones you necessitate on yourself.

While the above lines bear no direct connection with our topic of casual sex, it does insinuate that casual sex is just a matter of our own choice, and as far as we’re getting satisfaction out of it without causing any problems in our life and in that of others, our choice is virtuous.  Like every other thing in this world, having sex outside the context of a romantic relationship has got its own set of advantages and disadvantages.  You may be a single guy/girl with soaring ambition, who feels that getting into a long term affair would spoil your determination, and thereby prefer hookups instead of long term love affiliations; or you may be a committed lover who doesn’t wanna cheat on your partner, and sustain the romantic relationship for a longer period of time. Either way life can be fun!

While there are so many people out there who believe that casual sex could ruin a relationship of 30 years, there’re ample reason not to believe as such. Researchers have shown that friends with benefits, fuck buddies, one-night stands, booty calls and casual sex relationships can eventually help a person make better choices when it comes to entering a long term relationship later in life. 

The problem with casual encounters is the vast amount of complications that can arise in perpetrator’s life. For all the men out there, just because a girl at nightclub has got a sexy booty doesn’t mean you can risk your life by getting hooked up with her. What happens if she appears all nice and cute to you during your first(and probably last) meet, but gets all bitchy on the bed forcing you to try out horrible things you’d never had dreamt of doing before. And what if she has got some dreadful STD that you’d never really want to suffer from! If you’re really into casual encounters, there are lots of precautions to take.

A kind of sex between strangers, the ‘zipless fuck’ as it is called, is said to be a wholesome experience without any ulterior motives attached to it, . There is no power game, and no fear of remorse or guilt. There’s no give and take relationship involved, and no one is trying to prove anything or get anything out of anyone.

The zipless fuck is the purest thing there is. And it is rarer than the unicorn.  It’s a perfect one night stand.(Erica Jong, Fear of Flying )

You may have lots of sexual encounters in life, and if you’re lucky enough they all may be  zipless ones. But don’t forget that one day you’ll have to settle for that special one you’ll be spending your entire life with—the one who will give you nice little kids to play with, be your companion for life long, and stay with you through thick and thin. No matter how exotic the idea of casual encounter may sound, nothing can be more euphoric than being in relationship.

So enjoy as much causality as you wish, but don’t let yourself die without knowing the wonder of fucking with love! 

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How to boost your self-confidence?

Doubting your abilities? You might need to read this…

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I chose to write this post because of my friend John (name changed), who’s from Harare, Zimbabwe. After I revealed to him that I’m a psychologist, he asked me: how can I boost my self esteem? He also exposed to me that he’s recently broken up with his girlfriend, and feeling quite lonely and disconsolate after the trauma that has furthermore shattered his self-esteem. He now wants to build it back. Good, I appreciate it. I think a lot of guys have the same problems like John after going through such unsettling episodes—dwindling self-esteem, self-doubt, lack of self-reliance to name a few,  and there’s really little help available for the victims to cope up with it, probably because they tend to keep it within themselves. (John, if you’re reading this post right now, I’d like to tell you that it’s all dedicated to you, and it’s really my pleasure to help you out of your problems with the knowledge and understanding of human nature I’ve acquired through learning and personal experiences)

This is definitely not the first time people have asked me how to boost self-esteem. It’s much of a routine thing for me, and I’m really surprised to find out how many people endure this kind of distressing life episodes. I was once talking to a high-school girl on face book who’d been dating a guy for about a month. She felt that her boyfriend is really cool and sexy. He was rich, had a good social standing, and was really an awesome guy—but for some reasons unknown to the girl—he tend to suffer from horrible self-esteem. She mentioned that in the first few days of their courtship, he was very sweet and romantic, and awesome in bed too, but slowly she started to scrutinize changes in him—changes that have now overblown into much of a paranoia, pessimism, and perfectionism sort of thing!

