Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle is a podcast created by health psychologist and writer, Dr Kinjal Goyal. Each episode is a conversation with an expert in their field, as they dive deep into their journerys and experiences. The conversations are full of insight and a great way to hear, first hand, how the mind plays a pivotal role in almost everything that we do. The guests range from doctors, to writers, to those in entertainment and of course, those from mental health fields.
Detangle by Kinjal
Detangle with Pooja Makhija
Discover the secrets to a happier, healthier you as we explore the beautiful link between the meals we consume and the emotions we experience with renowned nutritionist and author Pooja Makhija. Our conversation opens up a world where your diet does more than satiate hunger—it's a catalyst for joy, stress relief, and even emotional healing. Pooja's book "Eat Delete" has shaped my personal journey toward a more mindful relationship with food, and together, we navigate the complexities of our dietary choices amidst the buzz of social media and societal pressures.
As you tune in, you'll find yourself questioning long-held beliefs about carbs too. Pooja advocates for 'intelligent nutrition', a balanced approach that honours the essential role of carbohydrates, dressed with fiber and protein, rather than casting them out. We also tackle the intriguing role supplements play in our daily lives, considering the modern challenge of nutrient-depleted soils. With a blend of Ayurvedic wisdom and the latest scientific research, this episode examines the skepticism surrounding supplements and the remarkable potential for diet to improve our health and even reverse conditions like Alzheimer's.
Join us as we construct an emotional resilience toolkit, a vital asset in today's fast-paced world. You'll get a peek into Pooja’s personal emotional first aid box, designed to comfort and uplift during life's inevitable ebbs and flows. We'll discuss the intricate dance between nature and nurture, reflecting on how stress, resilience, and inherited traits shape our lives. Pooja and I extend a heartfelt invitation to this nourishing exploration of the mind-body connection, certain to leave you with fresh insights and strategies to enrich your physical and emotional wellbeing.
#NutritionAndEmotions #PoojaMakhija #MindfulEating #EmotionalHealing #EatDelete #DietaryChoices #IntelligentNutrition #Carbohydrates #Supplements #AyurvedicWisdom #ScientificResearch #EmotionalResilience #HealthAndWellness #EmotionalWellbeing #ResilienceToolkit #StressManagement #MindBodyConnection #Podcast #DetangleByKinjal #HealthyLiving #NutritionalWisdom #PersonalGrowth #WellnessStrategies #NourishingExploration #PhysicalHealth #MentalHealth
Welcome to Detangle, where we untangle the complexities of life one conversation at a time. I am your host, dr Kinjal Goyal, a psychologist and a writer. We have with us today Pooja Makija, a nutritionist, author and a mother to do wonderful children. Nutritionists to stars like Deepika Padukone, karan Johar, ranbir Kapoor, shahid Kapoor, etc. Functional and lifestyle practitioner and a TEDx speaker, pooja Makija has transformed the bodies and the lives of tens of thousands of people. To date, she has had her own TV show on the Food Food Channel, her own radio show on Magic FM and has a regular column in the Times of India. Pooja's best-selling book, eat Delete, has changed the way I look at food and nutrition. As a psychologist, I am deeply intrigued by the way our moods affect our foods and vice-versa. Welcome to Detangle, pooja, and thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.
Speaker 2:The pleasure is all mine, Dr Kinjal.
Speaker 1:Well, let's get started. Pooja, there's so many things I want to know from you. There are so many questions I have in my mind personally. Let's just start and let's see where these questions take us. Done, let's go. So tell me, how did this field attract you? Were you always interested in food and nutrition as a child, or was it something that came your way in your adult years?
Speaker 2:So quite clearly. Now that I'm a mom, I like to say this more definitively. But my mom saw the nutritionist in me and she was like. It actually started very, very crudely over a dinner table conversation where, like every teenager, I was uncertain of what I need to do and my mom was like full day. You asked me questions of who told you milk has calcium or a banana has potassium, and who told you and of course back then we didn't have Google, so whatever mama said was the word. But I always questioned mama of how she knew things and she said these questions show that your interest lies there and that's about it. And then there was really no turning back. She navigated the course of who and how Pooja Makija came into being.
