The Science behind procrastination

Procrastination is a risky game we all are bound to get stuck in once in awhile. This imperfection is what makes our varying personas connect with each other at a similar level. By definition procrastination is an active action of postponing or delaying any activity you are suppose to do. You can call it an invisible diabolical action that incarcerates you in your own realm of idleness.

With an unending unchecked boxes on the to-do list work keeps piling up or there is that one thing you just cannot get yourself to do. In simple words you're just "not feeling like it". I wish I could write this as a solution to this issue but before that let's understand the science behind procrastination. 

Our brain, the "overlord" of our whole body system has this special place called limbic system which basically processes emotions, memory and behavioral responses. It's made of different structures like amygdala; like an army it detects threats and decides how to respond. The hippocampus which is like a university campus which helps in learning and deals with memory. Thalamus relies all your sensory information ie; everything you see, hear, touch, pressure and pain EXCEPT smell (that's perceived by your cerebral cortex). Hypothalamus is master of your bodies hormonal system. Basal ganglia helps you to do things like speak, move, emotion and behavior and lastly cingulate gyrus again process behavior and emotion. 

Now with all these fancy medical jargon you have noticed "emotion/behavior repeatedly written. Our bodies tend to reciprocate positively to the hormones released when we do something that makes us happy/feel rewarded. This hormone is called dopamine. According to Havard University research article dopamine which is associated with food, exercise, coitus, love is now also associated with social media. Well why not, right? Out of 7.82 billion, 50.64% of us use social media. Since using social media causes dopamine to release in small impulses we tend to use it more and more often. Meanwhile the task that has been hanging on our to do list forever imposes as an unpleasant event. Here the amygdala kicks in and sees it as "threat" decides to work against it by causing your limbic system to override your pre-frontal cortex. Pre frontal cortex helps you to make decisions for better future, impulse control and logical thinking. 

So you see now our brain basically responds to what we perceive from our environment. Hence, procrastination simply becomes an imminent future to anyone who exposes themselves to shortlived dopamine parties. This would only push your schedule further and when that deadline is about to arrive the amygdala will kick in again seeing the impending doom if you don't submit the work. That's when you start to panic, pulling all-nighters, cram and this is where your orbitofrontal cortex comes into action and guess what it does. Yep, you guessed it right. It causes the ultimate feeling of regret. 

The Vicious loop of Inadequacy

Born in a family that acknowledges education as supreme of all I had the idea of "workhard and study to succeed" hammered into my brain. As I grew up everyday i was part of a rat race. As a child driven by marks and grades, I was introduced to the emotion of disappointment,  ecstatic and downright emotional breakdown as a primary school kid. As moving on into the years i started coming across not just one or two but so many of my colleagues who were striving to succeed just as I was. The stressful days and nights. Dark circles started coming up just as we entered early teens. 

Trying to remember details of subjects, watching my brilliant friends work hard as well. Math, Science, Language some one thrived in one yet struggled with other, some started losing hope right there. I myself as I reached final years of my highschool started to steer away from the rat race. It became a challenge to remain awake, my mind couldn't decipher things my classmates understood. I wanted to learn yet something in me just stopped me. What got fixated in my mind was that I had stopped being as good as I was. This deep feeling of being inadequate was buried in me because NO ONE EVER TALKED ABOUT THESE THINGS. If I had something going on with me which was hard I was told someone else is going through something that is even harder. I was just a high school kid and I was told university is even harder. I fought with my mind by myself and started taking help from my friends to understand concepts because I had really wanted to go to medical school to be a doctor. 

I had blamed myself for being "too lazy". It was like the race I was running I had runners who were running so fast that what got stuck in my mind was "why try when I cant even level up with other runners". Now when I think of those thoughts I went through, I know maybe one of you who is reading this had gone through this feeling in past or is going through right now. No one teaches us how to snap out of this. No one asks us or tells us that it would be alright and we will get past this phase. It is rather unfortunate that the school system either primary, secondary, tertiary and even different sectors of workplace does not extend importance to this mental challenge so many of us go through at some point. Yet here I am writing about it hoping I'd help someone that it will be alright if we choose to keep persisting and focusing on our primary goals. 

