Karva Chauth - The Link Between the Lunar Cycle & Menstrual Cycle

Karva Chauth festival falls on the 4th day after full moon , in the Hindu month of Kartik.

According to Indian tradition, marriage introduces accountability, responsibility, privileges and rights of a husband and wife towards each other.   In a traditional Hindu family, husband is the earner and the protector of the family whereas the various duties of a wife involve care, nurturing, education and continuity of cultural heritage of the family for future generations. Karva Chauth is a festival that every Indian Hindu woman looks forward to, despite the fact that she is put to severe inconvenience of fasting without even a sip of water from sunrise to moon rise. 

Karva Chauth is the day that symbolizes this love and devotion of an Indian woman towards her husband.  Indian woman have always considered their husbands as God (Pati Parmeshwar) and it is her mindset that she must serve and care for him. The Hindu husband tries to be home on the day of Karva Chaut, as this is a day of emotional and spiritual bonding with his spouse.

On the day of the Karva Chaut,  a married woman will get up early prior to sunrise.  She will take bath,  perform puja and take a simple “pre-fasting” meal.  This meal will ensure that she is NOT dehydrated for at least 16 hours.   For the rest of the day she will abstain from food including even water. In the evening, a few hours before moonrise, she will dress up like a bride, with mehandi on her hands and feet, sindoor in her hair parting, decked in gold jewellery.  All the women will then get together at a temple under the peepal tree for a collective puja.  Typically the ladies will sit in a circle around the peepal tree and perform a Gauri puja accompanied by a traditional story that describes the origins and benefits of following this fast.  During the puja each lady holds a tray that is passed around the circle at different times making a total of seven rounds. These seven rounds match the seven circles that a bride and groom take around the sacred fire during their wedding ceremony. Once the puja is completed the ladies will wait for the moon to rise.

Once the moon is visible, it is customary for a fasting woman, with her husband standing by, to view its reflection in a flat vessel filled with water, through a flour sieve, or through the fine cloth of her dupatta. Then she looks at her husband's face in the same manner, with gratitude in her heart.  This is a spiritual moment.  She says a silent prayer for the welfare and long life of her husband.  Water is now offered to the moon to secure its blessings. The husband now takes the water from the same flat vessel and gives his wife her first sip and feeds her with the first morsel of the day (usually something sweet). 

Quite often Karva Chauth is also a family reunion, for Diwali is around the corner—after 9 days.

Now let’s understand the menstrual cycle

What is menstruation?

Menstruation is the technical term for getting your period. About once a month, females who have gone through puberty will experience menstrual bleeding. This happens because the lining of the uterus has prepared itself for a possible pregnancy by becoming thicker and richer in blood vessels. If pregnancy does not occur, this thickened lining is shed, accompanied by bleeding. Bleeding usually lasts for 3-8 days. For most women, menstruation happens in a fairly regular, predictable pattern. The length of time from the first day of one period to the first day of the next period normally ranges from 21-35 days.

How does the menstrual cycle work?

The menstrual cycle is controlled by a complex orchestra of hormones, produced by two structures in the brain, the pituitary gland and the hypothalamus along with the ovaries.

A synchronous relationship between the menstrual cycle and lunar rhythm was confirmed by investigative data, laboratory findings, and clinical experience by the US National library of Medicine. Among the 826 female volunteers with a normal menstrual cycle (ages 16-25), a large proportion of menstruations occurred around the new moon (28.3%), while at other times during the lunar month, the proportion of menstruations occurring ranged between 8.5-12.6%; the difference was significant.

Ref: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3716780 (it’s a trusted government site)

An interesting 1990 study in the journal Psychiatry Research found that bright light at night can help regulate the menstrual cycle. In the study, women with abnormally long cycles of about 45 days who slept with a 100-watt bulb turned on at night in their bedroom from Day 13 to Day 17 of their cycle successfully shortened their cycles to about 33 days from 45 days

Ref: Follow the link for the actual report by the Biological research for Nursing for the above study.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6235443_Light_Exposure_Melatonin_Secretion_and_Menstrual_Cycle_Parameters_An_Integrative_Review

This hints that before electricity and the light bulb, shifts in the amount of light at night during the moon’s various phases could possibly have played a significant role in our menstrual cycle–maybe by affecting certain body processes impacted by light exposure, such as the production of the hormone melatonin, prompting all that folklore tying our menstrual cycle to the moon cycle.

