What A Comeback!The Laws That Change the Way We Think.---------"Stories that Reveal the Science Behind Resilence."

“Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new centre of gravity. Don't fight them. Just find a new way to stand.”― Oprah Winfrey

"There's nothing as exciting as a comeback - seeing someone with dreams, watching them fail, and then getting a second chance" -Rachel Griffiths

We have all faced difficult moments at some stage in our life. Life has always been unpredictable. Be it a child or the most powerful person, no one is spared! Things do not turn out as we predict them to be. This is true for every profession and individual. The most successful man or woman will vouch for the above statement. It is true for every relationship, at some point of our lives. As we parent our children or hold on to a relationship, these unpredictable situations follow us.

Resilience and Perseverance go hand in hand in shaping the conditions of a comeback. It is when failure stares at us, clawing back seems a distant reality. Many believe that it is not everyone’s cup of tea. But our mind has other plans. A comeback is manufactured! And is the building block for a new life of hope and happiness. We all stage a comeback sooner a later but the time taken differs with every individual.

What a comeback! Is an inspiring journey of 10 friends who go through torrid times in their lives.

The book gives us an insight into the functioning of the thought processes that govern our responses both in favorable and in tough times. The stories of Sam and his friends make the readers realize that they too can be superheroes in their lives and they do not need to wait for a miracle, to come up with the right decisions in life.

The book is based on the laws of neuroplasticity which have been formulated based on neuroscience and the changes taking place in our brain. These laws were always existing in our lives but we never realized that these were making our thought process autonomous (without our conscious control).

 Each and every story is about a common man, his everyday problems and his tirade against the uncertainties of life. The author gives a journey into the brain of the characters and how the brain functions and overcomes difficult situations.

This is the first time when someone has tried to explain the complex mechanisms of neuroscience with the help of stories.

 The intention of writing the book is to leave the reader with a sense of hope and belief that a comeback is possible in their life at any stage, no matter what destiny presents us in our journey.

"No one has ever achieved great heights if they have not mastered the art of the comeback." Dr. Chirag Jain

“To persevere, I think, is important for everybody. Don't give up, don't give in. There's always an answer to everything.”-Louis Zamperini

you can book your copy on Amazon

Whats the science behind loosing an argument and why some people love arguing?

You’re in a tense conversation with a friend trying to defend your position on a political leader and his policies and start to feel yourself losing ground. Your voice gets louder. You talk over one of your colleagues and correct his point of view. He pushes back, so you go into overdrive to convince everyone you’re right. It feels like an out of body experience — and in many ways it is. In terms of its neurochemistry, your brain has been hijacked.

It is a common scenario especially with high voltage political campaigns around the world. However this can happen even in a simple conversation between couples regarding the child’s future which can convert into an ugly argument.

 By definition an argument is a series of statements typically used to persuade someone of something or to present reasons for accepting a conclusion. So what goes in our brain that makes us lose the argument and the other win inspite of us knowing more relevant facts but we simply can’t win the argument. The fact that everyone believes that they are right is well known but the reason  some people win the argument has to do with changes in the brain which the other ones don’t have.

Corpus Callosum

We all know that there are two parts of the brain, the right and the left hemisphere. These hemisphere are joined by fibrous tract known as the corpus callosum .The thickness of the corpus callosum determines the cross connection between two sides of the brain. Any conversation requires the valid points to be remembered from the hippocampus (memory storage part of the brain) and the impulse is transferred to the thinking brain (Left parietal and frontal  lobe) and then to the right counterpart to form a meaningful sentence and finally to the speech center. This sounds very complicated but you can actually imagine the brain overworks when we get into an argument and hence we feel exhausted by the end of it.

 So people having thickened corpus callosum fibers tend to hasten this process and are able to come up with valid points supporting their point of view. Also they will end up remembering and speaking the right thing at the right time. Women surprisingly by birth have a thicker corpus callosum and the saying that you can never win a conversation with a woman holds true.

Stress

The other reason is stress and persons behavior which make him prone to get worked up. In situations of high stress, fear or distrust, the hormone and neurotransmitter cortisol floods the brain. Executive functions that help us with advanced thought processes like strategy, trust building, and compassion shut down. And the amygdala, our emotional and reactive brain, takes over.

The body makes a chemical choice about how best to protect itself — in this case from the shame and loss of power associated with being wrong — and as a result is unable to regulate its emotions or handle the gaps between expectations and reality. So we default to one of four responses: fight (keep arguing the point), flight (revert to, and hide behind, group consensus), freeze (disengage from the argument by shutting up) or appease (make nice with your adversary by simply agreeing with him).This another reason why we end up losing the argument.

