ARE YOU HABITUATED TO ARGUING?

Arguing is almost like a disease. An argumentative person is addicted to having the last say and this not only makes him or her unpopular but also poses them as an unpleasant companion to have.

But why does one argue?

Arguments happen because conflicts exist and the toughest thing to handle in any relationship is these conflicts. While a good and a fair argument can clear the air and help you to feel closer to your love or to your family or colleagues, many arguments are just hurtful and destructive. Arguments that never go anywhere, that are repeated year after year, or that leave you feeling awful about yourself are the ones that damage your inner peace and your relationships.

Arguments could also stem from an inherent need to prove yourself. An inferiority complex could be a cause for such arguments where in a person almost always feels the need to win the argument. In such case, one needs to understand that by constantly arguing you are only announcing to the world that you feel inferior.

Getting past the arguments

Lack of communication causes small conflicts to become heated arguments where issues are not resolved because both parties are trying to make their points and are not even listening to what the other person has to say. When you are about to plunge into an argument, stop for a moment and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Are you overreacting because you are tired and stressed?
2. Is the anger gathered inside you for someone or something else?
3. Are you being defensive because you want to avoid having to say you're sorry?
4. When you raise an issue, are you sure this is the main thing that's bothering you or is it something else about the person that has irritated you?
5. Is it hormonal imbalance that is making you unusually irritable or sensitive?
6. Is your mood being affected by illness?

If the answer to any of these questions is yes than you know that you are not being fair to the other person by arguing. Stop right there. Go to your space and play some relaxing music, read a book or watch TV. Do whatever, the idea is to distract your mind and give it some time to recuperate from anger and stress.

Avoid hurtful arguments by following these few simple guidelines:

1. Be concerned with being kind more than being right
If you're kind to others and treat them well, you'll experience fewer arguments.

2. Develop the art of listening
Listen to what the other person has to say and don’t answer back mindlessly. This will kill half your urge to argue.

3. Learn to keep quiet
There will be many occasions when you'll want to respond to a comment someone has made, but if you do you know that it will be an invitation to an argument. Swallow your anger and urge to react and notice that no argument occurs.

4. Set standards for yourself
What kind of person do you really want to be? Do you want to be known as an argumentative idiot or would you rather be known as tolerant and understanding. In view of how useless arguing is, learn to hold yourself to a high standard and steer clear from arguing.

5. See the other’s perspective also
Try to understand the stance of the other party also. If possible, slip into their shoes for a while and then look at your arguments from their perspective… you might see some light.

6. Know Your Triggers around Arguing
Become aware of what comments and situations trigger your anger and argumentative behavior. Learn how you can avoid getting trapped by them in the future.

7. Leave when a conversation is getting too heated
Walking away may not be the best idea but it is better than letting an argument turn into an ugly fight. Just get up and leave. This will allow you some time to gather your thoughts and cool down. When your perspective is better you can continue the discussion from a more objective point of view.

Remember that no one ever wins a hurtful argument because it almost always leaves a bad taste behind. It has the capacity to severe ties, hurt emotions and create misunderstandings. So take a vow now and steer clear from this poison of hurtful arguments.

WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE BEHIND CERTAIN GESTURES?

Have you ever been scolded for not covering your mouth while yawning or talking while having your dinner? Since these gestures are natural, a number of times we are not aware of its impact on others.

Well, most of these courtesies can be traced back to the Middle Ages to the era of kings and queens, knights in shining armour and chivalry. Some of them were created to be courteous, some were meant to be symbolic, and some were simply matters of logic. Learn the significance of these…

Raising a Toast
Toast and clinking of glasses together, was originally done so that when the glasses clinked, the drinks sloshed together on impact. This meant that whatever was in one drink passed into both glasses. So if someone is planning to drug a friend, he too would get some!

The Story Behind The Handshake
An empty hand presented forward to another person, and receiving the same response, was the easiest and most recognizable way to show someone that people weren’t holding a weapon! Therefore, a handshake meant they were going to talk instead of fight.

Let’s Salute
If a knight, in a full armour suit wanted to talk with a friend, he would have to remove the barrier i.e. lift his visor. His hand, thus, ended up at his forehead to lift the visor. A salute indicated lifting the helmet visor, so that the knight could talk instead of fight.

Yawning? Cover Your Mouth!
This has two logics to it. On a religious level if you yawned, with your mouth wide open, the Devil could reach right in and yank out your soul. Secondly, in the Middle Ages bathing was considered unhealthy, so most of the peasants and nobility stank badly. So it seemed logical to cover one’s mouth while yawning.

Keep Your Elbows Off The Table!
Why is it rude? First thing to bear in mind is that back in the old days people sat down to dinner, squeezed, into a long table that was set into a row. This meant that each person was packed very tightly in between the people on either side of him, and simply didn’t have much room to eat. The elbows weren’t allowed on the table because if someone had their elbows on the table, the other couldn’t eat.

