Aastha D

Here to keep myself informed (with the world and my own self)

[ANI @ANI]

#WATCH | Karnataka | Prime Minister Narendra Modi to inaugurate the newly constructed Dhyan Mandir at the Art of Living International Centre in Bengaluru. Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar also present

[IANS @ians_india]

Bengaluru, Karnataka: Spiritual leader Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, "You have given spiritual yoga the recognition and place it deserves. By securing global recognition for International Yoga Day, you made yoga universally accepted..."

[DAN KOE @thedankoe]

The best thing you can do in today's world is practice thinking. Very few people, especially smart people, do this. Snap yourself out of your automatic patterns and stretch your mind for once. This will only become more important as AI and social media distort reality.

[Aastha D @aasthaol]

Good start to the day.
Countdown begins. Ask me in a month.

[luke @ihylouu]

life really does get better when you get back into your nerdy interests again

[Aastha D @aasthaol]

Here after deleting Gram bc the scrolling had gotten too much. Dopamine depletion as its being called. Ended up doing that here as well. Should I just get a burner phone instead? For the next few months before my exam? Or should I be able to control myself with this “smartphone”

[charlie @chunkbardey]

eating dinner w ur friend is like wait this zucchini is rly good. it can be like that but also lots of other things as well. life is so full it’s almost impossible to describe. and of course full of pain as well

[World of Statistics @stats_feed]

HOW TO HACK YOUR HAPPY HORMONES

DOPAMINE (Increase Drive):

• Home cleaning
• Focused work
• Phone detoxes
• Cold showers

OXYTOCIN (Increase Love):

• Acts of service
• Physical touch
• Grateful thoughts
• Active listening

SEROTONIN (Improve Mood):

• Time outside
• Eating healthy
• Calm breathing
• Good night sleep

ENDORPHINS (Reduce Stress):

• Stretching
• Baths & saunas
• Singing songs
• Exercising

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

This person just gave you the neuroplasticity recovery protocol most people pay therapists $200/hour to discover.

The core mechanism here is dopamine baseline depletion. When you scroll, each interesting post spikes dopamine 100-200% above baseline. The problem is what happens next. Your dopamine drops 40-60% BELOW baseline for 2-4 hours. This means the homework, the book, the focused thinking you try to do afterward feels neurologically impossible. You’re not lazy. Your prefrontal cortex is literally running on empty.

Here’s the thing about that “I used to be sharp” feeling. Working memory capacity correlates directly with dopamine available in the prefrontal cortex. Lower dopamine, shorter working memory span. D’Esposito and colleagues at Berkeley showed this with neuroimaging. The people who can hold longer strings of information have more dopamine available for release. So when you’ve been chronically depleting your dopamine reservoir through high-stimulation activities, your working memory atrophies. You feel dumber because, neurochemically, your prefrontal cortex is operating at reduced capacity.

The “three days” recommendation in this article maps onto clinical literature. Anna Lembke’s research at Stanford’s Addiction Medicine clinic shows dopamine system resets require approximately 30 days for severe cases, but meaningful restoration begins within 72 hours of removing the stimulus. That’s why day three of any detox feels qualitatively different. Your neurons are beginning to upregulate dopamine receptors.

The boredom piece is where most people fail. Your brain interprets boredom as a signal to seek stimulation. That discomfort you feel when you’re unstimulated? That’s withdrawal. The reaching for your phone is your brain trying to bring dopamine back above baseline. Sitting with it trains the system to tolerate lower stimulation and still function. This is called raising your distress tolerance threshold.

What the article calls “rehabilitate,” the neuroscience literature calls neuroplasticity. Your brain is continuously rewiring based on what you repeatedly do. Chronic scrolling strengthens attentional circuits optimized for novelty-seeking and rapid task-switching. Sustained reading strengthens circuits for linear focus and deep processing. You’re not permanently damaged. You’ve just trained your brain for the wrong environment.

Two protocols actually accelerate the restoration. First: non-sleep deep rest. NSDR scripts (free online, 10-20 minutes) increase dopamine in the basal ganglia by up to 60%. Second: brief cold exposure. One to three minutes in cold water spikes dopamine 250% above baseline and sustains it for 2-4 hours afterward. Both of these replenish the reservoir without creating the crash cycle.

The real work is what she described: tolerating the discomfort of being understimulated long enough for your system to recalibrate to normal dopamine dynamics. The girl who used to read voraciously is still in there. The neural circuits are dormant, not dead. Plasticity works in both directions. Start with 10 minutes of focused reading a day. Your prefrontal cortex will adapt. Give it six weeks and measure the difference.