If you’re one of those people who believe they’re not worthy enough, it’s time for you to change the frame of your mind, and revolutionize the way you think and perceive. Everyone is born with good and bad qualities. What you need to do is be acquainted with your positive and negative traits and stand up to it. Learn to trust in your abilities, and take yourself back to all the problems you have played against and subjugated. Cherish it as your achievement. Understand that you can never be the best, but you can always make yourselves better.  Embark on a new journey and substantiate to the world that you CAN rather than you can’t. Appreciate your achievements not considering how small they are, and make a note of them.

Recently, I attended a lecture on ‘Effective thinking skills’ by Swarnalatha Iyer, a clinical psychologist and life coach in India, who suggested a great way of boosting one’s self-esteem. Her methodology is helping me defy my own unconstructiveness and turn flaws it into positive traits. Here’s what she recommended:

 Take a sheet of paper and draw two columns—one with the heading ‘positive’ and the other, ‘Negative’. Make a list of all your positive and negative assets, skills, physical and social resources, talents, flaws and anything else that makes you feel good or bad about yourself. Now, sort out your positive and negative traits from the list and catalog them in respective columns. Having finished, read out the positive things five times each to yourself.

So you’re now left with the negatives. Ask yourself this question for each negative point you have written: Can you change it and if yes then how? If you can change it, work on it; if you can’t, then accept it. Though it’s difficult to accept your flaws during first few days of this routine, but once you master this skill, your life will change dramatically. You’ll find your negativities receding, and your life getting filled with optimism. Ultimately, it will boost your self-esteem to such an extent that you will find life in your own control!

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Is your girlfriend bisexual?

If you’re a women reading this and/or this post appears pejorative to you in any way, I’m extremely sorry for having it penned down. I’m in no way trying to disparage hetero-normative sentiments, and belittle the authentic emotions concerned with the same-sex attraction. Just like my other blog posts, it’s meant for entertainment purpose, and doesn't aim towards hurting the attitudes of any community or ideology.

Is your girlfriend a 100% woman? The question might seem quite eccentric to many, but to some it does make sense, and if it makes sense to you too…welcome, this post is for you!

You might be quite confused at those peculiar things your girlfriend says and does  around you—things that tend you into believing that she is much of a bi-curious/bisexual kind of  bitch you see in pornographic film these days, though she claims to be  straight.  To be honest I’m quite sick of it. I believe the world is filled with girls who watch lesbian porn , fantasize about other women while masturbating, go out on dates with other women, and even go dirty on bed with them, and still call themselves  straight. I’m tamed to believe that majority of chicks out there seem to have some degrees of lesbian tendencies, which a lot of guys surprisingly find very hot. Call it the triumph of media conditioning over evolution or whatever.

 One day I was frank enough to ask a girl about whether she feels 'lesbionic' from inside at times. She was silent. To make the situation worse, I asked: “Has it ever happened that you were completely naked in front of another women in a room and felt something tickling between your legs ?”  ‘No, no way’, she exploded,  ‘how could you ever think I’d do anything like that with another woman.’ And then she literally fired the ball of textual cannon. ‘I think you quys are really sick, and you love to believe that we girls are bisexuals. I’ve never had many female friends in high school and even the sight of women filing down the stairs holding hands appeared creepy to me.’ So , OK , she was straight. I was convinced.

To remind you, please don’t try asking such questions to a girl face to face, chances are that you might get slapped! My research subject was a stranger, and the conversation happened on a dating site.

Surveying a single girl on dating site didn’t change my notion nevertheless. I rather like to believe on larger surveys that have shown that a huge number of high school and college going girls are experimenting with other women than ever before, possibly influenced by movies such as Kissing Jessic Stein , Mulholland Drive , Alexander , Kinsey , and Brokeback Mountain . I also once read on a website that if a girl has a high regard for the sex appeal of another woman, then it means her mind is quite open to accepting such thing. If your girl openly appreciates women in sexual context, enjoys lesbian porn, and teases you openly saying that she’d go about dating a women, beware, you may be into relationship with a bad-ass bisexual bitch!