Speaker 1:So we owe her a very big note of gratitude for giving us a nutritionist of your caliber.
Speaker 2:Yes, very much. I know this may sound like I'm really trying to be cliche, but other than my mom, it was also my mom-in-law who actually fought to the nail with the rest of the family that I will be allowed to work. We come from a very conservative Cindy family and my father-in-law did not believe in women of the house actually needing to work because it wasn't done before. But my mom-in-law said I'm sorry, but this daughter of mine is very educated and I will not let her education go to waste. So she is going to go out and my first pay was a hundred rupees a day, I remember. And my father-in-law said I will triple it, Don't go, Wow. And my mom-in-law said I'm sorry, let her be paid that, but she's going to go. So, yes, I owe who I am very much to both my moms.
Speaker 1:More power to women like this in our lives, then, yes, yes, let's address the elephant in the room first Mental health and food. So, although all aspects of our lives impact our mental well-being, our food and nutrition have one of the largest and most long-lasting impact on our mood. So, pooja, how does this come into play when you practice?
Speaker 2:Food is related to mood, and mood is actually related to food is because we've actually given food so much more importance than its actual reason for being. Food for us is about just about everything. I don't know whether social media has done it or, over the years, ads have done it or over the years are socializing has done it, but everything today revolves around food. You want to connect with family it's over a lunch. You want to meet colleagues it's over drinks. You want to celebrate it's over food. You want to mourn it's with food. So everything has somehow been connected to food. I don't know where and how and through when that became such an important part, but sadly, all these connects are not is taking away the real highlight from actually what food is. And food is just fuel for our body, everything that needs to be given to our body with thought.
Speaker 2:But today we eat food for all other reasons and for all other beings, but the fact that we have to give a little bit of thought before what we're putting into our tummies. Food is more for taste, more to give company and more because it's there. Then, then, anything that this is what is going to be giving me the life, the mood, the hair, the skin, the bones, everything. Literally, you become what you eat. Every cell in your body has a turnaround period, right? So literally what you eat is who you become, including your liver and your skin and your hair and your nails and your memory. But who believes that food becomes that? For us, food is more about everything else. So either there's that much love for food or then, sadly, there's that much fear of food. So, where food is also love and joy, food is also calories and fat. So either, so that this love-hate relationship is where we've actually gone wrong when you are emotionally connecting over food.
Speaker 1:So tell me, coming to this love-hate relationship, do you believe that social media, let's say Instagram, which is flooded with information, misinformation, advice, recipes nowadays that are even outright threats about food? So is this helping or harming the audience?
Speaker 2:See, you know, what we must remember is that the environment in which we live has an invisible hand over our behavior. Okay, we may not, we may not really realize this, but in particular environments we behave particularly. For example, the minute I'm in a church or in a temple, I'm going to whisper, I'm not going to be yelling or screaming loudly. Or if I'm on a dark street where I'm walking and I'm alone, automatically I will have a way of becoming worry and guarded. Okay, so environment really plays an important role. But today our environment is like inundated with food all around.
Speaker 2:There is just so much information, but sadly, there's really no knowledge and we really don't know how to cut through this noise, because everyone wants to give us their export opinion. But how are they the export? Who made them the authority and why should we believe them? Our questions we have to first ask ourselves. But today, as humans, we just think that anything that is different, anything that I haven't heard before, anything that is new, this must work, because I haven't heard this before. So if I'm going to tell people that food and nutrition has to be back to basics but are simple, just exactly how our grandparents ate, they don't think that's worthy enough of knowledge to be having paid me the fees for a consult.
Speaker 1:Not exacting enough, not sensational enough.
