Few important AI links

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The Writer's process

1) Happy Writers write good books. Ideas appear in mind.

2) Find your unique environment to write effectively. Some people like sitting in dark room, few want to sit in a lonely place in a garden, few like cafes

3) Talk to different people in this regard. Various conversation nd your stories will help a connection between writer and reader

4) Writers strugle with getting the work done (Productivity) and creating something worth reading (Creativity) . Make the process enjoyable, cultivating and fulfilling happy life whih includes writing.

The book is organized as follows. Part One: The Inner Gears

Part One: The Inner Gears

Part Two: The Process, Start to Finish

Productivity, Creativity, enjoyment

Attention and focus, creativity, self discipline and mindset.

Two characters engaged in a ongoing collaboration in the writer's brain.

                The Scribe and the Muse

First lesson of cognitive thought:

There is much more going in our brain than appears on the surface. Just like TV, got 100s of channel but very few worth watching

Thinking Fast and slow book : Kahneman

1) System 1 is automatic it relies on Gut feeling, habit, shortcuts on making decisions sometimes very effective. System 1 is terrible in access probabilities.

2) System 2 is effortful. when we concentrate on computer, math problems etc.

Productive and creative writers learn to tap in the automatic and intutitive processes as well as the intentional ones.

Scribe: Writing requires focus and discipline. Scribe just means writing, putting your thoughts in words. But they are not writers.

Muse: Writers access intuition, creativity and productivity.

A successful writer should be able to balance between Scribe and Muse

Attention is the connection between our inner selves and the outer world. Focus is the act of directing our attention.

Control over focus is more important.

Most of the writers pick late night or early morning for their book writing. That is the time darkness silence the world demands and your focus and attention is at max.

Open awareness creates a mental platform for creative breakthroughs and unexpected insights.

Get in touch with muse with focused mind, less distraction and mind wandering. Should balane muse and scribe.

Take alternate period of focussed writing and open attention. This can be done using Pomodoro technique.

After working intentionally for a while take break. away from desk for less mentally taxing activity.

Most people get more work done in three - one hour block then in three hours stint.

Switch between scribe and mose.

Find right environment to focus :

away from distractions like mobile TV etc.

When you are stuck take a break from Muse:

Invite the mind to wander: Do your hoby work, or just gardening, playing music, dancing, cooking etc.

“A mind adrift lets your creative juices flow.”

Nine elements for the flow to occur:

1.       Work that is challenging but within your abilities

2.       Work with clear goals (you know what you need to do).

3.       Immediate feedback through the activity itself

4.       A complete focus on the action

5.       A lack of distractions or mind wandering

6.       Absence of fear of failure

7.       Lack of self-consciousness

8.       The loss of awareness of time passing

9.       An overall sense of fulfillment or enjoyment

If you’re drafting, the words roll out smoothly. During revision, you become absorbed in the text and the process of refining it.

The state of flow connects you to the joy of writing.

Location for writing

You can pick your place for writing. it can be home backyard or ofice corner or busy cofeeshop

What matters isn’t so much where you go. What matters most is what you leave behind—the ringing of the phone, interruptions of coworkers, or a queue of unread email messages. Create distance from day-to-day distractions.

Shut off your distractions in laptop. Keep mobile away. Some internet blocking softwares are also available.

Block your time for writing. Choose most suitable time which you can dedicate everyday.

WHen you are stuck

Talk to yoursef like an imaginary reader. What input he can give to you. Make notes of these points.

If you prefer a dose of adrenaline with your freewriting, try “The Most Dangerous Writing App” by a former neuroscientist named Manuel Ebert. It deletes everything you’ve typed if you pause for more than five seconds. I picture Keanu Reeves in the movie Speed, thinking I cannot stop typing, or all these words will die. The pressure to keep going might work for you; experiment with it if you have trouble forcing yourself to continue without judgment.

Use Freewriting in your daily practice.

Silence your inner critics. We always try to improve our writing. silent for first draft.

Banish Multitasking.

Let mind wander for ideas. walking driving shower etc..

Creative process got 5 keys

1.       Preparation – immersing oneself in the field and its issues

2.       Incubation – time in which ideas churn “below the threshold of consciousness”

3.       Insight – the “aha” moment when inspiration strikes

4.       Evaluation – the process of determining whether the insight is worth pursuing

5.       Elaboration – working with the insight

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Kids turning stubborn, not eating properly or got a lot of mood swing, how to handle?