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Should you use anti-aging products?

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The day you are born, you start aging—but it’s really in your mid twenties that you begin to feel the anguish of your receding bodily splendor. It’s the time in your life when you get up early in the morning and rush straight to the bathroom mirror, only to whimper at those new freckles and age marks that’ve showed up overnight. You switch the television on, and as you settle your butts on the couch with a heavy heart, trying to comfort yourself with a cup of coffee, you see sexy models in bikini trying to sell their magical, anti-aging products—products you’re convinced would help you cover up those obvious blue veins, freckles, age spots and awful moles on skin!

It common for women to expend plenty of money on those magical products that would perhaps reverse the process of aging, and improve their supposedly hideous looks. Even though they work their butts off trying to overturn the dials of age clock, they continue to live an unhappy and miserable life, and envy others because of their beauty. The cause for their misery and dissatisfaction is deeply rooted in the idiosyncrasies of modern media conditioning. Women are hardened to believe that those sexy models on television shows looks so damn gorgeous just by using the products they’re advertising. In reality, they undergo a lot of cosmetic procedures to rejuvenate their skin to get that pixie look. It’s their job to look like a goddess to survive in the media industry.

I’d like to echo few lines from one of blog post where I wrote: Struggling to mold oneself into social standards of perfectness is more of a fool's pursuit as these standards, being dynamic, changes with the shifting epoch. Chasing physical perfection is about as prolific as chasing a shadow, and even people who go about in pursuit of what they have theorized as perfection usually do not end up contented or feeling any closer to perfection. And the rest is clear to you I guess.

One day while I was standing by the cash counter at a local mall waiting to pay my bills, I heard two ladies bantering behind me about some cosmetics they’d just bought. ‘Olay brings really awesome anti aging creams. It works wonders on me and makes my skin feel great all the time.’, said one who had the face of a banshee, horribly white. The other lady, who looked quite beautiful to me, replied, ‘Nah…I believe having a vegetarian diet and practicing yoga is more helpful in preventing anti-aging’’. The two ladies indulged into a ferocious debate attracting the attention of customers and vendors from the farthest corners, and then went out of the mall disputing all the way. I was left amused at the whole scenario.

These circumstances really help me explain the sophistication of media industry pretty well on occasions. The far-fetched hysteria of physical attractiveness which the alluring images of media have standardized, causes women to be more apprehensive in order to measure up to a such a refined media embodiment. Nevertheless, women who undergo positive media conditioning, like the yoga-loving lady I came across at the mall, are able to sustain their attractiveness in a better way.

I am not against the use of anti-aging cosmetics. I believe it’s important to be careful in choosing the right kinds of products. Take for example face scrubs. Face scrubs have become quite popular these days as an effective exfoliating agent. But do you know using any kind of face wash with scrub particles in it is bad for your skin? The sand-like particles present in face scrubs actually scuffs your face making it more vulnerable to the symptoms of aging.  On the other hand, products like sunscreen and moisturizers are very helpful in delaying the signs of aging, and keeping skin problems like dermatitis and melanoma at bay. However, when shopping for a sunscreen you should always make sure that the one you’re buying provides protection against both UVA and UVB radiations. 

As a health and fitness enthusiast, I recommend both men and women to keep their skin young and healthy by drinking lots of water, doing yoga daily, and using sun block and moisturizer every day. I also advice them to resist the temptation to apply any cheap chemicals on their priceless skin no matter how alluring it’s advertisement may appear. It’s  media conditioning after all. 

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Tattoos: Are they safe?

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Are you looking forward to getting a tattoo but wondering whether it’s safe for you not? If yes then this post can really be of some help. Getting a tattoo for the first time can be quite nerve-racking, especially, if you’re quite cognizant about your dermal health, or have had a history of nasty skin infection. No matter what’s the purpose behind getting yourself branded, it’s always fair to give some time to consider if it’s an apt choice, so that you may not have to go through the pain of  having it removed later in life.  And trust me…getting a tattoo is far much easier than having it removed. The later may involve paying several trips to a laser clinic, which, besides being painful, can be quite an expensive deal too.