Speaker 2:Because it wasn't anything different. But if I tell people, oh, wake up at 4 am and go to the Himalayas, pluck a purple leaf and eat it from your left palate and don't chew it from your right tooth and inhale it from your nose and don't If I give them different advice, it'll be like, yeah, now that was worthy of me paying her the bucks because I heard something different. So, sadly, just like we love variety in our dressing and in our styles or in our food, we also want variety in the information or knowledge that people are providing to us. Okay, so to say that you have to go back to basics? So it's very strange, but for most problems that my daughter would come to me, I will ask her three or four questions and she's like mama, you know, everything doesn't have to revolve around did I drink enough water, or did I poop today, or have I slept well, or did I eat my eggs today? She's like you know, mama, I'm telling you I have period cramps, like there are other reasons.
Speaker 2:But you know, if you go back to basics and clear out the roots of good nutrition, all these problems are signals that our body gives us.
Speaker 2:These are just beep, beep, beeps. You know we listen to the beeps of our phone. You know, even when I'm in deep conversation with you, if I get a particular alert, I will know whether that was a WhatsApp or an email or a message from my daughter, because we are so synced with our phones but we have forgotten the connection with our body and the beeps that our body gives us. So we are not listening to our body. Our body will give us signs of low water, low sleep, low fiber, but those are not the signs we listen to. But when this beep is ignored, then there's a blare and an alarm and then there's a chronic problem. And then we need a specialist, whether it's a gastro enthrologist or a diabetologist or a cardiologist or a nutritionist and then we pay her to listen to ourselves. So I just feel that that's where we have just got lost in this rat race of listening to everyone but ourselves.
Speaker 1:I think this is the most beautiful way somebody has simplified nutrition, even for me. I mean the way you have put it, it's not just visual, I can hear it, so it's like this oral sense that you've given me, that there are literally these small signs, you know the tiniest signs that our body is constantly giving us. I'm going to keep this one with me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, strangely, they say that. See, we are creatures that are stimulated by our sensory organs. Right, we have touch, smell, hearing, vision, okay, sound, but the most powerful of this sensory stimulation is our vision. Right, I read somewhere that we have about 11 million sensory receptors, of which approximately 10 million of them are dedicated to sight. Okay, and in today's world of constant social media, scrolling and over stimulation, yeah, imagine, it is said that literally 50% of the brain's resources are dedicated to vision. Or hum us, cook, burn, career, literally, because we are constantly looking, looking, looking.
Speaker 2:We are trying to, we're trying to, we are just over stimulating ourselves with it's literally bombardment from everywhere. Like open your WhatsApp, people are giving you information. Open your Instagram, People are trying to teach you something. Literally, my mum will send me a forward of a reel of someone saying about something about nutrition, and she'll be like mama beta, I think you should watch this. What I'm trying to tell you is that there is so much stimulation that it is now becoming, I feel like, we just need to close our eyes and see ourselves.
Speaker 2:You know, like, close your eyes and listen to your stomach, listen to your tongue and your taste and your body, and we will really get all the answers, because nobody in this world no doctor, no nutritionist, no dermatologist, no doctor in this world knows you better than you. But we have just devalued how much we know ourselves because we're not listening to ourselves. We are listening to everybody else. You told me use this cream. I'll try it. You told me eat this pista and peel it this way and soak it this way and cut it this way. I will listen to you, but what if it just doesn't suit me? I'm not listening to me.
Speaker 1:Lovely. I think this is very important. You know, tell me. You see a lot of things on social media. Like you said, your own nutritionist yourself. What is that one myth that drives you completely nuts? Something which is so obviously wrong and it keeps circulating and it keeps coming back.
Speaker 2:I think for all those who know me know that I'm an extremely pro-activator promoting carbs, and I just feel that carbs have been represented by such poor lawyers in the world that even to begin with, they lost the case before any trial. And till date, people ridicule carbs to a value of it spikes your insulin, it gives you diabetes, it makes you fat, it increases your fat deposition. Carbs are your energy givers. We all need energy. So I think the one thing that really annoys me about food and nutrition, or myths about it, is the fact that we have painted them as such targeted enemies that we are losing our sense of eating, losing the sense of how our plate should look. Carbs are not the enemy here, so most nutrition is about omissions. This is not good for you. This is not good for you. This is not good for you after 12 am. This is not good for you after 1 am. This is not good for you after midnight. This is not Not eliminate this, don't do this, don't eat this, eat this. Everything is about don't, don't, don't. What we have to realize is that no food is bad for you. I'm going to say that again. Absolutely no food is bad for you. It is how we cook this food. It is how much of the food we eat at one time, and it is with what I eat that food that can make it a good or a bad food. Now, carbs are not the enemy, but how I cook them, how much of it I eat at one time, one sitting, and with what I eat my carbs can make it good or bad for me.
