Road Deaths- Where are we going wrong?

The recent death of the young 17 year old Ayazzudin, the son of our ex-cricket skipper Mohd Azharuddin, and his cousin Ajmal, in Hydeabad in a 2-wheeelr accident once again sent that familiar shiver down our spine. These 2 kids were trying to beat their own speed record on their superbike gifted to them by their indulgent well-off parents. These precious lives having been lost, and condolences paid, it is time we faced where we are heading.

 Deaths due to road traffic accidents (RTA) in India registered a sharp 6.1% rise between 2006 and 2007. However, road safety experts say the real numbers could be higher since many of these accident cases are not even reported. "There is no estimate of how many injured in road accidents die a few hours or days after the accident," points out Rohit Baluja, member of the UN Road Safety Collaboration and Commission of Global Road Safety representing Asia. RTA is all set to be the 5^th largest killer in society very soon.

We Indians are very unsafe in the job of driving. India, with 1% of global cars, account for 6% of the world’s RTAs, a bit of statitistics that can’t do us proud. It is estimated that an accident occurs every 7 minutes in India; by the time you have read my column 2 lives would have been lost!

While road deaths have started coming down in developed countries, they are spiralling up in developing ones like India. In our true Indian spirit, we have everyone to blame for the disaster: the government for bad roads, the traffic police for not ensuring safety on roads, mobile phones, alcohol,  fate, and much more.

We are quick to blame the police for “harassing” and taking bribes when our children are caught without helmets.The poor traffic policemen, bombarded by phone calls from seniors to let go of so-and-so VIP’s son, has virtually given up on trying to enforce this rule on the road. But whose loss is it?

Teachers of schools and colleges have also happily absolved themselves. “We cannot see what they do outside the campus”, has become the familiar song.

And when parents lose their children to RTA, they must find a scapegoat: the government, the police, the school, the roads, peers, and friends.... virtually everyone, except their own selves who indulged their children but did not groom them to be responsible!  There is no running away from the painful truth.

As published in HT City( Hindustan Times) dated 25 September, 2011.

HOT HEADS TAKE HEAD!

If you are the one of the “mujhe gussa ata hai” types, watch out! Your proneness to anger might be putting your life to risk.

Recent studies show that angry people have a five times greater chance of dying before age 50 than their cool headed counterparts. Anger elevates blood pressure, increases threat of stroke, heart disease, cancer, depression and anxiety disorders. To make matters worse, angry people tend to seek relief from the ill-moods through other health-endangering habits, such as smoking and drinking, or through compulsive behavior such as workaholism.

What seems to be more harmful is the persisitent simmering form of anger than the quick short-lasting bursts. The normal experience of overt anger lasts only a few minutes, but the prolonged forms, such as resentment, impatience, irritability and grouchiness can go on for hours and days at a time. They stimulate secretion of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol, which wreck havoc to health.

Anger depresses the immune sysytem. According to a study from Ohio State University, those who had less control over their anger tended to heal more slowly from wounds. Researchers gave blisters to 98 participants and found that, after 8 days, those who had less control over their anger also tended to be slower healers. These participants also had more cortisol in their system during the blistering procedure, suggesting that they may be more stressed by difficult situations as well.

We observe commonly that angry dissatisfied patients do not respond well to treatment and seem to be more vulnerable to complications and delayed recovery. I recall how a fuming bureaucrat, who had to wait for 10 minutes in the OPD while I was examining another patient, broke into an asthmatic attack. My suggesting that he cooled down for his own sake made him even angrier, necessitating hospitalization for severe breathlessness!

If anger has survived over the ages and been passed down the generations, it must have had its survival benefit. We all know that angry customers often get their way with clerks and managers, angry teachers drive their students to complete their assignments, angry bosses get their employees to deliver results on time, and angry children get their parents to be more yielding.

In our present times, anger has however become an outdated tool. Its potential to achieve small temporary gains is hugely offset by its habit forming nature and harmful effects on health. The automatic answering machine does not respond more quickly to an angry customer or the slow internet to an angry browser.

It is time you changed your mind to change your heart. Start by noting down at the end of each day the times and settings when you were angry, and reflect on how you could have dealt with the situation cool-headedly and better. Anger will soon beat a hasty retreat from your life when you see how silly it makes you behave.

As published in HT City( Hindustan Times) dated 18 September, 2011.

Understanding Dreams!

Do you remember what you dreamt last night? Even if you can’t and are under the impression that your sleep was dreamless, you would have actually dreamt more than 2 hours or 25% of the time that you slept.

