Blog

We often complain that there is no time to spend with our spouse or partner. For some, this time could make or break the relationship. But a wise person will make good use of this time to flourish the relationship. 

Sometimes couples meet only on weekends, that too most of the time is spent relaxing at home or sleeping. So why not utilize this time of lockdown to bond well with your partner? 

Below are the ways you can bond with your spouse and grow emotionally…

Plan home Dates

Each partner can take turns to cook a scrumptious meal or even a simple meal and celebrate at home. You may surprise your spouse with their comfort food with a candlelight dinner.

Share household chores

It’s quite a lot when we have to work and do the household chores. Divide according to the workload you have and help each other out or take up added responsibility if one is burdened with work.

Indulge in activities

Indulge in your hobbies like – painting/paint a wall, play an instrument, sing together, or watch a movie. It is a great time to watch movies, clean the house, rearrange the items in your cupboards. De-cluttering the house itself is quite relaxing.

Have great communication

As we said this lockdown can make a relationship more strong or there can be additional fights. But use this time to resolve old issues, have transparent conversations, enjoy light moments, laugh thoroughly and work together to resolve old issues. Try and not be a reason of stress for your partner.

Exercise

Exercise is key to any mental health problem. Workout together or motivate each other to work out daily. Exercising for even half an hour will release good hormones ultimately benefitting the couples.

Let the romance bloom!

Amidst all this COVID chaos, sex can be a great way to improve the emotional intimacy amongst each other. Cuddle each other often which will help to lower the stress and anxiety for both. Married couples if you ever complained you have no time for each other and need to de-stress, it’s now!

Me time

Even though you are together 24/7, give the required space to each other so that you don’t get bored with each other. Read a book, check out an old album of yours, watch your favorite You tube channel or whatever suits you.

To know more about Mentriq, click here.
All images by Pixabay.

“If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them,

And half as much money!”

As the saying goes by, we need to spend more time with our children by playing, reading together, doing an activity, learning new stuff than spending money on them by giving them all the luxuries of life. A family that stay-cates together, bonds well together.

Planning a trip during the summer or winter vacation could be beneficial to everyone in the family in so many ways…

Emotional strong bonding:

When a family or friends travel together for a holiday, they spend quality time together and enjoy each other’s company. It’s a wonderful opportunity to spend time from the daily chores, forget about responsibilities for a while, be stress-free and enjoy to the fullest. This helps to create a strong bond between family and friends.

Good academic performance:

Families who share great bonding, indirectly are taking care of their children’s academic performance. Children are open to their parents, can be frank about their academics, worry less or are less scared of them.

Less behavioral issues:

When there is a good rapport between parents and children, naturally children behave good, are less cranky, have required confidence, self-respect and esteem.

Good for overall health:

When the home temperament is good, it shows on the physical and mental health. If the bonding is not so good, children may remain unhappy, may have anger issues, dissatisfied with themselves and this would negatively impact their physical and mental health.

New learnings:

Bonding with parents and friends can be of great learning. It helps children to learn new things and get educated about new games, fishing, boating-kayaking, pottery, many indoor and outdoor games. With friends, it can be educational by learning about what team management is, learn positive qualities of friends, engage in a new activity like paragliding or scuba diving.

Communication:

Communication is the heart of any relationship. Effective communication is an important part of a strong and healthy family. When we communicate effectively, it helps to bond effectively. Children become good communicators, better listeners and most importantly a good human when the home environment is better. Hence good communication via family bonding is necessary.

Sharing:

Sharing helps to create quality moments. In India, we have so many traditions and occasions where we tend to share food, emotions, culture, traditions with each other. At holiday’s friends can share past experiences of childhood or current joys and sorrows. Children can learn the quality of sharing their food, laughter, joys and sorrows.

Memories:

We often go back to the past to relive old beautiful memories and say “Oh, what were those days?!” Family bonding, travels, get together helps to create wonderful memories for a lifetime.