You will not forever be stuck in this loop of inadequacy and insufficiency as you have the abilities to do things beyond your imagination. What matters is that you are willing to try and persist stubbornly because you can achieve what your mind wants to. 

It's weird how we look down at "negative remarks" or condescending comments as a ball buster but science supports this as a negative and positive reinforcement actually proved by Burrhus Frederic Skinner (B.F Skinner) an American psychologist who in 1948 used lab rats to explain how postive reinforcement (operant conditioning) and negative reinforcement were both used in order to bring about and stop certain characteristics and activities of a living organism. Be it a lab rat or a human. 

I had a careers teacher in high school was very loquacious. He would go on and on about topics on different fields of career paths. One day he was showing how to fill a university course application form and he asked me what I wanted to apply for after highschool (this time I was a pretty lagging behind student as well). So I replied to him "I want to go to medical school and become a doctor". His reply had such an impact on me that now 7 years later I still remember it. He looked at me for few seconds and thought for awhile and then said,"alright let's fill a form for you that you want to be a nurse".  

Well years later when I would step into the hospital I would learn the actual pivitol role nurses play in health care sector. Although to the 16year old me who looked at it as that the status of the job reflected the importance which depended on the hierarchy and here I was when a teacher told me that I shouldn't aim that high in the hierarchy. I was baffled and simply so sad that the hidden feeling of inadequacy in me was basically poked into by someone and was validated. This teacher had indirectly told me I actually was inadequate. 

Fast forward into the years multiple exams came and went. I had sat for national external exams, internal exams and many others. I had to move on and focus on what my goals were. Took a lot of help my friends. Few years later, there I was sitting in the classroom with brilliant students from all parts of my island waiting for the first class to start as a professor walked in saying on the top of his voice, "Come Let's Gather Some Berries" and there was the day my first lesson of Anatomy 101 began. 

MESSAGE FROM MY AWKWARD-SELF

 !!!!HAPPY BIRTHDAYY TO YOUUUU!!!!HAPPY BIRTHDAYYYY TO YOUUUU!!! 

Every loving one around me singing and smiling away.. oh phewww

While I stand in middle of the room with a cone shaped birthday cap and wobbly in the knee 

Waiting for the earth to swallow me. 

I am so grateful for these occassions but this is a note from my awkward self. 

Searching to connect with another awkward human out there. Yes, you're not alone we're both weird elf 

The awkwardness of saying "NO" to someone, the awkwardness of accepting compliments from a *not so close* person. The awkwardness to hug someone. 

Ugh what is wrong with me. These moments are sweet but not so fun 

Palpitations and mental analysis to shake hands or to accept a hug 

A smile on my face that's more like a smug 

So much goes on in this brain of mine 

Calming my nerves, can I have a glass of wine!!! 

That moment to go ahead saying hi to a relative 

My mama forces me to otherwise she'll hand me an affidavit 

It's so hard for me to befriend another person. 

Around me I've created these big walls of self-protection 

Overthinking of accepting invitation to a party  

Rather prefer to blast some music in my room and get groovy 

Yes, if you relate to me you're not alone in this 

I am another weirdo along with you **sniff**sniff** 

Aye life is anyway too short to bother much about changing my whole persona 

I am happy in a group, I am happy as a loner. 

Our group of friends smaller than an atom 

Either way, those genuine twos and threes are alot more fun 

Maybe we have had few too many wardrobe dysfunctions 

Yeahhh, those ain't very much fun. 

But as my bae says, Izzokay you just have to keep moving on 

We gotta turn that frown upside down 

We are unique, smart and witty 

Let's maintain this awkwardness, we dont need anyone elses validity. 

SOMETHING WILL ALWAYS TRY TO STOP US

It may be a voice in your head 

Screaming you cannot do it 

Is it even worth it? 

Keep lying in bed!!!!! 