Tattoos are fashioned with a film of ink impressed onto the dermis layer of skin with repetitive needle pokes from a  hand-held electric machine, and thus involves an ample risk of infection, blood loss and pain, as is usually the case with any procedure requiring introduction of foreign chemicals and/or needles into the skin. Modern tattooists curtail the risks by following conventional precautions, often working with disposable items, and sterilizing their tools after each use.

With amateur tattooing, such as that practiced in prisons, the risk of infection is even much more elevated, the major risk factor being the use of unsterilized tattoo equipment and contaminated ink. Possible complications include infections of the skin, hepatitis, herpes , HIV, staph, tetanus, and even tuberculosis. And trust me amateur tattooing is not just limited to prisoners. You might have got no idea of how many people regularly search about self-tattooing on internet. Every now and then, I see threads related to self-tattooing on health and lifestyle discussion boards, probably posted by some Ignorant teens who’re unaware of the fatalities concerned with this activity. Tattoos are best done by a trained tattoo artist who’s got a bona fide training in the use and sterilization of equipments.  There is no safe way to do a tattoo on oneself, and those who stubbornly indulge into this life-threatening activity suffer later with a large number of nasty infections and resulting complications that may even turn fatal.

I come across queries of some women on sexual forums  who wonder if it is safe to get a tattoo anywhere on the breast! If I were a women I’d certainly freak out at the idea of someone poking needles all over my sensitive breast skin, but then for those women out there with a wild fetish for body art, I’d only say that breast tattooing is just as safe as getting a tattoo anywhere else on the body. Precautions should be however taken by those who think they’re gonna get pregnant, and hold off until they’re done with having kids.

Overall, tattoos are not bad to have if both you and the artist take proper precautions.

 

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Does banana really help you lose weight?

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Banana is one of the many super foods that are effective in making weight loss campaigns a success. A lot of conflicting information about weight loss on internet makes it difficult for an enthusiast to make educated decision regarding what to choose as proper diet foods. With the help of this blog post, I will try to enlighten you with the some of the great nutritional qualities Banana boasts of which makes it a good dietary choice when it comes to weight loss. 
 
Recently, my friend complained to me about his girlfriend who seemed to be quite obsessed with bananas. Someone had told her that eating Bananas daily can help her lose those extra pounds on tummy she’d been moving around with since months. What a bullshit, I thought, how can a food rich in carbohydrate and calories help her lose a bit of her weight. But then out of curiosity I checked out on Google, and to my surprise, a lot of authentic articles appeared before me claiming the same. I went bananas!

Like me, many people would identify banana as a fruit rich in calories and carbs—therefore—not fit as a weight loss diet, but I think it’s time for us to change our notion about bananas . Though bananas may be slightly higher in calories and carbohydrates than some other fruits, they are in no way a high calorie food, not to mention, the amount of fats bananas contain is roughly about 0.5g per fruit of average size.

We can’t deny the fact that banana is an incredibly nutritious food—it combats depression, cures hangovers, relieves morning sickness, and prevents osteoporosis. And now there are ample reasons to believe that bananas can help lose weight quite effectively too. Do you know why? Well, I was convinced with the fact that the high fiber content and low GI (Glycemic Index) in Banana contributes the feeling of fullness for longer period of time and thus serves the ideal of a typical diet food. Eating two bananas before a strenuous workout provides enough energy required for the exercise without making the need of having food felt for a longtime, and sustains body sugar throughout the session. Whether you’re trying to loose weight or not, bananas are incredibly nutritious and can contribute to a healthy, balanced diet, monitoring your overall health at the same time.