Maybe before the invention of electricity melatonin production would have increased at the full moon, when more light would have reached the pineal gland at night.   Lower production of the hormone would coincide with the darkness surrounding the phase of the new moon. The changes in melatonin production, with the help of other hormones tell the ovaries when to release an egg. When living in the lap of nature without electricity, the full moon gave more light at night, and menses would have occurred near the darker part of the month, around the new moon when there was less light. 

However, in modern times with so much electric light pollution, there is little variance in how much night time light reaches our eyes over the course of a month. Because of this women now ovulate and give birth at varying times during the lunar cycle.  The pineal gland in her brain sends messages to her ovary, by hormones, to release an egg based on the amount of light her brain senses in the night when she is asleep. 

At the point of most light in the night, the full moon, she is programmed to ovulate. Moonlight makes women feel horny and receptive to sex.  During the waning Moon, higher progesterone prepares the womb for the possibility of new life.

What do you think? Have you noticed any link between your menstrual cycle and the phases of the moon?

Never Work Late, Not even a Minute.

"काल करे सो आज कर, आज करे सो अब 

पल में प्रलय होएगी , बहुरि करोगे कब"

"Tomorrow's work do today, today's work do now
If the moment is lost, when will the work be done" - Kabir Das

This is a Hindi doha (couplet) that we have learnt in school, everyone who studied Hindi would know it as Kabir Dohas. This doha somehow programmed our outlook towards work. It motivates us to complete whatever we have to has to done now. If we will keep postponing it, then the work will never be done. 

What I feel is, this will only apply for those who are running their own business, where working more hours might get you a big payout. But that's not the point of this post. This is from an employee's perspective. As an employee, the more you work, the more you are at loss or in otherwords, the Corporation benefits in the long run. 

I am sure that we all work for meeting deadlines. In order to meet those deadline we work extra hours. In the end we end up with more work to do. We all have heard the golden rule- Reward of good work is more work. Still we work for extended hours, Why? Is it the Promotion or is it the extra extended hours claim in salary. If it was promotion, everybody would have been climbing the ladder to the top. Atleast in my organisation the overstay compensation does not do justice to the work done. All our work place has a punching system that records the punch time which is also linked to the attendance system. It records the number of hours but the overstay compensation has to be filled manually. What is the logic behind this? I don't know! 

Never Work Overtime!, For N number of reasons.

Inadequate Compensation is one of the reasons. Taking that into account, recalculate your hourly pay. Did you notice a drop in your salary? That’s because you’re giving your employer some work for free. You should stop doing that. Now!

Every minute you work during the extended hours, it goes in favor of the corporation. It is simple maths! Lets assume a work center having an employee count of 800. Lets again assume that all 800 overstayed for 5 mins daily. Lets do the math now.

Extra Man minutes clocked per Day: 800*5= 4000 man-mins=66.66 man-hours

Extra Man-hours clocked in a year= 66.66*365 days= 24,333.33 man-hours 

24,333.33/8= 3041.66 days

3041.66/365= 8.33 Man/ year

For every 5 mins you give everyday, the corporation is getting an extra service of 8 men for free. Which is an considerable figure for a harmless 5 mins. Consider a case of 30 mins, this will be 50 men. For 1 hour, it is 100; for 4 hours it is 400. See how the figure escalates. Its all Free for your employer. 

We all were expected to work 8 hours a day, 5/6 days a week (50 hrs a week) for some agreed salary, not 70 hours a week. Please! Please! Please! Stop! You can argue against! You can say that you are dearer to the corporation because I give good work for 48 hours and you give better work for 70 hours. You will be rated more productive and I will be rated less productive. You will be ahead of in the race or for the raise. But you will be expected to continue to work the same way. But this is kinda a modern version of slavery according to me. 

Every project has a deadline. The so called deadlines are not actually deadlines, they all have a cushion. They are just made into a tighter schedule. Its poor project management. No corporation will fall down like a castle of cards if you won't meet the deadlines. There is more to life than spending it at office. Working is not the sole purpose of life. Your family and friends need you. More importantly you need time for yourself. Travel! Go play a guitar! Paint! Do whatever you like doing! 