To learn more about Team Mentriq, please click here

All images are courtesy Pixabay

Exam time is stressful for students as well as parents. There are two types of students one, who can be easy-breezy, do their revision and appear their exam while the other set of students, fear exam, take a lot of stress, fall ill just before exams.

Let us understand the Psychological Reaction to Stress

• Constant pressure
• Frustration and anger
• Tension
• Unable to concentrate.
• Psychosomatic symptoms like sweating-sweaty palms, headaches, stomach-aches, racing heart, nail-biting, teeth grinding, racing thoughts.

Why do people experience exam stress?

• Fear of failing
• Fear of getting fewer marks
• When not prepared fully
• Want to do really well
• Unable to grasp.
• Don’t have much time to study
• Need to get a certain result
• Parents and societal expectations
• Don’t understand what they are studying.
• Family pressure
• Competition
• Have other issues happening in their life

How can parents help their children before and while their exams are on-going?

1. Keep realistic expectations and don’t push them too hard
2. Be positive
3. Keep motivating your children no matter what.
4. Help the child in boosting his confidence especially when he/she seems discouraged. Do not displace your anxiety on the child.
5. Try to gain your child’s confidence and discuss his problems with him, help him to find a solution
6. Understand that just good schooling and tuition are not substitutes for emotional cushioning.
7. Do bring family conflicts in between studies of the children.
8. Encourage good sleep patterns and eating habits
9. Provide a comfortable space for them to study and prepare
10. Teach them the importance of study breaks
11. Encourage them to ask the teacher/parents questions if they’re unsure
12. Do not remind them of previous failures.
13. Be light and humorous with the child. Crack jokes to make the exam mood light.
14. Help them know what to expect on the day of the exam
15. Help them be on time for the exam or arrive early
16. After the exam, listen to their concerns and avoid criticizing them.
17. Let them know exams are not the end of the world.

We wish all the students “Best Luck”!!

To know about Mentriq, click here

All images by Pixabay.

Exam stress affects most students in varying ways. The stress level in school and college students is so high that they get a lot of physical symptoms due to stress.

Teachers and parents need to teach their children how to manage stress and find ways to manage it. Some students can take exams with ease but for many, it’s a task.

Here are some tips to eliminate or reduce your stress. It’s never too late to set up good study habits. Here are some helpful ideas:

Clear your room and table/desk:

Does your mother remind you to clean your room and study table? It’s scientifically correct. The more clutter you have around your room, the less you’re able to concentrate. Physical clutter overloads your brain and impairs your ability to think, which leads to stress.

Take enough breaks:

Research says it’s good to have a 17-minute break every 52 mins. A psychologist also agrees on this fact. Resting is important so that you remember what you have read. In this time period, you can read a newspaper/book/blog or do whatever you feel like doing to relax.

Time table:

Set up a time table and try to stick to it. But also remember that not to be hard on yourself if one or two items are missed. Right from waking up in the morning to sleeping in the night, get all your activities – like studying, reading a book, listening to music, watching some comedy show, lunch-dinner, exercise-playing and sleep schedule needs to be mentioned in the time-table.

Exercise:

A 15-20 min exercise like a walk, basic stretches, deep breathing exercises will help to soothe your mind. Meditation helps to relax the anxiety.

Diet:

Have a healthy diet, no junk food should be consumed and stay away from caffeine as much as possible. Stay hydrated. Have dark chocolate or hot chocolate while studying. Research has shown that an intake of a small amount of dark chocolate reduces stress hormone levels.

Concentrate on progress and not on perfection:

Do you think that you’ll never be able to achieve the goals you’ve set for yourself? Do you feel you are good for nothing? If so, you may be a perfectionist. Being a perfectionist will give you stress. Set realistic goals instead of trying to achieve the impossible.

Know your learning style:

Are you a Visual/Audio/Kinaesthetic Learner? Know your best learning style and study. If you are a Visual learner, read and write your answers on a paper or in the book or on the black-white board; if an audio learner, read them as many times you want to so that grasping becomes easy and if you are a kinaesthetic learner, walk while you read/study. This will help you to remember what you study. We all have one particular learning style and if we use it while studying, it will benefit you.