WHAT’S THE SIGNIFICANCE BEHIND CERTAIN GESTURES?

Have you ever been scolded for not covering your mouth while yawning or talking while having your dinner? Since these gestures are natural, a number of times we are not aware of its impact on others.

Well, most of these courtesies can be traced back to the Middle Ages to the era of kings and queens, knights in shining armour and chivalry. Some of them were created to be courteous, some were meant to be symbolic, and some were simply matters of logic. Learn the significance of these…

Raising a Toast
Toast and clinking of glasses together, was originally done so that when the glasses clinked, the drinks sloshed together on impact. This meant that whatever was in one drink passed into both glasses. So if someone is planning to drug a friend, he too would get some!

The Story Behind The Handshake
An empty hand presented forward to another person, and receiving the same response, was the easiest and most recognizable way to show someone that people weren’t holding a weapon! Therefore, a handshake meant they were going to talk instead of fight.

Let’s Salute
If a knight, in a full armour suit wanted to talk with a friend, he would have to remove the barrier i.e. lift his visor. His hand, thus, ended up at his forehead to lift the visor. A salute indicated lifting the helmet visor, so that the knight could talk instead of fight.

Yawning? Cover Your Mouth!
This has two logics to it. On a religious level if you yawned, with your mouth wide open, the Devil could reach right in and yank out your soul. Secondly, in the Middle Ages bathing was considered unhealthy, so most of the peasants and nobility stank badly. So it seemed logical to cover one’s mouth while yawning.

Keep Your Elbows Off The Table!
Why is it rude? First thing to bear in mind is that back in the old days people sat down to dinner, squeezed, into a long table that was set into a row. This meant that each person was packed very tightly in between the people on either side of him, and simply didn’t have much room to eat. The elbows weren’t allowed on the table because if someone had their elbows on the table, the other couldn’t eat.

DEALING WITH DIFFERENCES OF OPINION

The world is full of people who don't see eye to eye on everything from the smallest of issues to the largest. We also often encounter people who disagree with us just to pick a fight and create trouble. Falling prey to such people and getting angry each time you have to face a different opinion will only harm you in the long run. Here are five tips to help you handle differences of opinion:
1. Do not fall prey to provokers: Learn to identify those who argue for the sake of arguing and enjoy having the power of disturbing your peace of mind. These are people you must learn to tackle. Do not let them play with your mind.

2. Be a patient listener: Often, our impatience towards others' opinions stems from our impatience to hear them out in entirety. If we do not understand their thought, we are likely to disagree. So hold your horses and let others express themselves.

3. Don't always talk to win an argument: Give up an argument if the other party is unwilling to bend. You don't always have to have the last word, not at the cost of your own peace of mind.

4. Place yourself in your opponents' shoes: Someone opposing your point of view is basically propagating his own. And his point of view deserves a chance. So that you can understand their side, slip into their shoes. Argue out in your mind their point of view and oppose your own. Defending their thoughts will help you see all its merits and demerits. For all you know, you might even agree with them later!

5. Be open to better ideas: You must have the strength to accept the superiority of others' ideas. Being rigid and not embracing their thoughts will only affect your growth, both mental and emotional.

Stop Eating Your Anger

Four years ago, Barbara Konwinski of Wyoming, Michigan, weighed 268 pounds. "I was so angry — just angry at my life in general," the 54-year-old teacher, mother and wife recalls. "I felt I had no control over anything."

Although she's normally cheerful and outgoing, a series of events that would challenge anyone — her husband's job loss when his company relocated, a house fire and a serious accident involving her oldest son — brought Barbara to an emotional low. And her weight to an all-time high. "Only food would appease me," she recalls. "So I would grab a cookie, eat it and then feel worse, because in addition to being angry and frustrated with my family's circumstances, I'd be angry with myself for eating. Then I would turn around and eat two more cookies."

Barbara was literally stuffing her anger, something many women who struggle with their weight do, experts say. This is how it works: You have a run-in at the office, you open your mail to find a monster bill or your teenager rolls her eyes at you and stomps away. Your next stop is the kitchen or perhaps the staff lounge, where somebody brought in a cake. Never mind that you have been making a conscious effort to eat less. Down goes the cake, the leftover pizza or whatever else is around.*

"We've learned from thousands of patients that women often internalize their anger," says Gerard J. Musante, Ph.D., director of Structure House, a residential weight-loss center in Durham, North Carolina. "They use food to deal with the depression, emotional hurts and reduced self-esteem that follows."

"People who swallow their anger feel, for whatever reason, that they can't express it, so they resort to food," says Thomas Wadden, M.D., director of the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania's medical school.

"The irony is, nobody enjoys eating when they're stuffing hostile feelings," Dr. Wadden adds. "Even if it's delicious, you may not notice the taste or how much you've eaten."