Besides, there are many other evils to working extended hours. They make you tired. Being tired makes you prone to errors. Errors generates more works. Productive work will give you more work, eventually you will be burned out. You indirectly force your friends also to work late.

Come early to office, Prioritise! Plan! Delegate! Trust your subordinates! Work! Work! Work! Dont chit chat with friends in excess! When the alarm go off, "Go Home!" 

Running is Happiness!

Ask anybody who is a regular runner why they run, and they are likely to tell you that running improves their lives and makes them happier.

Actually, there is a lot of similarity between running and life.It might sound strange that running can actually make you happier! But it gives us a unique opportunity to view the world with a different perspective.  I am going to discuss 5 ways as to why Running makes me "Happy".

1) Momentum!

Just imagine! When you wake up in the morning, your head is clear and not poisoned by the complications of the modern life, no phone calls, no outlook mailbox and pressures of the work place activity traps. It is just you and the track ahead of you. Life in the "Rawest" form! You get the stone rolling and gain momentum when most of the neighborhood is waking up. You are one step ahead of everybody and this momentum will help in pushing you from one accomplishment to another. 

2) Blueprinting!

Everything is created twice: FIRST in your mind, then in your reality. Set targets before running. People are much happier when they are working towards a goal, whether they actually achieve it or not. The act of setting a goal and actively working towards it is what seems to trigger happiness. Reaching the goal, of course, is wonderful, but it is the journey towards the goal that leads to the most happiness. Running is a great time for setting targets for the day. You are calm and relaxed. There is no better time to plan your day.

3) Perspective, be grounded!

Everything is beautiful. Life is beautiful too! It is a matter of perspective. You may be upset for 'N' number of reasons. Maybe you had a rough day at work, maybe you had a fight with your loved one, maybe your smartphone broke. But my point is you are luckier. Luckier than the kid who is knocking on the car wind shield begging for money, luckier than the family who are taking shelter at slums. It is always easy to forget how much we have and how lucky we are. You will never be happy in your life if you cannot appreciate the life you have. There will always be an empty space which you even do not even know! And you will be racing your entire life to fill the void.

Take a minute and think of all the blessings you have. Be grateful. 

4) Never back down!

Keep pushing the limits. Limits are set by the mind. The human body is capable of doing remarkable things. Its all in the mind. When you go for a jog at the park and look at the runners, you see one thing in common! These people are constantly pushing themselves to be better. Run along with them. It will remind you that however hard you try, there is always someone working harder. There is always a higher benchmark. You can always work a little bit harder.

5) Reflection

Running gets you into better physical shape, which, in turn, makes you feel stronger and you are able to handle challenges that come your way in a better manner. Being in better shape changes you not only physically, but also mentally. It makes you feel more empowered. You will feel like you are a "go-getter".

Running Gives me a "Kick!"

" Runner's High" as somebody calls it, is not something that is used for luring people to exercise. It is an actual phenomenon. Physical exercise is known to release endorphins in the brain. Endorphins act as a natural "drug" that make a person more energetic, more awake and, yes, happier. These endorphins can kick in during run, creating a neurological euphoria for the runner. If you want a hard science perspective, follow the below link from a US govt medical website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6091217

When Science proved the possibility of Existence of God

"And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."- Hebrews 11:6

Every religion says we must accept God by faith. Does God Exist? Is there evidence for the existence of God?- I don’t know. The existence of God cannot be proved or disproved. Ervin Schroedinger was the one who went closest to proving His existence. 

Ervin Schroedinger was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist who developed a number of fundamental results in the field of quantum theory, which formed the basis of wave mechanics. He formulated the wave equation (stationary and time-dependent Schrödinger equation)

In quantum mechanics, Schrodinger equation is a partial differential equation that describes how the quantum state of a quantum system changes with time.

Where ħ is the Planck constant, the symbol ∂/∂x indicates a partial derivative with respect to one dimensional co-ordinate, Ψ (the Greek letter psi) is the wave function of the quantum system, m is the mass, E is the energy and V is the potential energy of the particle.