Recently I was at a small birthday party. While all adults were busy in usual chit chat, kids found their own choice of toys and started playing. One boy sticks to the makeup toy kit, the girl grabbed tricycle lying around and another boy took the dough made for chapati and ran away. 

Sooner, people around started giving their opinion. "Looks like everyone is interested in other's toys" "Boys are interested in girls toys and girls jumped on a tricycle?". "Why boys are not picking boy's games?" As we think we are adult and experienced we got the intelligence to decide what is good and bad for kids. 

If we think from a kid's perspective, they don't differentiate, no division, no line. The only thing they know is "what" and "how". Their curiosity makes them explore everything available or happening around them. Passing such comments not only have a negative impact on their creativity but might also put them in a pang of guilt feeling that there is something wrong in them.

Every kid got their own nature and inclination toward their interest fields. In spite of judging kids on what they are doing, we should give them ample space and exposure to grow and pick as per their choice. For example, Think, if Sanjeev Kappor got all those kind of comments and judgement from neighbours on his interest in cooking, he might be working on something he would never feel happy about. 

Sanjeev Kapoor, renowned chef

If we list down famous chef's of the world, 70% are men and definitely, they are more successful than most of the adults who think that cooking is a girl's thing. 

Avani Chaturvedi, the first solo women pilot of India, came out of the mindset that Army and especially fighter pilot is something only for men. She not only joined and broke the social misconception but also made path for many women to join Airforce.

Courtesy: SheThePeople

Same time, Daniel Bauer, International celebrity makeup artist, is a renowned personality now. He might not at the same stage if similar restriction would have been imposed on him to pick boy's game.

We all live societies' life and not the life we want to live in. Most of us chose our career because five of our close friends chose that career or next door uncle gave their free advice about that career option. Most of us live an unsatisfied life. The only reason is that we didn't respect our interest or hobbies. we always had a doubt because of the people around, who gave a free opinion. Most of the time we are trained that success is earning a lot of money. everything we see around or do is ultimately focussed on earning money. We don't get a chance to pursue our hobby or even spend 1-2 hours a week on that.

Take an example of Pink and Blue colour. The moment we say pink, we imagine the colour for a girl and blue for boys. Our brain is manipulated so well from childhood. Did we ever think on what basis we decided this colour? Now if a boy likes some pink colour dress, he can't pick it because kids around him will tease. But why?

"In 1918, an article from a trade publication called Earnshaw’s Infants’ Department, declared that, since it was derived from red, “Pink is for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger colour, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.”  A 1927 survey by Time magazine declared opposite of this, Pink for girls and Blue for boys. Parents were so confused then that they picked gender-neutral colour like green and yellow for their kids. 

From the time a child is born, we start imposing and deciding good or bad, their likes and dislikes on behalf of them. Right from food, clothes, judging their behaviour and manipulate them to start liking what we like or feel should be right.

My friend's baby girl is now 7 months old. In India, We do "Annaprashana" means introducing solid food to baby for the first time. They should be completely dependant on mother's milk for the initial 6 months.

When we were in the Philippines, the doctor instructed us not to introduce sugar or salt to kids till they are at least 1 year. This was quite logical as we thought natural food is the best for infants. We used to feed steamed and smashed vegetables or smashed apple, banana etc.

So one fine day when I was just doing a casual chit chat, a friend told me that she mixed banana with sugar to feed the baby. I was shocked- 

"Why do you do that? "

" Because not sure if she will like Banana. It will be tastier with Sugar."

If she grows up eating artificial sugar or salt with food, she might lose the real taste of food. and same time she will be addicted to artificial flavouring. On what basis we decided that she would like food more if salt or sugar is added. Of course, she can't speak but she can speak by eating or rejecting natural food. On basis of her choice, we can list down her likes and dislikes and make a chart of food she loves eating. 

For example, if we tried banana and she didn't eat, we can give apple, carrot, orange or whatever fruits we can give. Same goes with vegetables. We can steam veggies, smash and serve her. After a few weeks of this exercise, we will have a list of food she likes. Let a baby decide what she likes or dislikes instead of deciding for them. 

Most of the parents are worried that their kids are not interested in eating. Let's rephrase this sentence and be more specific. Parents are worried that their kids are not interested in eating the food they chose for them. For example, if we thought that kids should eat corn flakes milk for breakfast and kid is not interested then it's not that kids don't like eating, but the fact is that kid's don't like eating your choice of food. 

