What is mental health?

Mental health relates to how we think, feel, and act, entertain, determining how we relate to others, and make choices. Mental health is important at every stage of life, from childhood, adolescence through adulthood. It is cognitive disease including our emotional, psychological, and social well-being.

Ironically, you cannot make out if a woman is suffering from mental health issues. On the surface, it’s all calm and serene but dig deeper and you can see mothers suffer from, stress, frustration, fear, anxiety, depression or even loneliness. They are compounded but a mix of events and environs and these psychiatric disorders manifest to the surface. The joining factor however could be also compounded by economic volatility. If there is a mismatch of expectation and reality, it can add to the mental health issues particularly in women.

Perfectly normal appearing men and women, especially mothers diagnosed with psychiatric disorders, compounded by stress, frustration, fear or even loneliness should be treated by experts.

According to a study conducted by the Global Burden of Disease, nearly 20 crore people in India are estimated to have experienced a known mental disorder. Research indicates that women are twice as likely to develop common mental disorders, such as anxiety and depression, when compared to men. Ironically, for their mental health conditions, between 70 to 92 percent of affected individuals receive very little or no care and mostly go unnoticed. Since women and especially mothers are primary care givers, they should be aware and address any stress, anxiety, depression or any such mental health issue they may be experiencing personally.

What is self care?

To start off, start practicing self-care to give priority to yourself. It can drastically improve mental and physical well being. First and foremost is acknowledging to yourself that you are experiencing bouts of any mental health issue and second is to address them. But just remember not to over think about your expectations, what is going to happen, and he did this and she said that. There are a few quick tips besides eating healthy and maintaining a balanced lifestyle:  Few tips:

• Make a routine. Follow it. Fix a time to go to sleep.
• If possible add habits to your daily routine or make new ones.
• Eat healthy, at regular times. Exercise regularly.
• Living in the moment and be grateful for what you have.
• Be in a state of gratitude. Express gratitude for things and people in your life.
• Get eight hours of sleep each night.
• Say positive things about yourself and others.
• Make new friends and connections.
• Participate in activities you enjoy.
• Don’t compare.

Mental health and well-being of women is impacted by negative life experiences like infertility and prenatal loss, poverty, discrimination, violence, unemployment and isolation. Unequal economic and social conditions also contribute to women’s higher risk of depression. So deal with them by remaining positive and living in goodness of life.

Extra Tips:

• Avoid watching series after series on OTT platforms.
• Maintain personal hygiene.
• Balance time between work (looking after children/job) and entertainment and relaxation.
• Keep off from excessive intake of news.
• Avoid remaining glued to your mobile and limit your screen time.
• Go less shopping. Start looking going for a Minimalistic approach.

Bottom-line: Remember god has a design and there are things in store for you if you are positive, hopeful, creative, happy and do your bit. Karma will do the rest. The best way to deal with mental stress is to be stay happy, be contented and live in a state of gratitude. Slowdown in life! Be happy.

The post This, that, then, how – mixed up! Mind it! appeared first on The Correspondent.

“The release of vultures is a great occasion for the biologists across the globe. The next crucial step is ensuring the safety of the environment in vulture safe zone,a an excited Vibhu Prakash, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Principal Scientist and centre head, said.

The released vultures, comprising six captive-bred and two rescued ones from the wild, are of the age seven-eight years. Each of them has been tagged with a 30-gram device for satellite transmitter that allow them to monitor their movements and survival, Prakash explained.

Nepal was the first country in Asia to release eight captive-bred white-rumped vultures in November 2017 but this release is the first in India, and a major step.

Not far from the bustling Chandigarh, lies Asia’s largest breeding centre for vultures — the Jatayu Conservation Breeding Centre. The centre is located on the edge of the Bir Shikargaha Wildlife Sanctuary in Morni hills, where the eight vultures were released.

It is a joint project of Haryana and the BNHS which has had major support from the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), The Rufford Foundation and the British government’s Darwin Initiative for the Survival of Species Fund — to establish the centre and investigate the catastrophic declines of three critically endangered Gyps species of vultures in India.

At the Pinjore centre, three of the nine Indian species of vultures — the white-rumped, the long-billed and the slender-billed — have been bred in captivity after their populations crashed by 90 per cent in the mid-1990s. The birds are now listed as Critically Endangered listed by the IUCN, the highest threat category ahead of extinction.

Prakash, who along with his wife Nikita devoted their life for conserving vultures, said the Covid-19 pandemic has delayed their release that was earlier planned in April.

The Bir Shikargaha sanctuary has been declared a vulture safe zone. The sanctuary extends transboundary into Himachal Pradesh where the wildlife awareness among the villagers is quite high.

“We will monitor the behaviour of vultures in the wild through the satellite transmitters. If any of the released vulture die or get injured, we can quickly recover them and determine what happened. The satellite telemetry will be key for us to know the cause of death and prevent other vultures dying from that cause,” he said.

The vulture, a nature’s scavenger, cleans the environment of animal carcasses. Villagers rely on them to dispose of cattle carcasses.

The reason, say biologists, for bringing the vultures to the brink of extinction in South Asia mainly to the extensive use of diclofenac in treating cattle. Vultures that consumed the carcass of animals treated with diclofenac died with symptoms of kidney failure.

The Indian government banned its veterinary use in 2006, and although this was a crucial step, it has not been fully effective, and there are also now other vulture-toxic drugs in use, warn scientists.

Chris Bowden of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, who has been coordinating the programme in South Asia, said on phone: “This release shows we are moving to a new phase in this extraordinary story — and even though the careful monitoring results within 100 km, which includes five neighbouring states, have shown that diclofenac levels have declined since the national ban was declared 14 years ago”

“But unfortunately,” he warned, “it also shows there are still significant and alarming amounts of the drug out there, and so this release is a very important trial”.

BNHS scientist Prakash said, “If there is no toxicity-related death of these eight birds in two years, then we will go for release of 20-25 birds each year.”

“We are planning to introduce 100 pairs each of the three species of white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed in the wild in the next 10 years. Before that, findings from the first released batch will be crucial in the future programmes.”

The long-billed and slender-billed vultures will be released in Madhya Pradesh and Assam respectively.

Prior to this release, two captive Himalayan griffon vultures were released in the wild in June 2016 from the Pinjore centre on an experimental basis.

Both birds were wing-tagged and leg-ringed for identification, but not tagged with satellite transmitters.

This release is a preliminary test of Asia’s first Gyps Vulture Reintroduction Programme under which the captive-bred birds are to be introduced in the wild, and has been helpful in developing plans for these more significant and endangered birds.

An elated Bowden added: “The Pinjore centre has become the focal point for vulture conservation in Asia, having played a key role in a timely manner for establishing captive populations of vultures, and indeed the detection of the main culprit diclofenac and other drugs.”

“The safety-testing of other drugs like nimesulide by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute with the BNHS there is yet another crucial element which urgently needs to speed up.

“We really hope these released birds will survive, but there is a lot more to do to ensure their environment is safe. For example one further drug, Aceclofenac, which is still in legal veterinary use, has been scientifically demonstrated to convert immediately to diclofenac in cattle, so poses the same threat to vultures, and although earlier steps to ban this were underway, but have not yet resulted in action.”

“But let’s at least celebrate this step today and monitor how the birds fare with great interest,” Bowden added.

The post A first in India: Critically endangered vultures introduced into wild appeared first on The Correspondent.