This equation simply signifies until a particle (we are referring to sub atomic level)  is measured and observed, it actually exists in all the position simultaneously. For example, if we are looking at the spin of an electron, it could have been a spin up, but before the observation was made, it could have been a spin down. But as per Schrodinger, the electron is a superposition i.e. it has both spin up and spin down simultaneously prior to we look at it. To make this even simpler its like tossing a coin. There are only 2 outcomes- heads or tails. But until the observation is made, the coin is heads and tails up simultaneously. Heavy, huh!

So Schrodinger made a thought experiment. It involved a cat and no cat was harmed as it was a thought experiment.

Let’s take a box with a lid having a cat. Inside it we will put a radioactive atom (single atom) and a closed flask of Cyanide and a Geiger counter. If the Geiger counter detects radioactivity (i.e., a single atom decaying), the flask is shattered, releasing the poison that kills the cat. Quantum mechanics says that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat alive or dead, not both alive and dead.

There are 2 interpretation of the thought experiment. First one is called the many worlds or multiverse theory. It states that anything can happen does happen. So when the cat was observed, in one universe the cat was found to be alive and in another universe, the cat was dead. The theory says that when the cat was in the box, it was in a superposition of both alive and dead. When the box was uncovered, a split in the universe occurred, where one universe the cat was dead and in another the cat was alive. The implication is mind boggling. Every time when there is a one or more possible outcomes the universe splits and creates copies where all possible outcomes come true.

It's like you are sitting in a room reading this containing many waves, radio waves of different frequencies. You can tune in to one of the frequency and listen to what you want at the same time you are comfortable with other frequencies present in the room. In the same way these frequencies are wave functions. In this room there a wave function of dinosaurs or a wave function of Hitler winning the Second World War or a wave function where we have advanced so much in medical science that we have achieved immortality.

Thats the Multiverse!. If you don’t like that theory then you have to believe the second interpretation. Second interpretation says that the act of observation makes an existence of the cat. Observation requires consciousness. Therefore consciousness makes some observation and then we see the cat is alive. Well Schrödinger determines the cat is alive. But who determines Schrödinger. Somebody has to look at Schrödinger and determine that he is alive. But who determine that somebody. It will be an infinite circle. Who will be the ultimate one to determine us – GOD!

Theory of safe Driving - Keep your eyes on the road

Whenever we admired a car or wondering about which care to buy, we often ask many technical queries related to power, torque, mileage, engine capacity, turning radius, 0 to 100 km/s and etc. But have we ever wondered how well it has done the 100 to 0 km/s. Yeah, you are right! How well does it stop.

We all have a perception that the vehicle will come to a halt immediately after we apply the brakes. It’s not your fault; it’s due to relative motion. Anyway, the vehicle brought to a complete stop due to our necessary evil called Friction. Frictional forces include the losses between tires and road, wheel bearings and aeronautical drag.

The total stopping distance comprises of 4 components-

•          Human Perception Time
•          Human Reaction Time
•          Vehicle Reaction Time
•          Actual Braking Time

Human Perception time is the time taken for perceiving the hazard by our sensory organ (eye), transmitting it to the brain and processing the data. The human perception time is .25 to .5 secs.

Human Reaction time is the time taken for the legs to apply brake after the brain sends signal for lifting the leg from the accelerator to the brake pedal. It varies from .5 to .75 secs.

Vehicle Reaction time- As soon as we apply force on the brake pedals, there is a delay for the actual brake to be applied. This is due to the play on the brake pedal, compressibility of the brake fluid and efficiency of the braking system.

Actual braking time is the time taken for the frictional forces to decelerate the vehicle from its running speed to Zero. They are affected by many practicalities like tyre pressure, surface finish of the road, grip of the tyre, wheel alignment, brake pad material, stiffness of suspension, presence of anti skid braking, slope of the road. These features will only increase the braking time, therefore let ignore all these features and stay with an ideal condition. The main feature that determines the braking time is the coefficient of friction, µ.

Let’s go to the physics part.

Kinetic Energy= ½ mv2, where m is the mass of the car and v is the velocity

Work done by brake due to friction = µmgd,

Where µ is coefficient of friction, g is the acceleration due to gravity and D is the braking distance

Lets calculate the actual braking distance of a heaviest Hyundai i-10 weighing 961 kg travelling at a speed of 100 Km/hr (28 m/s) assuming µ  to be .9 at its maximum value.