"So what's the solution? we can't leave them hungry?" good question. First, try to get the answer from nature. If you see animals around us, no mother tries to feed food to their kids. They will be just grazing their choicest grass or food and kids will be munching on whatever they like still animals roaming in free space never get sick or weak. Now look at our kids, whatever they eat or not eat, they are definitely more energetic than us. Same food what we are forcing them to eat makes us lazy and dull. So are we forcing the right food habit for them? 

What can we do for our kids: Stop feeding kids forcibly. Expose them to multiple possible varieties of food. Make a chart of what they like or dislike and prepare food accordingly. You will notice that they would never create a problem in eating. Try including natural unprocessed food over processed and artificially prepared food. Even if sometimes they are not interested, leave them alone. Other than human no animals force themselves to eat. They eat only when they feel like eating.

I must admit something in this article. I lived with guilt feeling for a lot of my likes and dislikes just because it doesn't match with many of my friends. I pretended that I enjoy something and don't like anything else because society believes and created some pre-sentiments on that.

For example, while most of my friends loved driving a motorbike or car, I was not at all interested. Thinking about the same doesn't excite me. Somehow because of necessity, I learnt and started driving, I never enjoyed racing and driving like crazy. 

I also don't like to talk much. Neither I feel like talking in so excited voice. For me, I see things happening around me mostly not good neither bad. Everything is happenings and how I react is completely in our control. In short, I had a feeling that I am a little reserved or to be specific "not popular" kind of person. But the same time that was not the case always. I enjoy talking with a few of my friends or known one quite a lot.

If you leave me alone in a house, I can live their happily for weeks and may be months. I can be happy being with only me. I don't even need a TV to entertain myself.

It was only during the Covid lockdown, I met one person, online, in his 60s. He gave me a chance to open up and speak about whatever mental limitations and guilt feeling I had. Things I wanted to change in myself and other minute possible details.

His reply made good sense to me. For many things, he explained to me that how this is a quality which I felt is a limitation in my life. for example, I told that I love to live alone and he explained how it takes years of meditation to learn to love and spend time with yourselves happily. 

So what can we do exactly for kids? 

1. Let them be what they are. Don't try to manipulate them same time if we don't like any of their behaviour, discuss with them and explain how can they be better. 
2. understand fact that kids got their own likes and dislike. We shouldn't be judgemental but supportive. Give them more possible exposures so that they can decide their area of interest.  
3.  Reply to their queries with full energy and honesty.
4. Feed their choice of food but same time don't expose them to junk food or carbonated drink. If we make a habit in the early years and explain to them why it is not good, it will be engraved in their mind. 
5. Teach them to love and respect themselves.
6. Even if you want to say negative, you can put in a positive way. For example: If a kid is scared to ride a bicycle, instead of saying " you are coward, you will take time to learn" say "you are brave, you can learn faster."

So the best thing what we can give to our kid is to let them live on their terms. Appreciate their decisions, like dislike. If you want to change something do it happily and slowly. Whatever success whole world is talking about, is only about living happily. Find a way for happiness in whatever condition we are. If kids are happy by nature, they know clearly what they are happy with, what food they like, what colour they like or what activity they like, let's not push them hard to change or pass a comment which can make them fall in guilt feeling life long.

You can be happy lifelong and excel only when you work on things you like and that what success really means.

Thanks Dr. Jinendra Jain, Holistic Healer , For your guidance.

Prashant

Bangalore 

2-Jan-2021

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 Fasting is a scary word for most of us. I tried fasting multiple times but failed. Failed in controlling my hunger during fasting, I walked into the kitchen subconsciously and ate something.

It was the month of Apr 2020. The lockdown was on when I first understood the importance of food and its connection with energy.

When Food is always believed to be connected with energy, not eating makes you feel dizzy and sometimes crash out of low energy. I saw people sleeping most of the time during their fasting that made me assume that fasting is a challenging activity that is not everyone's cup of tea.

If you go deep into the secrets behind the energy of our body, you know that gaining energy from food is a half-truth. So come out of this mindset that if you don't take food, you will become weak. There is evidence when a person stayed healthy and fit by just drinking water for many days. There are also a few examples where the person didn't take food life long and stayed healthy. 

We take energy from multiple sources of nature other than food. Also, we deplete energy in multiple ways, knowingly or unknowingly. 

If we are planning to do fasting, we can follow the below steps or ways to make it pleasant.