The comfort overpowers the urge to accomplish 

Day after day every motivation finds a dead end 

Who care what I can or cannot do 

I don't have anything to prove to you 

The wants and need fight its place in the mind 

Strangled by invisible arms of our gadgets 

Watching others grow into something 

Wishing you had it too 

After that post is scrolled the mind wanders away yet again 

Desires slowly dying away 

Waiting for the "to feel like it" to get things done 

Why have we become so needy for motivation by some phrases or videos 

Why have we become so parched for validation.

You dont need no one to tell you what you have to do 

You're incarcerated yet not strangulated 

You can get out of the prison of your mind 

You dont have to read this. You have to get up and get things done. 

Get up and do what needs to be done

Get up and move it. 

You are person with ability of multitasking.

You are someone with ability to function with mind and body. 

Either lying in bed or crawling on the floor either sitting on a chair or tucked in a sofa. You can still get things done. 

Start that research, read that book, write that journal, study for that test. You dont need me to tell you this. 

Laziness will strangulate your soul, mutilate your desires and ruin your life. 

Get up and start doing something. 

Don't let that fiery man/woman in you become cold. 

As my professor says "STOP SLEEPING WHILE YOU ARE AWAKE" 

Never ending days where I feel nothing but tiredness

 After a long night of sleep I wake up into a new day. Thanking God that I got another new day, having ability to breath, see, intact senses, not in pain, having my basic needs in place. My usual reflex is to pick my phone and go through it. Lying there in bed for some reason I feel heavy. 

The thought of going through the day runs in my mind. Assignment then sit in lecture then cook and eat then continue lecture. Then its evening again. Day after day moving on but somehow feeling stegnant. I know it's not a physical strenuous work but it is mentally tiring. The brain is the mastermind of everything we do, feel, think and decide. Every action, every reflex is controlled by our nervous system that starts in our brain. What happens when the brain itself is tired. 

Being a medical student in past would have been harder surely where students had to be in clinic and be in lectures but somehow the variability of the day would have made time fly by along with friends. Having good day or bad day at work but somehow the feeling of accomplishment is there at the end of the day. Right now its merely sitting in 4 walled room thinking of ways to make it through every day. Then through the night then again another day. 

No, I am not free and no I am not chilling at home. This is mentally exhausting. Medical school has been an endless journey through which years have passed and new years have come through. Although this final year seems somewhat strange. Like writing the last paper in a lengthy finals where your brain is sore and your thinking capacity is at a brim yet you're pushing to finish the exam. I am at that last paper and it will take a good push everyday to keep me going. 

As my professor says, "you cannot say you're tired because everyone IS tired. Nobody really cares that you're exhausted because they are too".But I just want to put a note to myself that I care that I am tired. I care that i am exhausted and i acknowledge the fact that I am willing to keep moving forward. 

Just as when i got into fitness and while following my workout routine i fell off my track at astounding speed. But I got back on and that is the whole point. Being able to keep doing something even if you're falling off. Getting back on because this time you're not starting from zero, you're just continuing where you left of. Falling off the track of my journey doesnt mean I dont love what i do. It just means that I am a human and so are you. Just as that last page of exam sheets I am also on that last sheet and I know I can write it because guess what doing the exam and completing it is a million times more worth than leaving it blank because that's when I'll do justice to all these years of preparation. 

A girl and her periodic nightmares- menstruation

Thought to write a poem on my period 
Wont that be a little weird 

Just a nagging endless journey that started at 12 called menarche 

I thought it would be exciting but what the fork.  
When the 28-32day cycle gets at peak
Bloody Mary starts and only thing i ask is 
Didn't last one just ended last week!!!

This whole thing will be full of nagging 

Well my uterus in my pelvis is dragging 

You'd think just the 5-7 days of bleeding is the actual mess 

I'll give you another chance to make a better guess. 

There's this little devil called Pre-Menstrual Syndrome 

Pimples, bloating, cramps, constipation then diarrhea should I go on. 

Verge of crying then laughing like a maniac 

Sometimes theres nausea and sometimes endless urge to snack!!! 

If you see me in a fetal position on my bed 

Dont tryna say I am overreacting you might end up dead. 