(Refer: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/mechanics/frictire.html )

Kinetic Energy= ½ x 961 x 28 x 28 = 376712 J

Work done by brake= .9 x 961 x 9.8 x d.

Equating both the energy equation the actual braking distance is 45 m. For my convenience, I will convert all the time factor to distance traveled.

Average perception reaction time can be summed up to 1 sec. The vehicle will travel through a distance of 28 m in that 1 sec. And 7 m in the vehicle reaction time.

So the total braking distance is 45+28+7= 80 m. Which means, for a safe driving, we need a clear vision of the road upto a distance of 80 m or in terms of time, it will be 4.17 secs, including the deceleration time and perception- reaction time.

We need to develop a habit of maintaining a hazard free road for the next 4.17 sec at each moment. This figure is set to increase to 200 m or 12.4 sec, when it rains. Imagine its takes more than 10 sec!

The Perception reaction time is a human factor.  It is effected, actually “increased” due tiredness, vigilance of the driver, intake of alcohol, use of mobile phone and age. Perception- reaction time of 3 to 4 secs is always possible. Which gives us a worst case scenario of 150 m (total braking distance)

“Keep your eyes on the road and drive safe!”

Thank You, Dad!

Thank you for teaching me how to take my first steps,
Thank you for taking me to first day at school,
Thank you for solving my math problem step by step,
Thank you for teaching me the cricket rule,

Thank you for taking me to the park,
Thank you for picking me from the skating lessons,
Thank you for tolerating my teacher's remark,
Thank you for buying me the toy gun,

Thank you for providing food on the table,
Thank You for loving my mother,
Thank you for compromising your comfort so I was comfortable,
Thank you for giving me a sister,

Thank you for giving me freedom,
Thank you for teaching me how to ride a bike,
Thank you for giving the sense to know how far to stretch freedom,
Thank you for the spanks for crossing the line,

Thank you for the hugs when I was scared,
Thank you for supporting me when I was alone,
Thank you for defending me when I erred,
Thank you for making me tough as a stone.

Chemistry behind weight loss!

We are all obsessed about having a ripped up body. What all things we do not do for a Zero size body. We all go through crash diets, hit the gym, fitness regimes, ordering gym equipment etc. We all have a misconception about weight loss. We all talk about losing weight, but I would like to ask you

"Where does the fat go?"

Is Fat turned into energy or what we call calories, is fat turned into sweat, or fat goes down the toilet or is it turned into muscle. Lets go on. We will be using thermodynamics, physical chemistry and biology ahead.

What is fat?

Fats, also known as triglycerides, are esters of three fatty acid chains and the alcohol glycerol. There are many different kinds of fats, but each is a variation on the same chemical structure. All fats are derivatives of fatty acids and glycerol. The fat molecules are called triglycerides (triesters of glycerol). Three chains of fatty acid are bonded to each of the three -OH groups of the glycerol by the reaction of the carboxyl end of the fatty acid (-COOH) with the alcohol. HOH (water) is eliminated and the carbons are linked by an -O- bond through dehydration synthesis. This process is called esterification and fats are therefore esters

This is a saturated fat molecule. Simple chemical formula is C57H111O6. Fats are burned when we work out, so let us burn the fat molecule.

C57H111O6 + O2  = CO2 + H2O

Let us balance the equation stoichiometrically,

4 C57H111O6 + 327 O2  = 228 CO2 + 222 H2O + Energy.

let us see the equation in point of view of the molar mass, (atomic mass of Carbon, Hydrogen and oxygen atom are 12, 1 and 8 respectively). Thermodynamics is a part of Physical Chemistry, and Conservation of Energy and Mass is a basic law. 

4* 892 gram fat + 327* 32 gram oxygen = 228* 44 Gram Co2 + 222* 18 gram water + Energy.