The moment we shift from logical reasoning to emotional implosion we start losing the argument. This is the area where we can work upon and can be highly effective. Going further I will try to explain why some people end up in arguing on a regular basis.

The stress created in an argument prevents the honest and productive sharing of information and opinion. But, I can tell you that the fight response is by far the most damaging to any relationships. It is also, unfortunately, the most common. That’s partly due to another neurochemical process. 

When you argue and win your brain floods with different hormones: adrenaline and dopamine, which makes you feel good, dominant, even invincible. It’s a feeling any of us would want to replicate. So the next time we’re in a tense situation, we fight again. We get addicted to being right. So what goes on in our mind that we start losing the conversation and hence these series of cascade of neurochemicals flooding our mind.

Luckily, there’s another hormone that can feel just as good as adrenaline: oxytocin. It’s activated by human connection and it opens up the networks in our executive brain, or prefrontal cortex, further increasing our ability to trust and open ourselves to sharing. Your goal as a leader should be to spur the production of oxytocin in yourself and others, while avoiding (at least in the context of communication) those spikes of cortisol and adrenaline.

Here are a few exercises for you to do at work to help addiction to being right:

 Deciding Rules of engagement. If you’re heading into a conversation that could be a little difficult, start by outlining rules of engagement. For example, you might agree to give people extra time to explain their ideas and to listen without judgment. These practices will counteract the tendency to fall into harmful conversational patterns. Afterwards, consider see how you and the person  did and seek to do even better next time.

Empathetic listening. In one-on-one conversations, make a conscious effort to speak less and listen more. The more you learn about other peoples’ perspectives, the more likely you are to feel empathy for them. And when you do that for others, they’ll want to do it for you, creating a virtuous circle.

Speak one at a time. In situations when you know one person is likely to dominate a group, create an opportunity for everyone to speak. Ask all parties to identify who in the room has important information, perspectives, or ideas to share. List them and the areas they should speak about on a flip chart and use that as your agenda, opening the floor to different speakers, asking open-ended questions and taking notes.

 Arguments are a way of life. We live, we love, we argue, we make up. Sometimes though, arguments cause breakage - of relationships, families and people.The more we can understand about how we argue, the more deliberate we can be in responding to conflict in such a way as to preserve the relationship.

Law of attraction a myth or reality- Whats the science dude?

It was a wet Sunday Morning and Rahul had decided  to take a total break from work. He was due for this as he had just finished his project for which he had toiled his heart  and soul by working day and night since the last one month. He had planned for a long drive with his beautiful wife and daughter to Lonavala Ghats (a small hill station close to Mumbai, India). He got up by the clattering sound of the rain falling on his roof which instantly gave him a smile. He realized that it was going to be a beautiful weather and things were magically working out exactly the way he had planned. He woke everyone up and much to his surprise, within half an hour everyone was in the car on the way to a beautiful day ahead. They were in such high spirits that they started singing songs and cracking jokes. As they started reaching closer to their destination, there was huge traffic on the Ghat which was moving at a snails pace. There was constant honking by the fellow travelers which was irritating Rahul.  It was almost an hour and Rahul started getting annoyed, blaming the government, people,cars and police for this mismanagement .Suddenly the mood became tense in the car and the couple almost decided that they will turn back rather than wasting their Sunday in traffic. Except his 7 year old daughter who was listening to music all the while the couple was really getting annoyed. 

Then a young girl Babita aged 19 who was selling toys on the road came up to them and told them that they were lucky as this traffic was there since last night and only now had started moving. God had blessed their family with grace and kindness unlike her who was an orphan and  she did not have a family. Still she was happy as hot summers had finally got over and she did not like hot weather .She wished good luck for them and requested them to buy some soft toy as a memoir of this beautiful day they plan to spend together. Rahul who normally shooed of these road side sellers, suddenly felt overwhelmed with happiness and an urge to buy a soft toy as remembrance to this beautiful moment. He looked at the girl who was dressed in dirty Salwar Kamiz(dress worn by Indian girls) but her face was markedly filled with happiness which was infectious. He bought 3 soft toys from her ,one for each of them and shared some food packets they had bought along.Suddenly all the irritation and anger which had accumulated in him disappeared and they had a great day in spite of  getting stuck in traffic one hour post their encounter with the girl.