Then there is a deep pinch I feel in the muscles of my uterus called myometrium 

Sounds very fancy but it's a freaken muscle cramp! 

Squeezing and helping those clots to get out and be set free 

If you feel freaked and feeling eww grow up and dont be a baby!! 

With every pain comes short lived hot flashes then actual cold feet. 

This is what every woman goes through month after month 

Some miss a few months and bam bleed for a whole month 

This is related to whole of hormonal freakshow going on in our body 

But it can be also because of exercise, stress or our uterus is just being moody 

This is not something that makes us debilitated 

Most women still work and perform without any hint that her uterus is being grinded. 

Yes we become a little more vulnerable during this time of the month 

Well that's why we have a safe place with you so we can vent. 

Eventually the craziness ends after some days 

A day later of no bleed some of our sisters may bleed again 

Period is something normal but has tonnes of weird variants 

Understand your woman and dont become blunt 

Well the days pass and the days of feeling better eventually comes back 

Fortunately or unfortunately I still wanna have some more snack 

Just 2 to 3 more weeks until this dreading cycle starts again 

Oh the scare I feel to sneeze freely cause down there it will rain 

But it is what it has to be 

Oye vey at least until menopause comes to me by fifty five or sixty. 

Days when I let Food control my entire existence. A Toxic Cycle.

 I really hope I can relate to someone but how many times have I just scrolled through Instagram looking at those videos on muckbang eating (without the sound). Its not the eating but the food that fascinated me since I was a kid till today. 

Till i was 22 years old i had the worst relation with food. From hiding them in my clothes basket to eating whenever I could. Nothing helped. Honestly I don't think there is one particular thing that could help someone like me. There are definitely various options but everything at the end of the day just depends on how willing am I to be consistent with acquiring better "behavior" I guess.  I remember as a kid I used to imagine myself in scenarios where I'd have to choose just one thing to eat forever and I'd choose fried chicken and chips, or I'd just have one meal wait for clock to tick away till I have the next meal. It wasnt particularly the meal but it was the type of meal. The junk, oily, sweet, meat literally anything that was deep fried or basically had very low nutritious value. 

I used to get so angry when my mum gave me food in moderation because she was only trying to help me. But for me it was outrageous and something that I thought she was doing because she didnt love me enough. Little did I know my war was never with my mother or everyone who bullied me for being fat. It was a war that was me against myself. Me against my own habits and me against my own mind and body. 

I just stood under the shower, maybe when I was 10-12 years old punching myself in my belly and crying thinking why am I not like the other kids who are so athletic and why am I not like my cousin who was so pretty and so petite. Engulfed in my own toxic cycle of feeling guilty, then eating to make myself feel better and then just feeling guilty and crying then having a short lived epiphany of changing my life and then the next day my cycle just repeated itself all over again. And again. 

When I think about my time as a kid I feel nothing but so sorry for the child inside me who was beating herself up. I wish instead of all my family who made the jokes about me which they thought were "cute" instead they all came and helped me genuinely. I wish instead of my teacher who called me out in middle of playground just gave me that last bit of motivation instead. I wish the kid in me just got the help she really needed.

(Myself at the age of 10)

Well truth be told she didnt get the help she needed when she was young. But today I am so proud of myself that I helped my ownself. Even if it took over 20 years but I helped my own self. Yes, my battle is still on with food, with my body image but at least I am better than I was a year ago and alot alot better now than I was 10 years back. I thank myself for that. 

Stuck- Reflection of Covid 19

They were all there
They were all so available
It was hard to get everything done
But without it all seems so dull
When all this is over
I cant wait to breath without fear
When will all this be over?

Craziness has taken over my beautiful island 

My country battles and struggles with Covid yet again. 

Questioning how we will win this war 

It's getting gruesome in every way 

The white coats are getting heavier with dying patients at the hands 

Trying everything they can but the doctors and nurses get buried under every corpse. 

The fear seems to not touch those who havent seen this in person yet 

How arrogant some can be to let this monster win. 

PurpleUnicorn246