Speaker 2:Dress up your carbs if you want to have a healthy relationship with them. Make them wear clothes. Naked carbs are the dangerous ones. A plain chutney sandwich, a plain bowl of noodles or pasta, or even a plain aloo ka paratha that is where carbs can spike your sugar levels, give you insulin surges, give you insulin resistance, increase your body fat deposition, increase your damages and tendencies towards diabetes or anything. But when the minute you dress up your carbs, make them wear clothes, then no carb is bad for you.
Speaker 2:Clothes for carbs are fiber and protein. Fiber comes from my vegetables and protein comes from my dals, pulses, legumes from my nuts and seeds from my chicken, fish, eggs if I'm non-vegetarian. So just dress up your carbs, but remember dressing happens in a proportion of one is to one is to one. I can't say for a bowl of pasta. I will eat two broccoli for all florets and three peas and call it clothes. Dress them up in equal proportion and then don't call any food bad. Carbs are not bad. Noodles is not bad. Yes, eat as much of it which is as less processed, because whatever man touches he only looks at profits in terms of money. So he may really strip off the nutrition, but otherwise carbs are not the enemy here. I always believe in intelligent nutrition versus omission or negative nutrition.
Speaker 1:This is fantastic. I mean, from this whole oral experience I just had, now I feel like I'm on stage. I'm having this whole theoretical experience, but I'm visually able to see my food doing things alone as against, you know, with company or with clothes on. It just makes so much more sense this way. So let me ask you the next big question, which is everywhere. I think everyone must have asked you this. I'm sure you get a lot of this online also. Supplements are something we all have a love it hate relationship with. Some doctors are saying it's a fad. Some say you must take what you need. Some people say just take a multivitamin. What is your take on supplements, and does everybody need something at some point? How do you determine this?
Speaker 2:We all need supplements. Firstly, simple, long, answer short. Okay, because sadly the soil doesn't have the nutrition that it had before. Okay, the vitamin A I got from one carrot in the 1950s. Today I need 99 such carrots, the same vitamin A. Now, this is not something. This is not something I have come up with. This is a study that has been published which has checked the vitamin A levels from the 1950 carrots versus today. So now tell me, where is it that I'm going to be able to get that kind of nutrition if I am not going to be able to supplement? Cultivable soil is deteriorating day by day, literally only about. It is now said that only 33% of the world's land on earth is now actually cultivable.
Speaker 2:So the idea here is we can't run away from supplements. Supplements are going to be provided. See, food is nutrition. If you're not going to give. Sorry, food is information. I'm going to say that again Food is information. And if my food doesn't have those key nutrients, how do I give my body the information? So supplements are and should be essential. Yes, supplements need to be clean.
Speaker 2:Sadly, there are a lot of supplements in the market that have a lot of fillers, a lot of magnesium, a lot of silicon, which is what you don't want in our supplements. And to that I will love to say that one of the best supplements that I have found after a lot of research are Indian supplements. So we don't really need to run away from, we don't really need to spend dollars and pounds and go all over the world and buy expensive neutrosupticals from all over the world. India today is really making some of the top line nutraceutical products, so we are fortunate enough to be able to use them. We are using conventional Ayurvedic knowledge along with extraction of the nutrients in the right way. They are not complicating the supplements with wrong fillers. So I'm very happy, very glad, that we have great nutritional supplements in India.
Speaker 2:And anyone who says that we don't need nutrition supplements and by anyone I mean doctors, because sadly they don't understand nutrition and they don't understand how much of an impact nutrition can have on health and absence of disease. As doctors they don't really study nutrition as much as they should be actually taught I'm told it's a one credit in their entire five years of basic MBBS so really they don't have the knowledge about the power of nutrition and vitamins, which is why they feel that vitamins are not essential. Of course this trend is changing. Many doctors today will tell you to take supplements, good quality supplements, and that's where we need us to go, because nutrition can really do magic.
