Coffee-O' Clock

Coffee-O’ Clock

Why your brain craves coffee

My body rhythms to the time of coffee

So is it Coffee-O’ Clock yet?

I have a song somewhere in the background

Flowers and poetry are also along

But I have pending projects on my desk

And my brain needs deadlines to be set

I hope it is Coffee-O’ Clock yet!

Julie was mad at me, and this makes me sad

She isn’t responding to my calls

Did she get sick? I am worried now

Should I call again or should I just text?

Oh please! Is it Coffee-O’ Clock yet!

Lunch was heavy, no wonder I am sleepy

“Ray, meeting at 3”, my boss startled me

Mercy please, I didn’t get a good night, but who cares

I need to be alert and awake

I think yes it should be Coffee-O’ Clock yet!

Evening’s gone, but it was worth

I need a break from my work

But now that work-mail makes me weak

I’ll have to work and skip the sleep

No no, I can’t hold my sleep any longer

May be I’ll just work for an hour

And I make my alarms set

So now, is it Coffee-O’ Clock yet?

Coffee is the most commonly consumed circadian psychoactive substance worldwide. Caffeine- the active ingredient in coffee interacts with our central nervous system mainly through adenosine receptors. Adenosine is a neurotransmitter which promotes sleep when melatonin is high. Caffeine molecules compete with adenosine and when bound to receptors promotes activation of neurons and boost your brain functioning keeping you awake and alert. Caffeine also builds up our adrenaline and serotonin reserve. It prevents dopamine getting re-absorbed in the blood supply and hence, it stabilizes your mood by killing that ‘worry-monster’ and making you ‘feel-good’ chemically. Caffeine is said to be a potent stimulant since it sparks the ‘brain entropy’. This causes brain networks to fire and connect more efficiently which makes your brain process information at faster rate. More importantly it acts as a ‘Clutter-clearer’, cleaning your chaos, it helps you gain focus. Hence, coffee appears to improve cognitive performance and memory. Despite all the rewards, over consumption of caffeine or coffee-addiction is harmful to health and can cause circadian-rhythm disruption by disturbing your natural sleep-wake cycle. Health and Disease unit have already marked ‘Caffeine-use disorder’ as a prevailing health issue.

Lastly, as ‘moderation is the key’, I hope your body-watch strikes just twice at coffee-O’ clock!

A Brain that Believes

A Brain that Believes

Neuropsychology of Belief

Why we as humans long for something to believe in

Or believed by?

And why, to believe in thyself is a real struggle

But believing in an unknown entity

thought to be residing elsewhere is effortless?

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‘Belief is a support system’, clichéd much; but what is belief anyway? Simply an agreement of something being true and existing without questioning how and why.

But to a brain that believes, belief is just looking for patterns and making sense of them.

The believing brain is absorbed in connecting the scattered dots.

And when these meaningful patterns become ‘beliefs’, our brains trails proof and checks for confirmations. The proofs that support those beliefs are preserved in the memory section of the brain- the hippocampus. As they are accessed more and more, beliefs provide an emotional boost to our decisions and actions. And then they are transferred and stored in other rooted section.

So, if you scan a brain that believes, you’ll see fireworks in the amygdala!

Beliefs act as emotional filter for sensory information to guide brains’ response.

Then the brain that believes becomes a mold, a mental simulation of how we interpret the world.

Putting our beliefs in something or someone is just building an emergency door. So, if our actions go wrong, we know that someone has our backs and then it is easy to avoid red sirens of fight-or-flight in our brains.

To our behavior, hence, a brain that believes provides stability!

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Beliefs aren’t something that you can name and define.

Some could be real things or some, like those cosmic stars that guide

And some just could be your fancy thoughts like finding yourself on mountain tops

and peace at an ocean-side…

No one’s sure if they are truth or a decorated tale

But if they dissolve your doubts, make you cross your fears and calm your chaos,

Why discredit them? Because a brain that believes, will believe anyway!

It’s a risk, sure,

To embrace the uncertainty

To hold what cannot be held

But that being said,

I'll still choose to believe in the sparkle, my stardust

In me, in you and in US

And also in the creator of our universe!

Won’t you too? Of course YES

Because we are humans,

With souls that connect, skins to touch, a heart that loves and

A BRAIN THAT BELIEVES!

Title? I don't care!

"I couldn’t think of a good title,

But I don’t care!"

Neuroscience behind Apathy

Mom said, “Stop, I cannot handle more.”

he saw his dad’s world shatter, but to him, it didn’t matter.

He even had a heartbreak, a girl with a good heart and pretty face

but he said, he couldn’t care less.

His dog, he saw, come in front of a car

He shrugged and said, It did live this far.

But something shook, he felt unwell

and with the last ounce of care he had left

He turned to the world, screamed and begged

Said, “Lend me your pains, I’ll heal and repair”

But unfortunately and at last,

he thought, even the world didn’t care!

Apathy, the brainy-dictionary states, is a neurological condition where emotions and concerns are extremely suppressed. At least once in our life we all have ‘felt’ or ‘deliberately displayed’ a lack of interest. It’s a natural response to disappointment, dejection or stress. So, ‘apathy’ is known to be a good ‘deviation’ to these negative feelings. But how far should we deviate until we loose the right track of our true purpose? How far until we are lost?

            I once met a person who was admitted to a mental health care for depression only to realize later that he was not ‘depressed’ but had no sense of happiness/motivation at all. How would he? Well according to him, he doesn’t really understand sadness or loss, or joy of achievement or the word ‘concern’. He says last time something bothered me was when everyone around me was asking the same question, “What exactly in life will bother you ever?”

Is he ‘The saddest person without any pains’? I cannot even call him ‘saddest’, because he is just ‘apathetic'. He isn’t careless or painless, but sure, a lot helpless!

            Neural correlates of apathy show faults in prefrontal cortex, anatomically. And that explains a lot about apathetic behavior- impaired emotional context, personality expression, decision making, socialism and survival concerns. Although, there’s much to be studied further,  after about 7 decades later its mention, this condition is still identified by subjective tests and the best cure still stops at ‘Comprehension’!

            So, to sum up, scientists discovered Apathy in 1950’s and guess what, ‘No one really cared’!