Convert the negative thoughts into a positive one:

For every negative thought find a positive thought. Ex: I haven’t studied 2 chapters yet; I know I will get questions from those two chapters only. I know I have not studied but I will go through it and try to remember as much I can.

Avoid comparison:

Never compare with other students the amount of study you have revised. There could be chances that are you’re doing just fine, but after listening to other people talk about what they’ve learned, it will only stress you out and may make you feel like you aren’t progressing as well as them. Plus, if they themselves are stressed this can affect you and other people’s stress is not what you need right now. Don’t discuss the answers post-exam as well.

Create an environment:

Instrumental music, deep concentration music is available online, light up your room, burn aroma agarbatti/essential oils to have a nice environment to study.

Hope this will help you to study and concentrate better. Team Mentriq wishes you All the best!!!!

To know more about Team Mentriq, click here

All images by Pixabay.

Can you live happily married without children? Does having children means you have settled in life? Once a couple gets married, generally the elderly people advice to have a child as soon as possible. Some people have children immediately and some wait for a few years. While some don’t want to have it at all. Whatever the decision is, it needs to be respected by others.

Each couple has their own couple goals and as far as they both are on the same page, one should not bother and pressurize them to have a child. If one wants children and the other doesn’t or if it is the other way around, then there will be a lot of issues popping ahead. The decision of having a child or not having a child has to be mutual.

People often call couples as selfish, who stick to not having children, as they have their own set of dreams & goals and having children is not one in their bucket list. Whether to be a parent or not is one of the most private and personal decisions a couple will ever make.

There are 3 types of couples:

Couples with children: A couple with children/child who is happy, content and satisfied by having one and enjoying the best of parenthood.

Trapped couples: A Couple who loves their children, however, regret having as they feel trapped and have sacrificed a lot of personal space, freedom, career, money and could have done much better in life if children would not be a part of their lives.

Couples without children: A couple who have taken a thoughtful decision of not reproducing children because the couple’s happiness is more important than anything else (not that they hate children).

The essentiality of being married without children is a couple’s choice and society needs to respect it.

To learn more about Mentriq click here

All images are courtesy Pixabay

Infidelity can be defined as the action or state of being unfaithful to a spouse or other sexual partner.

We often hear about infidelity and perhaps have seen live examples within the circle of friends and family. One of the main reasons why a marriage ends is because of infidelity and the hasty decisions taken after knowing about it.

A partner may cheat his/her spouse when everything in the marriage is going alright and even when the marriage has some issues. You need to cross-check how great you are on the emotional level / how great is your emotional intimacy?

The challenge is whether to work on it or to end it?

When people are not able to digest the pain they think of ending the relationship with a divorce. You may go through all kinds of negative emotions like stress, anger, hatred, sadness, depression, resentment and also doubt yourself of where did I go wrong? Infidelity makes your relationship more toxic and everyone related to it gets affected.

The scar of betrayal cuts to the bone, but the wound can be healed.

It is not easy to trust your spouse again, but do you want to give the opportunity? Does your spouse agree on committing the mistake and ready to work on the relationship? If so, then you need to communicate your expectations to stay married and begin the process of healing and restoring trust.

Seek a Counsellor

If you have decided to end the marriage, considering the number of times your spouse cheated on you emotionally / physically, and if in no circumstances you would be able to take the pain and betrayal you are going through now, it’s better to seek some professional help for the recovery process of infidelity and divorce. A counselor will help you to save your marriage or sail the process of divorce peacefully.

To learn more about Mentriq click here

All image courtesy Pixabay

Loneliness is a universal human emotion that is both complex and exceptional to each individual. Because it has no single common cause, the prevention and treatment of this potentially damaging state of mind can differ vividly.

Health Risks Associated with Loneliness

Loneliness has a wide range of negative effects on both physical and mental health, including:

Depression and suicide: When you feel so low that things you previously enjoyed no longer hold that same joy.