In simple terms,

10 Kg Fat + 29.32 Kg Oxygen = 28.11 Kg Co2 + 11.11 Kg Water

This is highly surprising. It shows the ignorance and misconception about our metabolic activities. In order to lose 10 Kg weight, we breathe out 28 Kgs of carbon dioxide. Basically we are breathing out Fat as Carbon Dioxide. It goes into THIN AIR. The results shows that the lungs are the primary excretory organ for weight loss. The water formed may be excreted in the urine, faeces, sweat, breath or other bodily fluids, and is readily replenished. The sweat formed is just a bodily reaction to the exothermic reaction. Sweat acts as a coolant, therefore keep your body hydrated.

What happens inside our body!

We put on weight when excess carbohydrates and proteins that we've had are converted into triglycerides (compounds made up of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen) and are then stored in lipid droplets inside fat cells. To lose weight, you need to break down those triglycerides to access their carbon.

On a day of rest, you breathe around 12 times a minute so you will breathe 17,280 in a day and each one roughly takes 10 milligrams of carbon with it. So there's your limit on how much you're going to lose in a day with no exercise. On the other hand, replacing one hour of rest with exercise such as jogging, removes an additional 40 g of carbon from the body. 

Conclusion

Weight can be lost by 

1) Going on crash diet and the let the metabolic activity do the job. I would like to advise you that this is a very bad idea. During crash diet you are starving the body. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction! the body will react by bringing down the metabolic rate. So when you give up your diet and go back to the routine diet, the body will put on weight because the metabolic rate is down.

2) Hitting the Gym. This is also a bad idea. 'Tears' occur in the muscle tissue from exercises like weight lifting, sit ups and planks. These disruption activates satellite cells from outside the muscle fibers, which rush to the area of damage. These cells replicate, mature into grown cells and fuse to your muscle fibers. This process forms new muscle protein strands, which increases the strength and visible size of the muscle to better cope with similar physical activity in the future. This will in turn increase the body weight and push out the fat around the muscles. This will be a much worse situation.

3) Doing the cardio workout, the heart rate raises to 50 to 70 percent of your maximum heart rate. This work out gets approximately 50 percent of its fuel from fat, and roughly 50 percent of the fuel from the blood sugar and food intake. You burn the other 50% of your maximum heart rate from fat. Higher intensity cardiovascular exercise burns a lower percentage of calories from fat, getting anywhere from 5 to 35 percent of its energy from fat. However, because you burn more calories overall, you may burn just as much fat with higher intensity exercise as with lower-intensity workouts; however, short burst of high-intensity exercise such as sprinting burns strictly glycogen.

To burn 1 gram of fat, you need to burn 9 calories from fat. Since moderate-intensity exercise, such as walking, jogging, hiking, dancing or moderate bicycling, burns roughly 140 to 185 calories in 30 minutes, you can estimate that 50 to 60 percent of those calories comes from fat. That translates to 70 to 111 calories burned from fat. At nine calories per gram, you burn approximately 7.8 to 12.3 g of fat in 30 minutes, or two times that amount in 60 minutes.

At higher intensity, if you're working out at 75 to 80 percent of your maximum heart rate, for example, approximately 35 percent of burned calories come from fat. That means if you jog for 30 minutes and burn roughly 295 calories, you burn around 103 calories from fat, or the equivalent of 11.4 g of fat.

Bottom Line

The level of exercise intensity decides the fat burned. The number of fat grams you burn or the percentage of fat you burn during exercise is not the key to losing weight or fat with exercise. The key is to burn more calories than you take in. As long as you're not severely limiting your caloric intake and causing your metabolism to rebel and slow down, you'll lose fat if you create a calorie deficit. Watch what you eat, particularly the number of total calories and the overall quality of your food and beverage choices. Exercising in a fasted state (such as first thing in the morning) will bring it up yet another notch. Weight loss requires patience, but it will give you results in a long time. Make a 90 day plan and Control on intake, i mean you should eat, but avoid junk food and soft drinks.

Its like munching on a cone ice cream. We have to eat through the top scoop of the ice cream to get to the bottom chocolate at the bottom of the cone. First we have to burn all the scoop of fat and then hit the gym for the chocolate at the bottom of the cone.

The funny thing about all of this is that, most health professionals don’t know what happens to fat when we lose weight. So don't believe on all that.

We don't contribute to global warming because of weight loss. Don't worry! You are not guilty of Global Warming.