Speaker 2:Soils are so deprived today of good quality nutrition that nutraceuticals can actually help us with so many problems, not just our immunity and hair and skin, but also depression and diabetes and blood pressure, because those micronutrients that my body requires sadly, maybe this is soils are so depleted that, as hard as even I may try as a nutritionist, I might not be giving my body. So I think that supplements are something that is going to keep this health in our hands, and not the doctors.
Speaker 1:You know, what I'm really enjoying about this conversation is that we have such black and white answers. I mean, I've had so many guests who are not willing to take a stand. You know, I enjoy it when somebody takes a stand and says, yes, do this, not that, because and there's a reason behind it. So I'm glad we're actually being able to talk about so many important things, not just children, it's not just adults, it's even geriatrics. I mean, when you talk about old age, can you tell me if you know, a lifetime of bad eating habits can be reversed? I see so many older patients who have lived life in the fast lane, you know, in their 40s and 50s, and they've worked till now, and now they've slowed down in their 70s and realized that they've deprived their bodies of proper nutrition throughout. But can they reverse this damage now, at this age?
Speaker 2:Yes, my love very much. They can very, very much they can. You know, as complicated as some people may think nutrition is, it can be really simplified and it can really help reverse a lot of problems within weeks, if done well. Within weeks we can see improvement in cognition, improvement in mortality, improvement in Expressions, improvement in blood parameters. Literally within weeks of good nutrition, because nutrition is actually that powerful, it can impact your life, literally. One bad meal can cause that much damage and one good meal can help you reverse that much better or faster.
Speaker 2:You know statistic rates of Alzheimer's? I'm not. I'm not. I don't know if I'm quoting it right, but I think the last I had read was almost 80% American Americans over the age of 60 or 80 get Alzheimer's. Now, tell me, is that the same same rate of statistics we hear in India? Thankfully not, actually. Not why. Why? Because our eating habits culturally have been so good, especially for our population of 60 and 80 plus. Today they haven't. They didn't fall into the rat race of commercially processed foods or before the Green Revolution attacked us and we switched to convenience foods versus real food, cooking at home versus ordering in. So why are those statistics not so bad here? It's just such a simple thing to ponder on.
Speaker 2:Alzheimer's is called type 3 diabetes, right? Because it affects our brains in such a gut and brain access. It's so correlated that bad eating habits is the reason for such high rates of Alzheimer's in the West versus not in India. Because everything starts from our gut. 90% of our serotonin is made in our gut. 50% of our dopamine is made in our gut. Give the body the right food and then see how your body responds to emotional, mental and physical well-being.
Speaker 2:So can few weeks of good nutrition reverse years of bad eating habits? Yes, but you do it with that conviction, you do it with that consistency. See, most people think they want instant results. The world today is all about the world you will get gratification. Correct. I have pain, I'll take a painkiller and in 20 minutes my pain is gone. Now, if I tell someone you have a pain, take magnesium, hydrate up your protein, it's going to take me at least two, at least two, three, four days to be able to give you some relief.
Speaker 2:But people don't want that, people don't believe in that. People don't want to go slow. They want like I took a pill and I feel no, not ill. Right, I like this. I like this.
Speaker 2:Okay, but if you give nutrition that much strength and patience and consistency, you can reverse every disease with good food and nutrition. Every disease. Some take little longer than others. Some take weeks and months and years. Some, for example, burps, gas, constipation, the minor ones can happen when days, the major ones see, you didn't get diabetes because you ate one bad meal, right, right, it was years of bad eating habits that led to diabetes. I say, if you did bad eating habits for 20 years and you got a disease, at least give nutrition 20 weeks to see whether you can reverse it. But people don't have the patience. They want to see immediate results. I am going for a wedding, I want to lose the weight, I want to go to Mata, I want to be able to walk. So I need instant pain relief. That doesn't happen with nutrition. But trust me when I say this nutrition is magic. We just have to believe in that magic.