Eating out of anger or frustration often sparks binges, which can really pile on the pounds, says Howard Rankin, Ph.D., psychologist and author of Inspired to Lose. Rather than eating just one or two cookies, you eat the whole bag, only to then move on to other food items. Keeping anger under wraps also is draining, because it uses a lot of energy, says Dr. Rankin. "The angry person may feel very empty and very hungry, with a desperate need to eat."

How Fast Should I Lose Weight?

There are some medical risks associated with rapid weight loss. Losing more than 2 or 3 pounds per week poses some danger of negative health consequences, including electrolyte imbalance — a potentially life-threatening condition.
Another common danger of rapid weight loss is that people often use unsafe methods to achieve it, like starving themselves or eliminating several essential nutrients. We've all seen too many of these ridiculous gimmicks fail. Remember the cabbage soup diet?

These diets are unhealthy to begin with, but people often combine them with dangerous over-the-counter weight-loss products that promise almost magical results. The marketing behind these products is huge, yet the science to ensure their safety and efficacy is frequently lacking, despite the manufacturers' claims.

Research comparing rapid initial weight loss with slower, steadier weight loss shows that over the long run more people who lost weight rapidly, or who initially lost large amounts of weight, tended to regain the weight more quickly. After a year, people who lost quickly ultimately ended up in about the same place as the ones who took a more gradual approach.

Safe, effective weight loss involves making small, sustainable changes in diet and adding reasonable amounts of physical activity to your day. Focus on realistic portion control and healthy food choices, and work toward 10,000 steps a day. Also, try to identify and address any emotional and situational triggers that throw you off track, so you can adjust to life's challenges without turning to food or other unhealthy habits.

Why starve and deprive yourself on the way to the finish line? Slow and steady really does win the race.

Emotional eating and its disadvantages

"Emotional eating" is sort of a blanket term that describes how people use food in relation to negative — or sometimes positive — emotions. It is most commonly seen, however, as a reaction to a negative feeling. In short, emotional eaters eat to make themselves feel better. We believe it's a coping response that stems from a lifetime of learning. For many, emotional eating begins very early in childhood; for others, it develops later in life. What's the first thing we do when a baby is crying? We give him or her a bottle. How do we reward young children? With candy. How do we celebrate success as adults? With food and drink. This is not to say that using food in these ways is always bad — but it becomes a problem when we rely heavily on food to the exclusion of other, more healthful coping strategies.
It's true that emotionally triggered eating can temporarily soothe people, relieve their stress, or make them feel better. But very shortly afterward, it can have just the opposite effect, making them feel guilty or ashamed. And that leads to more emotional eating, creating a vicious cycle.

I include eating to reward yourself in the emotional eating category because it is another instance of using food in response to an emotion. In every society throughout history, food has been involved in celebration — and there's nothing wrong with that. But it can be problematic to celebrate with food every time something good happens in your life, especially if you're having a very successful life!

If people consider themselves emotional eaters, we seek to help them identify the specific emotions that trigger their eating, and under what circumstances they occur. We start by using something called a hunger/fullness scale. The first step is to ask, "Am I really hungry?" We encourage people to become aware of their hunger and satiety cues and to analyze them realistically by saying, for example, "I might feel hungry, but I ate an hour ago. I'm not physically in need of food." The next step is to ask, in the moment a craving is occurring, "What do I really need? What's missing? Am I bored? Am I lonely?"

If you are bored, activity of some sort is the answer. If you are lonely, then an activity that involves people is ideal — for example, calling a friend and talking for a while. For people who eat to reward themselves, we suggest trying something else once in a while, such as treating themselves to a massage or a theater ticket, taking a hike, or escaping for an active long weekend. It isn't easy to break long-standing patterns, but it can be done.

Taming Cravings and urges

The keys to coping with cravings and urges are time delay and distraction. One simple strategy is simply to postpone the decision. We recommend that people do something else first and make the decision about the food they crave afterward — and to keep doing that as often as they need to until the craving passes. It sounds straightforward, and it is, but sometimes it's hard to sustain the effort needed in the face of a craving. It's not about trying to make the perfect decision in the moment — it's about making the next decision. For example, if I tell someone to meditate instead of eating pizza, the pizza is going to win. But if I tell that person to do a three-minute deep-breathing exercise first and then make the decision about the pizza, he or she can probably do that. It's a matter of fighting one battle at a time. Who knows — after the relaxation exercise, the craving may have passed. If not, the person can do one more thing before reaching for the pizza.
Delay can come in many forms, including going for a walk, listening to music, taking a bath, and talking on the phone with a friend. Too often, people want an easy answer to the problem of cravings and urges. But the solution is to follow the whole healthy eating program, which reduces the likelihood of having those cravings in the first place. Keep in mind that a "whole" program includes eating well-spaced meals, managing stress, and developing coping strategies. It all comes together and chips away at the cravings, day by day.