• Cardiovascular disease and stroke: conditions that involve narrowed or blocked blood vessels that can lead to a heart attack, chest pain or stroke.
• Increased stress levels: Your body responds to stress by releasing hormones that increase your heart and breathing rates and ready your muscles to respond.
• Decreased memory and learning: forgetfulness, confusion, difficulty concentrating and other problems that disrupt daily activities.
• Antisocial behaviour: actions that harm or lack consideration for the well-being of others.
• Poor decision-making
• Alcoholism and drug abuse: addicted to alcohol, nicotine, opioid painkillers, and others.
• The progression of Alzheimer’s disease: causes a progressive loss of brain cells that leads to memory loss and the decline of other thinking skills.
• Altered brain function

Tips to Prevent Loneliness

Loneliness can be overcome. It does require a mindful effort on your part to make a change. Making a change, in the long run, can make you more contented, improved, and enable you to impact others around you in a positive way.

Here are some ways to prevent loneliness:
• Firstly you need to recognize that loneliness is a symbol that something needs to change.
• Then, you need to understand the effects that loneliness has on your life, both physically and mentally.
•  Consider doing community service or another activity that you enjoy. These situations present great opportunities to meet people and promote new friendships and social interactions.
• Focus on developing quality relationships with people who share similar attitudes, interests, and values with you.
• Expect the best. Lonely people often expect denial, so instead focus on positive thoughts and attitudes in your social relationships.

If you feel burdened by feelings of loneliness or feel them throughout the year and find it difficult to deal with, you can also talk to a professional about how you feel; this can often be more helpful than people expect.

All images are courtesy Pixabay

To learn more about Mentriq click here

When one thinks of a stay-at-home parent, it’s almost always the mom that comes to the mind. But when a husband decides to be at home and take care of the household chores and look after the children, it isn’t looked upon, like a great job by society. More than the society if you wish to be a stay at home dad, are you and your spouse on the same terms? Will you both enjoy the reversed roles? There is a lot of stigma around men staying at home parents and women being the breadwinners. It requires a lot of guts to quit a job and be a full-time stay at home dad.

Are you ready?

This cannot be a forced decision. It has to be a well-thought decision. The husband needs to take care of the daily household chores, looking after the children, attending guests, preparing food, getting work done from maids, buying groceries and other items. Working round the clock could be a very tiring process if you are not used to the routine.

Is your family ready?

Remember you are going to break the stereotype. Is your family ok to see their son full time at home and doing all the household activities and taking care of children..? Forget men, women in the family might not be able to digest the fact. Most importantly has your wife agreed to the decision?

Finances

Is your wife earning pretty well? An analysis should be done as you are going to lose on the extra income. Is it okay for you two and will all the expenses like personal, household, loan, school fees, insurance, rent would taken care of your wife’s salary easily?

Reversed roles

Your wife may do a 9-hour job but you need to be at work all the time. Right from dressing up the children for school, taking care of babies, changing diapers, feeding them, helping them with homework, preparing food, cleaning the house, playing with them, making the children sleep and acquire some more skill sets which you are not aware of.

Emotional change

A stay-at-home husband may feel burdened to work 24/7, look after kids and handle people’s questions which will likely make you feel the burnout. Also, you may feel lonely. It is a stressful job to handle the children and perform all other activities. One needs to prepare himself before taking this huge plunge.

Social Acceptance

Women who prefer to be at home can get engaged in varied activities like gathering with other women (who prefer not to work) and indulge in kitty parties. Since most of the men are working, stay at home dads do not have anyone to go and talk to which can make them feel lonely and depressed.

Hence before getting into the full-time stay at home job, think not twice, but ten times as it’s going to affect you and your family emotionally, physically and financially.

To learn more about Mentriq click here

All images are courtesy Pixabay

Stress is also an unavoidable and normal part of life. We cannot discard or remove stress from our lives. Still, there are certain relaxation techniques and other methods.To manage stress so that we have control over our stress and normal body functions.

