Technical Write-Up – Stress Management

Cover Story – Rain Water Harvesting

Artists’ Corner – Painting

Under the Lens – Photographs

Journal - Love is divine whenever it is love,

but it is very rare that love is love

Poem – Human Being

What’s Cooking – Bread Pudding

LOL – Sardar Jokes

Story Time - The Woodcutter Story

Take action quickly when "cracks" start to appear.

A lot of research has been conducted into stress over the last hundred years. Some of the

theories behind it are now settled and accepted; others are still being researched and

debated.

During this time, there seems to have been something

approaching open warfare between competing theories and

definitions: Views have been passionately held and aggressively

defended. What complicates this is that intuitively we all feel

that we know what stress is, as it is something we have all

experienced. A definition should therefore be obvious... except

that it is not.

Definitions

Hans Selye was one of the founding fathers of stress research. His view in 1956 was that

"stress is not necessarily something bad – it all depends on how you take it. The stress of

exhilarating, creative successful work is beneficial, while that of failure, humiliation or

infection is detrimental." Selye believed that the biochemical effects of stress would be

experienced irrespective of whether the situation was positive or negative.

Since then, a great deal of further research has been conducted, and ideas have moved

on. Stress is now viewed as a "bad thing", with a range of harmful biochemical and long-

term effects. These effects have rarely been observed in positive situations.

The most commonly accepted definition of stress (mainly attributed to Richard S Lazarus)

is that stress is a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that "demands

exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize." In short, it's

what we feel when we think we've lost control of events.

This is the main definition used by this section of Mind Tools, although we also recognize

that there is an intertwined instinctive stress response to unexpected events. The stress

response inside us is therefore part instinct and part to do with the way we think.

Fight-or-Flight

Some of the early research on stress (conducted by

Walter Cannon in 1932) established the existence

of the well-known "fight-or-flight" response. His

work showed that when an organism experiences

a shock or perceives a threat, it quickly releases

hormones that help it to survive.

In humans, as in other animals, these hormones help us to run faster and fight harder.

They increase heart rate and blood pressure, delivering more oxygen and blood sugar to

power important muscles. They increase sweating in an effort to cool these muscles, and

help them stay efficient. They divert blood away from the skin to the core of our bodies,

reducing blood loss if we are damaged. As well as this, these hormones focus our

attention on the threat, to the exclusion of everything else. All of this significantly

improves our ability to survive life-threatening events.

Not only life-threatening events trigger this reaction: We experience it almost any time we

come across something unexpected or something that frustrates our goals. When the

threat is small, our response is small and we often do not notice it among the many other

distractions of a stressful situation.

Unfortunately, this mobilization of the body for survival also has negative consequences.

In this state, we are excitable, anxious, jumpy and irritable. This actually reduces our

ability to work effectively with other people. With trembling and a pounding heart, we can

find it difficult to execute precise, controlled skills. The intensity of our focus on survival

interferes with our ability to make fine judgments by drawing information from many

sources. We find ourselves more accident-prone and less able to make good decisions.

There are very few situations in modern working life where this response is useful. Most

situations benefit from a calm, rational, controlled and socially sensitive approach. In the

short term, we need to keep this fight-or-flight response under control to be effective in

our jobs. In the long term we need to keep it under control to avoid problems of poor

health and burnout.

Introducing Stress Management

There are very many proven skills that we can use to manage stress.

These help us to remain calm and effective in high pressure situations, and help us avoid

the problems of long term stress. The first of these articles shows you how to keep a

stress diary – an important technique for understanding the most important sources of

stress in your life.

Warning: Stress can cause severe health problems and, in extreme

cases, can cause death. While these stress management techniques

have been shown to have a positive effect on reducing stress, they are

for guidance only, and readers should take the advice of suitably

qualified health professionals if they have any concerns over stress-related illnesses or if

stress is causing significant or persistent unhappiness. Health professionals should also be

consulted before any major change in diet or levels of exercise.

Raghunanda J

1. Over medium heat, heat milk just until film forms over top. Add butter, stirring

until butter is melted. Cool to lukewarm. In a bowl take some portion of milk and

soak the bread pieces in it.

2. Combine sugar, eggs, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Beat with a mixer at medium speed

for 2 minutes. Slowly add milk + bread mixture.

3. Take cake moulds or cooker bowl (Aluminum preferably). Add one teaspoon sugar

and 2 spoons of water to the mould and keep it on the stove and spread equally to

get caramel base. Once it is cool, add the milk mixture to this pan.

4. Sprinkle with raisins if desired. Cook it in a cooker by adding little water but

without putting the weight (just like Idli) for 15 minutes.