Dreams are successions of images, ideas, emotions and sensations occurring involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Good or bad, dreams always take us to some interesting places.  They can range from normal and ordinary to the surreal and bizarre. Dreams can at times spring a creative thought or give a sense of inspiration. Dream imagery is usually absurd and unrealistic and they are generally outside the control of the dreamer. They can vary from frightening, exciting, magical, and melancholic to adventurous.

Dreaming is as old as human history; it finds mention in ancient Mesopotamian, Chinese, Assyrian, Greek and Indian texts. Credit for the first serious attempt to study and understand dreams, called Oneirology, go to the European scientist-philosopher Sigmund Freud, who described it as “the royal road to the unconscious” mind when we lose our consciousness during sleep.

Men and women probably dream just as much but women tend to remember dreams better, especially during pregnancy. Several factors influence dreams of which smell is particularly important. People exposed to smell of rotten eggs while sleeping, report bad dreams when woken up. On the other hand, smell of roses during sleep produce pleasant dreams.

Sound also affect the quality of dreams. The sound of falling water often results in dreams of swimming or seas, and can often trigger bed wetting, as often happens when it rains at night. A child sleeps well when soothing “lories”are sung to him.

Bad dreams are not uncommon, and often take the form of falling or being chased. They generate a lot of anxiety and may wake you up with panic and sweating. They are common when the body or the mind is in pain, when the external stimuli such as smell and sound are unpleasant, during indigestion and when the blood sugar drops during sleep as in some diabetics on insulin. It is also associated with use of certain medications like propranolol or barbiturates. Dreams of choking and strangulation are common when suffering from blocked nose, chest infection, or during passive smoking.

Good sleep, of which dream is an essential part, helps our brain to regulate mood, solve problems, reduce stress and feel refreshed. Dreamless sleep, as happens with certain sleeping drugs or under the effect of alcohol, lacks these benefits.

Your dreams could tell you much about the state of your health. If you are getting pleasant dreams, you are probably physically well, getting adeqaute sleep and are in a stable state of mind. If you are getting recurrent bad dreams, there is something that is desperately trying to draw your attention. Listen to it!

As published in HT City( Hindustan Times) dated 11 September, 2011.

The Stature of Height in Health

Height has its imposing value. Most heroes in “Mills and Boon” books, in whose arms ladies swoon, are tall and have broad shoulders. A good height is therefore something that most of us wish during our growing years, some, quite desperately.

Lionel Messi, the most talented soccer player of present times, who is 5’ 7” had a problem with height. His growth stalled during childhood. One can imagine his anguish when a school going Lionel saw fellow Argentinian kids surpass him in height as he remained stunted.

He was diagnosed to be deficient in growth hormone, a protein secreted by the pituitary gland located beneath our brain, which regulates height. This deficiency can ofcourse be partly corrected if the hormone is replaced from outside, before the growing bones have frozen. Hormone replacement, as is done with insulin for diabetes or thyroxin tablets for thyroid deficiency, is feasible, but growth hormone therapy was exorbitant at that time, and his family could not afford it.

What came to Messi’s help was his extraordinary talent in soccer that caught the notice of Barcelona Football Club officials. He was offered a place in the Barcelona junior team in exchange for treatment with growth hormone. With therapy, he caught up a few inches but still remains short though extra-ordinarily talented.

Several factors go in to deciding how tall we grow. The genes we inherit from our parents play a major role. Nutrition and illness during the growing years are crucial as well. Protein, the building material, if deficient in our diets, stunts growth, as does repeated bouts of illness in school days.

Apart from finding a place in romantic novels and movies, does height however really matter?  Does Messi’s modest height lower his stature as a master soccer player?  Does it matter that Sachin Tendulkar, the master blaster or the legendary Deigo Maradona are only 5’5”.

Perhaps to prove to themselves and to the world, short people do exceedingly well, and leave indelible marks in all walks of life. John Keats, the English poet, Pablo Picasso the famous painter, Ludwig van Beethoven the music composer and Woody Allen the actor-director, were all just above 5’.

Short men have wielded the greatest powers, Alexander, Napolean Bonaparte and Julius Caesar stand tall in history with short heights. Winston Churchill, Nikita Krushchev, Lal Bahadur Shastri and Abdul Kalam were also short but changed history.

The music world has its share of talented short men: Bob Dylan, Bono, Elton John are all on the shorter side of mid 5.

Short people often make up in mental strength and will power what they often lack in height or physique. Bapu, with his meagre height of 5’3” brought down the British Empire in India.

Staure seems to stand taller in the long run than height, and future romantic novels could do well with short passionate heroes than the out-dated tall ones!

As published in HT City( Hindustan Times) dated 4 September, 2011.