Speaker 1:How lovely Pooja. I see a lot of this, even in teenagers. Like we spoke about old age right now, if you see, in young teens, young adults, there is body dysmorphia, there are eating disorders like anorexia bulimia. Do these children come to you and do you think training all parents of teenagers, or just blanket training all teenagers in nutrition, will help us somewhere, safeguard these kids from facing these problems in the future?
Speaker 2:Of course it will. There's no other way to beat any other social society disorders other than education, and that's actually quite the reason why I even wrote my last book, which is called End for Nourish. It was the first of its kind book in India which was written. It was a children's read on nutrition. It's not a parental read like Eat Deli Junior, but it's a children's read on nutrition, on how we can teach our children the basics of nutrition from day one, because today's children are all about DIY. They can figure everything out themselves and mama's actually known nothing and they know more. So that's why End for Nourish was the tool, where it is a 10 plus read, where all parents can give it to their children to say, okay, what happens when you eat too much sugar? What happens when you don't drink enough water? What happens when you cut back on sleep or have an unclean sleep cycle, so that children can read themselves and figure it out.
Speaker 2:Because today's children are really smart. If they have figured out the right and the wrong, they will fix what they want to fix. They are really intelligent. Today's children are far more intelligent than we were when we were little children. We never thought like they think and we never could act the way they think.
Speaker 2:So there's a lot that we can do, but I also feel that there is a lot that puts the pressure on these children today that we didn't have Are every gathering or party or graduation ceremony, or everything was not posted all over the world on different pages for people to judge, gauge, comment on. So I just feel that the social pressure that they face to look good all the time, to look good even to go to school, like they have to look perfect even while going to school. I don't even remember. I remember going to school All from school Like, literally, this girl just rolled down from her bed, but I don't think I would say that about my girls. I think they look impeccable any time of the day.
Speaker 2:Now, where does that come from? That comes from a lot of social pressure of A we must look good, but if we use that tool in itself instead of it being something that pulls us down, if social media is giving them that pressure, I'm using social media to spread the same word, to say that, hey, food is not something you need to be feared about, but, if you like, for example, that's the way I taught my children that a pizza is not unhealthy and a burger is not unhealthy, so as long as you know how to dress up your carbs. So they went and taught that to all their friends and that's how we spread the word between them, because they listen to their peers and then they listen to influencers.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. You got that one right. I mean, I think it's so important for us to choose who influences us that word by itself is so weighted that we just take it so lightly that anybody is allowed to influence you now.
Speaker 2:You know, I just saw a post recently that said that the RBI is going to regulate financial influencers. Okay, you have to have a license to give financial advice. I was like Bravo, take one step and then maybe someone else will wake up and say, okay, you have to have some knowledge or a certificate or a degree to give nutritional advice.
Speaker 1:I'm sure. I'm sure that's the thing. I hope that will be a good day for all of us. Let me ask you something very personal now, pooja. We all know what's a physical first aid box, right, something we keep at home. It has, you know, our band-aids and painkillers and little things that we need for minor cuts and bruises. But supposing you were to keep an emotional first aid box in your house For those days when you know emotions haven't been all right and you're feeling a little run down, something which you open and will make you happy personally, what would you put in your box?
Speaker 2:It's very strange you ask me this, but I give this example a lot to my clients as well. It's not possible that life's not going to have highs and lows. It's not possible that you may not have a bad day or a bad moment or a bad month. Okay, life is such, and today we have to learn how to be. So I'm going to give you guys one more thing that I learned from someone really special who said that life doesn't give us stress.
Speaker 2:Life gives us pressure. Okay, pressure, my maid didn't come, I don't have enough money, I don't have love, or I don't have a job or I don't have children. Life gives us pressure, okay, but we tend to think of pressure as stress. I don't have enough money is not the stress, it's pressure. Pressure is equal. Stress is equal to pressure over resilience. Okay, resilience.