5. Keep it in the fridge for sometime before serving.]

Nagashree

Santhosh Kumar

Ladakh "land of

high passes” that

lies between the

Kunlun mountain

range in the north

and the Great

Himalayas to the

south through the

lens of Chandru.

If we do not start it today, definitely there will be no water for tomorrow. A man can live

100 years without love but not without water. This is to enhance natural resource and

conservation of water source. This helps us to improve groundwater level in earth.

Though the earth is made up of 70% of

water only 2.5% of water is sweet water

and drinkable. So, the source for sweet

water is earth and rainwater. To help

improve sweet water source measures

to be taken to conserve and help

improve the groundwater resource.

Initially when we started bore-wells most of the areas we used to get water around 100 to

200 feet approximately, but now the ground level water has gone deep and deep to the

level of 500 feet and still some areas we don't get water and this forces us to go beyond

this level. There are so many bore-wells get abandoned without water. This shows that

the ground level water is drying up.

Nowadays, people have started recycling

used water in apartments in areas like

Bangalore. So, to avoid such scenario we

have to start today to conserve and

preserve rain water religiously. There are

methods to conserve the rainwater in small and large area with proper planning.

Types of rain harvesting:

Small scale

Large scale

Conservation methods:

Sand Filtration

Aquaponics in small scale

Aquaponics

If we are starting in large scale when we form the layout provision for rainwater collection

through small channels to be made and there should be some area dedicated to rain

water collection. By measuring the area of layout, we can plan on the area of water

collection.

To start this with a layout with an area of 5 acres that has at least 80-100 houses, with

proper plan harvesting can be implemented. If we plan integrated rainwater collecting

system for this layout; we have to dedicate some area of land, like a small pond or

enclosed collecting system. This water can be used only when it is more than what the

collecting area is, if not, can be left as it is to enhance ground water level.

In rainy season if we use rain water we can curtail the use of board supplied water. So,

there will be water for tomorrow.

Let us start implementing the idea of rain water harvesting.

Bheemaprasad

Love is divine whenever it is love, but it is

very rare that love is love

Many things pretend to be love; many things bear the mask of love: jealousy,

possessiveness, domination, ego trips, and power politics. There are a thousand and

one things which can pretend to be love, which have the sugar coating of love. It tastes

sweet in the beginning, but soon the bitterness appears. It looks like nectar, but with

experience it proves to be poison. But then it is too late and you are entrapped. It is

easy to get into something, it is very difficult to get out, because your life becomes

invested, entangled, intertwined.

And those things which pretend to be love have a few benefits too, a few advantages.

They give safety, security, comfort, and they promise you all kinds of things in the

future. Those promises are never fulfilled, those goods are never delivered, but for the

moment those promises are enough to keep you hanging on. Those promises go on

like carrots hanging in front of you, and you go on moving, hoping for the best, but it

never happens.

Whenever love is love it is divine, and whenever love is not love it is very evil; it is just

the opposite, it is very devilish. And out of a hundred, ninety-nine point nine percent it

is not love. Hence the world is in such misery, in such hell.

To know love, to know true love, is to know God; that's why I say love is divine. It is

enough to know love, then God will be known automatically; there is no need to search

and seek God. And one cannot search and seek God because one knows not where he

is, what he is. His address is not available, or there are so many addresses that you may

get confused. You will never be able to decide which address is the right one: the

Hindu, the Christian, the Mohammedan, the Buddhist...

There are three hundred religions on the earth and at least three thousand sects. If you

listen to all of them you will simply go crazy. It will take thousands of lives to listen to

all of them and all that they have been pouring into humanity's mind. And it will not

bring any clarity; if you had any in the beginning that too will be lost.

But love can be understood because it is something natural. It is not invented by the

priests; it is not fabricated, manufactured, by the theologian; it is not something that

philosophers have inferred.

It is something natural in you; it is part of your energy. It can be discovered without any

help from the outside.

One just has to remember a few things: beware of jealousy, beware of possessiveness,

and beware of domination. If you can beware of these three enemies, sooner or later

you will find the real love...

Because real love knows nothing of these three and if these three exist the real

remains hidden.

And once you have tasted the real then there is no problem; you will never be deceived

by the unreal. To know the real as real is enough: the unreal is finished with, finished

forever. It can pretend only in the absence of the real......

Minaz

Not Christian, Muslim or Jew

Not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.