[Ministry of Ayush @moayush]

The implementation of Dhyana establishes a baseline for focus calibration & mental clarity. By following a specific procedural sequence - maintaining a neutral spine & centering attention on the breath - cognitive stability is effectively enhanced. (1/2)

[Republic @republic]

An Unforgettable Moment for Kashmir | World-renowned humanitarian, spiritual leader Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar returned to Kashmir after 7 years, inspiring an unprecedented gathering of 20,000 youth taking a powerful oath to create a drug-free Kashmir.

Let's support this wave of change!

https://t.co/UR6Xu5JqvR

#Kashmir #DrugFreeKashmir #ArtOfLiving #Gurudev #SriSriRaviShankar

[@i_am_a_sadhak @i_am_a_sadhak]

If you are learning meditation and if you do not feel satisfied and refreshed after meditation, examine why is this happening. Ask yourself, "Have I practised continuously?" If yes, then why is this happening? Maybe you have not given full respect to your life force or have not honoured your technique. Respecting the technique given by the Guru is respecting the Guru. When you practice with this feeling and meditate, you will easily experience the depth of it as well.

~ @Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar😊

Source
https://t.co/NV3Hb8B86t

[Aastha D @aasthaol]

@P4preetu Using "hinglish" a bit too much

[Aastha D @aasthaol]

@P4preetu I blame Ayurved hospital internship for this. This has happened to me too lol

[Āḍi Śloka @AdiShloka]

The moment an ordinary person turns spiritual, she/he becomes extraordinary.🕉️

[ShishyaBOT 😇 @ShishyaBOT]

Keep immersing in knowledge, you don't have to apply it, it applies itself. Remind yourself of the knowledge. Focus on the knowledge. - #Gurudev @SriSri

[@i_am_a_sadhak @i_am_a_sadhak]

"Navratri - The Nine Nights of Newness" - #Gurudev @SriSri Ravi Shankar ji

The nine nights of Navratri are here again and they are very precious. They are enriched with subtle energy. During these days, the nine forms of Devi Shakti (female divinity) are worshipped. Sixty-four impulses of the Divine Mother govern the subtle creation and are responsible for restoring all earthly and spiritual benefits. These impulses are contained within everyone’s awakened consciousness. The nine nights of Navratri are celebrated to rekindle those divine impulses and to renew the inner depths of our lives.

Navratri purifies the individual consciousness and then the universal consciousness of creation. The Devi is not somebody holding a big ‘trishool’ (trident). She is a form of energy, a manifestation of the Divine itself. There are many stories on how the Divine Mother appeared to restore peace and order by slaying the asuras (demons). These asuras are symbolic of the negative forces that can overtake us anytime. Navratri is the celebration of the prana (spirit) which alone can destroy these asuras. When you are full of enthusiasm and energy, none of these asuras can be with you.

Navratri purifies the individual consciousness and then the universal consciousness of creation.

Nav also means new. These are nine new nights. As we take nine months in our mother’s womb, before we are born, we take these nine days to go back to our source. This period is to be spent in meditation, satsangs (music), silence and knowledge. Each day has special implications and yagnas and poojas (prayer ceremonies) are performed.

Normally during Navratri people do Upavaas (fasting). Actually, upavaas means ‘sitting close’- to the Self, the Master, the Divine. And when you are close to yourself, you are in so much bliss, that you forget to eat or drink. You do not have to fast to please God. Do it to purify your body and mind.

The diverse aspects of the Holy Spirit are invoked during these nine days and all the bad karmas and impressions are washed away. So be within yourself and pray that at the end of the nine-day Aradhna (worship and prayer), let there be freshness and newness in all of us.

The Nine Nights of Navaratri

Navaratri means nine nights and the new night. Creation happens in darkness, in the womb of the mother and underneath the soil. Nine months in the womb are like nine long nights where the spirit takes human form.

Night provides rejuvenation and rest. People come home from work at night and celebrate, rejoice, and pray. At night, the entire creation goes to sleep, including the Ashram night watchman (laughter!). The nine nights of Navaratri are celebrated to rekindle those divine impulses and to renew the inner depth of our lives.

[Aastha D @aasthaol]

Better late than never.

[CA Shraddha Dedhia @shraddha_dedhia]

#MumbaiMetro scenes at 11 pm in #Navratri 😂

[Aastha D @aasthaol]

हद पार difficult to show up everyday!