If you don’t feel like eating banana like a monkey all the time, you can try out various healthy recipes of it. I often prefer chopped banana with cooked cereal or oats over other dishes, but you can go for other recipes say a banana smoothie with honey or low-fat natural Greek yogurt, or with nuts and seeds sprinkled over it so as to balance the snack with proteins. In my country you’d find people cooking raw, roundly chopped bananas just like a vegetable with lots of spices and oil. No matter how you eat it, it’s your banana and your choice.

 

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Sexual Health and Hysteria: When concern becomes obsession

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It’s normal for you, on occasion, to go back and double-check that the door is closed or your television set is switched off: But if you suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), compulsive thoughts and behaviors become so recurrent that they interfere with your day to day life. And if the interference occurs in sexual sphere of your life, you may be suffering from what’s known as sexual OCD.

Sexual OCD is a fairly common psychological disorder, typically characterized by persistent fixations with deviant sexual thoughts, obsessive concern for sexual health, and recurring compulsions in response to the obsessions. An example includes a women’s obsessive thoughts about conceiving pregnancy, accidently, after shaking hands with  a man who has supposedly not washed his hands after touching his genitals. Or a man who’s unable to perform on bed just because he feels his partner might be infected with a virus that would turn him into a zombie sort of thing if he copulates with her.

Though the above examples are quite extreme in nature , there are some mild sexual obsessions like concern about the size, color and hygiene of genitals; obsessive fear of contracting AIDS after having intercourse; unwanted guilt-arousing sexual thoughts like rape, incest etc… to name a few. A man might get obsessed with the size of his penis, and impulsively measure his erections every now and then. He might also keep away from dating out of fear of being humiliated, and in the worst case scenario, splurge into reading  articles about penis enlargement on internet most of his time.   Similarly, a women might suddenly start to feel that her feelings towards her boyfriend is half-hearted, and that she might be a lesbian. She would then possibly start to gaze at every woman speculating if she is also attracted to someone of the same sex.

Obsessions regarding use of cosmetics to improve sexual attractiveness are fairly common—however—not everyone who uses such cosmetics can be called obsessed. I was once talking to a women on sexual health board who confessed about using anal bleach.  Anal bleaching is the process of lightening the area around the anus to do away with any dark pigmentation that might be a result of temporary bodily changes or normal genetics.  She was a cosmetologist by profession and her views about using anal bleach changed my way of thinking. “There’s nothin’ weird in that”, she said, “it’s just like using a facial cream to correct uneven skin tone and make it attractive.” It does make sense to me because I know more people are turning to anal sex than ever before…thanks to the growing popularity of anal pornography and internet. But then she added to the conversation later saying that it should not become an obsession for a women so that she’s unable to perform on bed if she hasn’t bleached her butt-hole to a baby pink hue since a long time. If the later starts to happen, she might want to talk to a therapist.

The pigmentation of anal area does not perturb everybody, but for pornographic actress—we know—it's part of their vocation to maintain an even skin tone around their privies. Just like celebrities who expend thousands of dollars to keep their skin youthful and alluring. The things which they do to survive in the entertainment industry and be admired by their fans becomes a trend and people are conditioned to accept it as a standard of beauty, and in the former case, a standard of sexual attractiveness. The conditioning takes the form of obsession in some people to such an extent that they need therapy to restore the normal functioning of life.

Penis enlargement, Anal bleaching, Cosmetic surgery , and the trend for men and women to remove their pubic hair, all manifest the sophistication of porn industry and the far-fetched hysteria which the alluring images of media have standardized. There's more apprehension than ever for women to measure up to a such a sophisticated pornographic embodiment. Resulting frustration makes way for depression, and depression in turn invites plethora of psychological disorders including OCD to obliterate normality from the life of victim.

When the obnoxious thoughts, images, and impulses keep coming into mind every now and then  such that day-to-day life suffers, therapy might be recommended.  Treatments such as cognitive behavioral therapy, systematic desensitization, and hypnosis are usually put to use to reduce the symptoms and distress of OCD to a great extent. Sometimes, antidepressant medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) also provides quick relief.