Speaker 2:Resilience comes from your body. It comes from your emotional strength, your mental strength, your physical strength and how you're giving your body good food, good water, good nutrition, good sleep, good proteins. Once your resilience is stronger, that pushes up the stress and thus reduces the stress. So if we understand that equation and give our body the resilience to fight back what life is throwing at us, a stress becomes less. I know this was not the answer to your toolbox, but I just wanted to put this somewhere. We can fight that pressure with good resilience.
Speaker 2:But yes, what I would put in my emotional toolbox is I always say that how we sleep is something, that how we are going to wake up next day in the morning you sleep sad or upset or worked up.
Speaker 2:Our subconscious mind in those six, seven, eight hours is only churning out and going into those negative thoughts and moods. So one of the best things that I have found I don't know whether I read this somewhere or someone told me, but I have clung on to five very happy moments in my life, five moments where literally life is perfect. And every time I have one of those not so happy days when I put myself to sleep, I will pick one of those five happy moments and relive it like I really am in it what I'm wearing, what were the sounds around me, what was who saying what? The color of the sky, the color of my dress, the emotion I was feeling then the picture I took, then the laughter I heard, then the capture that happened in my memory. I go back to it in detail and it just puts me in that calm, happy, happy zone where I fall into a happy sleep, hoping to wake up happy the next day morning.
Speaker 1:That's the most beautifully sensorial metaphysical box that I have come across, so I'm going to stay with that one. As we come to a close of this podcast, pooja, I leave the floor open to you. Is there any question that you would like to ask me as a psychologist?
Speaker 2:Yes, I definitely would. I have lots actually, but I'm allowed once when I'm asking you one. They say that we are born with a certain attitude frame. I do believe genetics, a lot in genetics. And they say, oh, you're just like your dad and your uncle is just like your mom. Tell me how much of I believe that I could be. I could have the patience of my mom but the anger of my dad, say, for example but can how much of psychology and training and learning change the inherent value in a person or the inherent trait that I was born with? Can it or can't it?
Speaker 1:So multi-layered question with multi-layered answers. One of the first things that you are exploring here is the nature-nurture theory. What we get from nature, that is genetics, and what we get from nurture, that is from our upbringing and our societal influences. So definitely nurture can change what nature has given us In some things. For example, if you are a little less resilient because one of your parents is impatient or impulsive, you can learn to build this resilience. You can learn to be a little more patient. However, there are some disorders, including basic illnesses, generalized anxiety, mental anxiety, a tendency towards depression which can be very strongly genetic. So if either parent has a diagnosis of a mental health disorder, your chances are that you will be susceptible to it, and awareness is important so that at the first science you can seek professional help.
Speaker 1:So we are a combination of this nature and nurture. There is so much that we get genetically and so much that we learn as we grow. There are very interesting studies to prove both sides equally. I mean there are twin studies that have been done to show that parenting has no effect and whatever you're born with is what you're going to live with. And then there are beautiful studies saying that children brought up in different environments will have different patterns of growth and patterns of development. So the data is still coming in and I think it's beautiful to just watch our children and see how much of us we see in them and then realize that, okay, they have this, but they also are overcoming it. I'm sure you see it all the time too.
Speaker 2:Yes, I do, I do. It's just that I have read about this nurture in nature Theory, actually read a whole book on it, a fiction book, not a psychologist book, a fiction book on it, and it just kept me thinking about can I change the inherent trait of most often? It's a negative trait, right? Let's just say it's just simple impatience. It's just so inherent because maybe by nature no, by nature I got it, and by nurture also I saw it.
Speaker 1:Correct, so it has been reinforced.
Speaker 2:I was just getting to that so we see it.
Speaker 1:We see it working for our previous generation, and so we just kind of reinforce it and say, okay, this works, so I'm going to keep it. But this has been so amazing. Pooja, I did not expect this conversation to be so much fun. I mean, I have I had so many questions on nutrition, but I did not expect it to be so sensorial. It was a treat. I mean, I'm going back with sounds and with feelings and with visuals, and even your mental first aid box was just such a delight. So thank you for sharing all this with our listeners, for sharing it with me personally and for taking the time out to be on Detangle. We wish you all the very best with all the ventures that you have in the future and, once again, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Thank you, kindra, the pleasure was all mine.