The law of attraction is the attractive, magnetic power of the Universe that draws similar energies together. It manifests through the power of creation, everywhere and in many ways. Even the law of gravity is part of the law of attraction. This law attracts thoughts, ideas, people, situations and circumstances. The happiness ,the little girl exhibited had an effect on  Rahul’s brain pathway which rewired the negative thoughts ‘the dominant the traffic snarl’ to positive thoughts.Suddenly from a happy mood in the morning to anger and irritation due to traffic and then back to happiness, the long journey is an essential part of everyone’s life. We can all co relate this to some incident in our life .Why this happens and what are the changes which take place in our highly complex brain can be explained with the recent development in Neuroscience, Neuroplasticity and Neurophysics .

Ralph Trine wrote in In Tune With The Infinite (1897):

"The law of attraction works universally on every plane of action, and we attract whatever we desire or expect. If we desire one thing and expect another, we become like houses divided against themselves, which are quickly brought to desolation. Determine resolutely to expect only what you desire, then you will attract only what you wish for". 

To simplify it ,I will try to explain first  the anatomical structure and functioning of the brain. The brain can be divided for the sake of understanding into its  physical structure,neurochemicals and  electrical impulses. I will try to briefly explain which part gets activated in  the above incident and then why it happened so.

All of us agree these high paced emotional turmoils are a common phenomenon in most of the  lives of people .The part of the brain responsible for firing of emotions is an almond shaped structure called amygdala which develops from two years of birth and is responsible for firing of the emotions .Another brain structure of importance in this scenario is the Nucleus Accumbens which is also known as the reward center and is the one responsible for feeling happy by activating the reward circuit. This was the center which was activated what  Rahul experienced in the morning and when Babita spoke to him. The Nucleus Accumbens is the one responsible for secreting dopamine which is the neurochemical responsible for happiness(positivity) and activates the reward circuit. 

Similarly when the amygdala gets fired when Rahul was angry .The brain releases the GABA  (gamma amino butyric acid) and serotonin which is a inhibitory neurochemical responsible for negative emotions. It gives us a negative aspect of the situation  and too much of GABA and reduced levels of serotonin  leads to depression.This forms the basis of pharmacological treatment of depresion.
The way our brain has been conditioned due to the genetic predisposition of our ancestors has resulted it in been naturally bias to negative inputs .However a word of caution ,these were necessary for survival. For example when we are walking in a dark forest and we come across some long twigs, this negative bias is responsible for our mind to think that there may be a snake which protects us from the coming danger. But the same pathway also gets active when we are stuck in traffic what we call in today's world as stress. Also these messages are quickly send along the neurons (wires in the brain through the synapses(gaps between neurons where a neurochemical is released. These impulses create an image in our mind which is our perception depending upon on what we believe on the given situation formed by these neurochemicals.

So coming to the law of attraction where like poles attract and opposite  repel. One explanation is given by discovery of Mirror neurons. Mirror neurons are created by an individual  by replicating the same circuit which is present in the opposite person as perceived by our special senses (eyes,ears,skin,smell) .What Rahul got irritated by constant honking or his wife got irritated by creating these mirror neurons  on seeing Rahul's irritation are examples how mirror neurons are formed. These can be explained when huge rallies by political speaker suddely lead to violence by inflammatory speeches used by them .The mechanism responsible is that the brain creates images in our mind  and these  are replicated in the opposite persons mind. The only thing to ponder is the speed with which the mind can create these mirror images.

The other explanation is given by the quantum theory of physics about electromagnetic effect of individual atom. Similarly, since each cell is made of atom having positive and negative charge they have a  field of electron around them .When driven by powerful emotions(highly charged emotions)  these circuits create the same or opposing  alignment in opposite person’s circuit which creates  a  response. Hence,Emotions are infectious and being positive  and having an optimist approach to lives are some of the solutions  given by elders and renowned psychologists  to the caretakers when dealing with a case of depression.

Another factor responsible is the part of the brain called OrbitoFrontal prefrontal  Cortex (OFC)l lobe also known as the social brain. Humans right from birth have a craving for social interactions starting from the smile and cuddling by the mother. Every human being craves for this basic need like food,water and shelter and is often under estimated as we become adults. In our desires to achieve success and pursuit for our goals we tend to overlook this basic need. Children who have a disturbed childhood tend to be emotionally disturbed as compared to the other kids. Although they have a desire for more affectionate relationships, the poor social skills learnt because of a disturbed childhood tends to create unstable relationships. Such kids create these mirror neurons right from the early age and are very difficult to overcome in adulthood.These are learned at a very tender age and form the basis of relationship in adulthood.

The world is moving today from what was a technological revolution to  an over driven and highly overworked socio emotional complex circuits in our brain. The basic understanding of the laws of attraction is the first step towards untangling  the complex and jumbled up brain pathways which is  leading to an  impulsive and over reactive society.