 

 

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Bodybuilding on a vegan diet

When it comes to bodybuilding, the choice of vegan diet for getting a bizarre bodily proportion may seem abrupt to many people. People are conditioned to believe that only lean meat can provide essential proteins required for real muscle building, but this is not entirely true. A correct combination of vegetarian foods can provide all the essential proteins along with other nutrients to pack up descent muscles.

No matter how abrupt the idea may sound, it’s really possible to build huge muscles on a vegetarian diet—provided—few important aspects of bodybuilding are maintained. This includes getting enough proteins to recover muscular wear out, enough calories to make up for the energy loss, and of course enough nutrients for a healthy functioning of metabolism.

Pseudo Vegetarianism and Bodybuilding

While the original philosophy of a vegetarian lifestyle implies complete abstinence from consumption of animal products, the vegetarians of 21^st century seem to overlook certain ethical aspects of pure vegetarianism. The preference for this alternative lifestyle has increased in the recent years, with the primary concern shifting from conserving nature to sustaining health. Conditionally, We have different types of pseudo-vegetarians as follows:

Flexitarian—someone who basically eats vegetables, nevertheless can consume meat, eggs, and other animal products occasionally.

Lacto-vegetarian—vegetarian who consumes dairy products

Ovo-vegetarian—Vegetarians who consume eggs

Lacto-ovo vegetarian—vegetarians who consume both egg and dairy products

Vegans—vegans eliminate all animal products from their diet, including dairy and eggs.

Peschatarians—vegetarians who consume fish (maybe because they feel fishes aren't as adorable as a cow or chicken...lol)

Owing to such a large number of pseudo vegetarians, it’s really very difficult to prepare a ‘one-size-fits-all’ nutrition formula for bodybuilding. The best approach is to get acknowledged with the basic vegetarian sources of protein, carbs and other requisites,  and then prepare a nutrition chart individually suited to one’s lifestyle and food choices.

 

Vegetarian sources of macro-nutrients 

Here I’ve mentioned some important vegetarian diets rich in macro-nutrients that can be easily obtained in any food store.

Vegetarian sources of protein:

 

Beans, Nuts, Seeds

garbanzo beans
pinto beans
refried beans
soybeans
cashews
peanuts
sesame seeds
pistachio
tofu
lentils

Dairy

yogurt
cheddar cheese
egg
cottage cheese

Fruits and Vegetables

Avocado
broccoli
spinach
peas
artichoke
asparagus
beet greens

Vegetarian sources of carbs:

Whole breads
Beans
Berries
Leafy green vegetables
Sweet Potatoes
Peas
Oatmeal
whole grain cereals
Apples

Vegetarian sources of fats:

Linoleic Acid (Omega 6 family)

Vegetables

Fruits

Nuts

Grains

Seeds

Safflower

Sunflower

Corn

Soya

Alpha-Linolenic Acid (Omega 3 family)

Flaxseeds (linseeds)

Mustard seeds

Hemp seeds

Walnut oil

Green leafy vegetable 

Don’t forget the micro-nutrients

Proper intake of micronutrients like calcium, zinc and phosphorus is equally important in promoting proper growth and development across the body and maintaining strong bones and muscles. Low calcium intake leads to muscular cramping thereby hindering performance, and deficiency of zinc can cause lower levels of testosterone. Typically in adolescents, testosterone crisis can impair the development of secondary sexual characteristics which includes muscle growth.

While dietary calcium is typically found in dairy-rich foods, some alternate sources include:

Spinach

Collard greens

Kale

Broccoli

Almonds

Vegan sources of zinc include:

Beans/Legumes

Beets and beet greens
Brazil nuts
Carrots
Dark leafy green vegetables
Nuts and nut butters
Onions
Peas
Pumpkin seeds
Seeds like pumpkin and sunflower seeds
Sprouts
Sunflower seeds
Whole grains and breads

 

 

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