Some of the methods with the help of which stress can be dealt with can be described as follows:

Identifying the sources of stressors

One of the major ways to deal with stress is by identifying the sources of stress in your life. Many times, there are certain hidden or underlying, thoughts or anxieties that govern our feelings and behaviours. These underlying thoughts and anxieties can be revealed if you look closely at your habits, attitude, and excuses. It may be that you every time feel yourself loaded with work or you always feel your workplace or home to be crazy always, or you blame other people or outside events responsible for your stress. In such circumstances, it is necessary for you to accept your role and responsibility. Once you can identify the stressors of your life and try to understand your role. Then the level of stress will automatically remain under your control.

Avoid or Alter the Situation

If a situation or person makes you feel stressed, then it is better to avoid such a kind of situation or person. At times you cannot avoid such situations or persons from your life, then in such case try to alter it. You should also be flexible, open to new ideas and compromise. Further, you should also be prepared for the worst situation. You should wisely deal with problems by anticipating them in advance and preventing them. For example, you have your exams the next day, but your friend is excited to tell you the story of the movie that he had watched. Be bold enough to tell him that he has only five minutes to talk.

Have a Positive attitude

Having a positive attitude helps us in changing our outlook and providing a big picture of the stressful situation. If we cannot change the stressor, we can at least change ourselves. One can adapt to a stressful situation and regain self-control by changing the expectations and attitude. Like each coin has two sides, each situation has different perspectives; it depends upon the way you perceive it. For example, if you are caught in a traffic jam. Then instead of fuming, you can always look at it as an opportunity to pause and reorganize. Listen to your favourite radio station or enjoy some alone time.

Accept and Move Forward

At times you cannot remove or alter the sources of stress, for example, death of a loved one, a serious illness, or a national recession. In such cases, the best way to cope with such stressors is to accept them as they are. Acceptance may be difficult, but in the long run, better than worrying about the situation which cannot be changed. The major challenges of your life can be looked upon as opportunities for your personal growth. If the stressful situation has been a result of your own fault, then rethink and learn lessons from the mistake.

Relax and Recharge Yourself

One of the ways to manage the level of stress is to relax and recharge yourself. Nurturing yourself by taking out time for fun and relaxation is a better way to handle the day to day stress. Morning walk, spending time in nature, long bath, listening to music, giving time to your pets, massage is few of the ways. which can help you to relax and face life in a more positive way. Further, a healthy lifestyle like having healthy diets, regular exercise and enough sleep can boost energy within you. So that you can deal with the stressors more effectively.

All images are courtesy Pixabay

To learn more about Mentriq click here

Play with your Child

Playing is an essential part of every child’s development. Being able to play freely enables your child to gain invaluable life skills, including socialising, learning about themselves and others and discover different ways to do things.

Teach your child to be organised

Teach your children to be organised because it helps cut down on everyone’s stress.  You can help by teaching your child strategies that make staying organised easier and by setting a good example by working to be organised yourself.

Speak softly and gently

Most parents spend a lot of time talking only a few things with their children. Wash your hands, Do your homework, stop that, Go to bed. Getting your child to do something by being gentle is just as easy as yelling and screaming. You can choose to yell, or you can choose to speak calmly. Your child is far more open to hearing from you when you talk in a kind, gentle and respectful way.

Be Patient

In this high –pressured, fast paced, frenetic world, the norm has become to expect things to happen immediately. Most people get really irritated when thing don’t! Unfortunately, the consequences of approaching life like this are that they lose sight of the really important things in life such as their relationship with their children.

Respect privacy and personal space

Everyone likes to have some personal time and a bit of personal space. Kids are no different. Regardless of their ages, they need time to relax, re-energise and be alone.

Tell the Truth

Children need to have a sense of what is right and wrong. If you teach the value of honesty your children at a young age, then it won’t be so difficult to expect that of them when they are older. Telling the truth will just be a habit.

Laugh a lot

Life can be too serious if you are not careful. The bills and the mortgage can get you down. But, for children, life should be full of hope and fun, joy and curiosity. Connect with your young self. Remember how it felt to be young, enthusiastic, hopeful, playful and free from too many responsibilities. Try to feel at ease with your child like self and life in general.

All images are courtesy Pixabay

To learn more about Mentriq click here