Disclaimer: "A diabetic person should consult a doctor before fasting"

1) Two types of fasting: 

a) 24 hour fasting 

b) 36-40 hours fasting. 

> 24 hours fasting: This starts from dinner time to the next day dinner time. Say you took dinner today at 7PM and on fasting for 24 hours, you can break the fast by taking juice next evening around 7PM. 

> 36-40 hours fasting: This starts after today's dinner to next Next day Breakfast. When I first did fasting, I could do 40 hours fast easily.  If you have taken dinner around 6-7PM today, and not eat anything for the next 40 hours. You can drink only water and green warm tea all day. Day after tomorrow you can break your fast with juice around 9-10AM. 

About Juice for breakfast: It's important to break your fast with juices only. It should be fresh fruit juice with no sugar or milk. Juice shouldn't be filtered. It should be pulpy juice or you can call it smoothie. The reason for the juice is: our stomach was resting and was in process of detox. We should give it soft things which can be easily digested. Juices are great in that respect. one hour after juice you can eat whatever you like. It should be only fruit juice and not milk shake. The reason behind this is milk is tough to digest hence heavy on the stomach.

2) Start your day on Fasting: On fasting day,Start your day with morning rituals. Do bed yoga and get up with a smiling face. Do affirmations when you are still in bed like:

   Thank God for giving me a new day. I am healthy and joyful. I love and accept myself. 

Once you are out of bed, put Gayatri mantra or simple OM or any mantra of your choice. Mantra vibration, Nada Yoga is a great source of energy. It makes our mind calm and increases focus.

3) Connect with Nature: Sun and Air. On fasting days take a long walk in the morning, morning yoga at the time of sunrise is very helpful.  Pranayam, alom vilom and bhramari can be done properly. deep breathing is also a must.  Deep and slow breathing quickly gives energy to our body. This should be done 3-4 times on a fasting day.

How to deep breathing: Sit in a comfortable position. With the opening of your arms, take a deep breath, hold it for a few seconds, and with closing arms breathe out. You should do it 30 times in one cycle. This can be done 2-3 times.

If you are in the office, you can go for a quick walk of 10 minutes. While walking you can breathe slowly and deep.

4) Brain Fasting: Fasting is always misunderstood only with food. To make fasting pleasant, we should always do brain fasting along with food fasting. What does it mean?  Most of our body energy is consumed by the brain. Hence, even if we don't do much physical work, but take stress or do work that requires a lot of brain activity, we feel tired and exhausted.  

On fasting day, avoid TV and news completely. Take calls which are really important. postpone other calls for the next day. Keep mobile away as much as possible. Avoid talking much. It's "me time". Try to be with yourself. The more we calm our brain, the easier and happier our body will be during fasting.

5) Drink water or green tea: Make sure that you have a good intake of water. You can also make green tea and keep it in a bottle. Keep drinking it all day. Do not let yourself be thirsty anytime. Saliva is also a good source of energy which goes slowly in the stomach with water.

Green Tea or herbal drink: you can make a quick herbal tea by adding cinnamon, elaichi and tulsi in hot water. You can also add honey also for taste.

6) Meditation: Since you are not eating today, it saves your lunch and dinner time. You can do meditation. Put any guided meditation and relax your body completely. You can lie down or sit and do meditation is your choice. 

If you are in the office, you can escape in some meeting room during lunch break or in the worst scenario, you can sit in the toilet as well. Put earphones and switch on a guided meditation. 

7) Proper sleep Follow night rituals to get proper sound sleep. Deep leg in hot water with salt, take warm water bath, keep mobile away 1-2 hours before sleep, no TV, news or even book reading. plan your next day and sleep with meditation.

Fasting is a day to cherish and celebrate with yourself.

Benefits of fasting: reduces Obesity, burns fat, reduces chances of chronic diseases, improves heart health, removes toxic from the body, boosts immunity. 

Practice fasting proper way and let us know how was your experience by commenting below:

-------------------------- 

Prashant is also an Author of the Amazon India bestseller book, "The 7 Productivity sutras for Professionals"

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Holding breath is always part of the old age Yoga technique. Paranyam one step of yoga trains you to hold breath. Although nothing is mentioned related to holding breath underwater.

The only benefit I can see underwater is that you will not voluntarily inhale so easily when you are underwater compared to a normal environment. So you will be able to hold for a longer time and master yourself faster in this skill.