Not from any religion or cultural system

I am not from the East or the West

Not out of the ocean or up from the ground

Not natural or ethereal

Not composed of elements at all

I do not exist, ‘am not an entity

In this world or the next

Did not decent from Adam and Eve

Or from any other Origin Story

My place is the Placeless

A trace of the Traceless

Neither body nor soul

I belong to the beloved

I have seen the two worlds as One

And heard that One Call and only know

The First, The Last, The Outer, The Inner

Only that breath breathing

HUMAN BEING

Imran Ali Khan

Call Centre Girl: Sir, just dial 123 to know current bill status

Sardar: Stupid, not CURRENT BILL, MY MOBILE BILL.

Friend: I got a brand new Ford IKON for my wife!

Sardar: Wow!!! That's an unbelievable exchange offer!!!

Teacher: Which is the oldest animal in world?

Sardar: ZEBRA

Teacher : Why?

Sardar: Bcoz it is Black & White

Judge: Don't U have shame? It is d 3rd time U R coming to court…

Sardar: U R coming daily, don't U have shame?

Question: "Should Women have Children after 35?"

Smart Sardar Replied: "No! 35 Children R More than Enough!!"

Sardar attending an interview in Software Company.

Manager: Do U know MS Office?

Sardar : If U give me the address I will

go there sir.

Sardar got one sms from his girl friend: "I MISS YOU"

Sardarji replied: "I Mr YOU”!

After finishing MBBS Sardar started his practice. He Checked 1st Patient's

Eyes, Tongue & Ears By Torch & Finally Said:

"Torch is okay"

Sardar1: Oye, what will happen if electricity is not discovered?

Sardar2: Nothing, we must watch TV in candle light.

Shashi Kumar

This is a short story which I often relate to before I start forming an opinion

about someone in particular. I hope this would give you an insight as to how

our thought process changes when we allow our mind to think the way we

want to.

Once upon a time there was a poor man whose

livelihood was to cut wood in the forest and sell it in

the market on a daily basis; his axe was his prized

possession. He used to run his household with this

meager income. It was a routine for him to pick his

axe, go to the forest, cut wood, sell it in the market,

and rest in the evening.

One day, as he was stepping out of his house, he noticed that his axe was

missing. He searched and searched but could find it nowhere. He was sad and

depressed because without the axe he would not be able to earn a single paisa.

Finally, he borrowed some money from his well-wishers and bought a new axe,

but the grief of losing his axe started bothering him every day.

He started to recollect where he might have lost the

axe: on the way back home, was he robbed, or what

else?? He finally came to a conclusion that he had

placed the axe at home where he always used to and

that somebody had stolen it. Once he had formed this

perception, he started thinking about who could have

done it: a thief or someone who he already knew. Then

he remembered that every day his son’s friend comes home to play.

“Hmmm…..he could have easily picked the axe!” he thought. The woodcutter

started to believe that the boy was the thief and as each day passed he was

very sure that the boy had stolen the axe.

“Enough of it!!” one morning he thought, “I am going to catch hold of this boy

tomorrow and get my axe back.” With a feeling of relief he went to the forest as

usual. After working for a while, he had his lunch, and settled down for his

afternoon siesta. He made himself comfortable under the shade of a tree,

placed his axe in the hollow of the tree, and slept. After a short while, he woke

up and started getting ready to leave for town. As he bent down to pick up the

axe from the hole, to his surprise he found two axes.

“Oooops!!!” he said to himself, “I kept my axe here the other day and forgot to

pick it up.” He was overjoyed to get his axe back, and then thought about the

boy whom he had misperceived to be a thief, and now that it was his own

mistake of misplacing the axe, the perception changed right away to the boy

being innocent which was the truth.

In our daily lives we tend to be prey to this kind of perceptions - we start

forming opinions about people who are our friends, family, colleagues, and

relatives. It is important before we form a perception about an individual that

we deliberate for a while why their actions seem different than it used to be - is

it solely because our perception has changed?? Perception can be dangerous; it

might seem as though the individual is bad though he is not and sometimes the

other way round.

Some Gyaan from internet

Person perception has both positive and negative aspects. One of the strengths

of person perception is that it allows people to make judgments very quickly.

Realistically, you simply do not have time to get to know each and every person

you come into contact with on an individual, personal basis. Using person

perception allows you to make decisions and establish expectations of how

people will behave in certain situations very quickly, which allows you to focus

on other things.

The problems with this technique include the fact that it can lead to errors and

as well as stereotyping. Imagine that you are getting on a bus, but there are

only two seats available. One seat is next to a petite,

silver-haired, elderly woman, the other seat is next

to a burly, grim-faced man. Based on your

immediate impression, you sit next to the elderly

woman, who unfortunately turns out to be quite

skilled at picking pockets. Because of person

perception, you immediately judged the woman as

harmless and the man as threatening, leading to the loss of your wallet.

So, think twice before you form an opinion about somebody in your life….

Sharath K