Benefits of holding breath:

Photo Courtesy: google

Holding your breath is an important part of your health and must be included in your daily exercise routine.

this helps in:

1. Detox your body. When we hold breath brain and good cells know that holding breath is intentional but some bad cells of the body get no oxygen for some time and become ineffective. This helps in removing a lot of bad or worn-out cells and viruses.
2. Increases the life span of stem cells by reducing its activity. Healthy cells life increases hence your ageing process slows down.
3. Gives scope of regeneration of new tissues hence brings glow on face and skin.
4. It also helps to build immunity. How? Virus and bacteria got a tendency to attack weakest and bad cells. Holding breath helps in getting rid of such cells hence virus and bacteria attack can be reduced drastically.
5. Helps in better focus and concentration.

Thanks for asking this question. This is a simple exercise but very effective. include in your daily morning routine and whenever you feel down in a day. This gives a good flow of energy and reduces the urge to take caffeine.

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Women empowerment and women equality are two concepts which were discussed and tried to impose a lot during last 1-2 decades. 

Women were made to believe that they are not living enough and had to work harder and on multiple chores at the same time.

They should do all what men are doing and obviously they can't do away with household chores they are assigned with socially. 

There are lot of jargons which is being used by so called educated society even now. 

for example:

"Isko to bete ki tarah paala hai" (I have brought her up like a son)

"beti hai lekin shouk saare ldkon waale hain" (She is my daughter but all hobbies are of boys.)

Not only that, boys are always made to feel that they are not for doing household work. Moment small boy goes inside kitchen picks up some dough while mom is rolling chapati,or shows interest in cleaning house with mom or elder daughter, comment will appear as :

"Isko to ladki paida hona chahiye tha" ( He should have born like a girl).

"hobbies iske ladkiyon jaise hain" (His hobbies are like girls)

Boys who hear these type of comments since childhood refrain themselves from doing any household work. They suffer a lot when they grow up and forced to live alone for their higher studies or job. Mom has done all the cleaning and arranging house and he got no clue how to do this. He can't cook anything himself and either forced to eat outside everyday or eat burnt chapati or half cooked rice if he tries cooking himself. At this point, he gets another enlightenment " I should get married now so that someone can do all this for me". While wife expects him to help in house chores, only best thing he can do in his free time is to sit in front of TV.

If we look around, world has changed so much. Girls has conquered invincible territories.They are now even in Army and Air force, entrepreneurs and leaders. Same time men turned out to be world best chefs, great mind in managing house and more productive in their house chores activity, stitching, drawing painting etc. They are raising flag high in all these fields.

 Still a long way to go for a change in society thought process. Society has even tagged color with gender. Blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Heel shoes is for girls only. Making yourself look presentable is girl's activity.  If we look into history, pink color was initially only for king dresses. Heel shoes were also designed for horse riding for boys.

When society tried to put clear line of boys and girls, new women empowerment and women equality added woos in women life. While women got to cover their assigned work, they also have to bite a part of boys designated work. 

In recent times when requirement circle grew bigger and job uncertainty went up women started feeling that they should stand on their feet and give contribution in family budget an country's GDP, they went out looking for job.

All their little time left from office work is spent or better say drained in house work. There is high expectation during weekend on varieties of food everyone want to eat. They should also spend good time in teaching kids at home as we say "Mother is the first teacher". In few homes, husband try to take lot of housework to support them. Still God has created women in such a way that lot of work can be done only by them like having kids, feeding them and take care of them till certain age. No one can replace mother for such activities. These activities keep women busy 24x7. No holidays, no break.

They keep their dreams and hobbies aside with comment: "Family ke liye maine sab kurban kar diya" (I sacrificed all for family). 

Those 4-5 days every month, designated by God for her to rest is also taken away by multiple pads in market. In history, they were sent to different room during that period and not allowed to enter in kitchen. That time was for them to take total rest.

So what's the solution:

When one member of family got good job to make the ends meet, another member can look into option to work on their hobby, passion and dreams.

Family food habits can be transformed in such a way that it turns to be more healthy and less effort in cooking. For example depending more on live food like fruits and uncooked vegetables, sprouts, soup and salad will reduce cooking time. It will be healthy as well.

Minimalism living style. Family can try to live in minimum required things at home and in life. Living with minimum gives you more time to do work you should focus on.  Since it will reduce the requirement, we can also focus on what we like to work on then just working to earn money. 

This article is written with the ideas shared with 

Jinendra jain, Holistic healer

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