When the brain goes kaput

Nowadays, it is said and observed that childhood has shrunk. Fifteen years back, a 10-year-old thought differently as compared to a 10-year-old today. We often hear of earlier generations looking at the current lot and saying, “My God, I was nowhere as smart as the kids of today when I was their age”.

Watch any television music show that features kids. There was a time when one could recognise a child singing. One still distinctly remembers a Ranu Mukherjee singing ‘Nani teri morni ko mor le gayi’ in her adorable voice. But today’s kids sing like adults! The innocence seems to have vanished somewhere.

Is this good? Is this shortening a sign of natural progression? If you notice, everything in this world is shortening. Attention spans, days, understanding, patience, why even our dress sense and hairstyles! It has been said in the Hindu scriptures that in Kaliyug, everything will shorten, and how right that prediction is turning out to be!

Coming back to the question of childhood, it can be argued that this shortening of mental ages is leading to children getting smarter. Two students recently made a satellite that was launched into space by ISRO! We hear of young CEOs, child prodigies and what not. Children today are powerful, in a sense.

We know however, that every power creates an anti-power. Is there, therefore, a flipside to this development? Ancient wisdom says today’s kids know more than “what they are supposed to know at their age”. This can be interpreted from a scientific viewpoint.

We all know what happens when too much current surges through an electrical system. A short circuit occurs, which in technical terms, is defined as an abnormal low-resistance connection between two nodes of an electrical circuit that are meant to be at different voltages.

Our body is an electromagnetic device and has all the features and limitations that come with it being so. This includes the power to attract (like a magnet), the power to give off charge (“he is so charged up”) and also the power to have short circuits. In medical terms of course, this is well known. To borrow from a medical guide: “Our brain cells send signals as electrical impulses through the nervous system for every action. Any spark, voltage fluctuations, interruptions or flickering (abnormal brain signals or activity) can cause short circuit (i.e., twitch, spasm, seizure, convulsions, epilepsy complaints) in connections and communications”, it explains.

Simply put, this means an irrational behaviour, of something ‘snapping inside’. Now, you know why there are so many students committing suicides nowadays. It’s the result of a surge of energy into ill-prepared brain circuits that causes it to short-circuit. The medical guide, chillingly, adds: It can also fuse off the brain (cause death) when there is persistent spark or flickering (sustained twitching or seizure) and when care is not taken or given properly to control it”.

The operative word here is ‘control’. It depends on the individual to decide how much energy needs to surge through a circuit. He needs to play the role of the voltage stabiliser. Sadly however, over time it is this human voltage stabiliser that has started to malfunction in society.

There always is a solution to everything and there is one to this as well. You need to check what is the ‘voltage’ capacity of your child. This means understanding what is the capacity of your child to learn and absorb since each child is different and unique. If you find your child taking on too much and getting completely stressed about it, disburse the energy. You can do this by connecting him/her to the five elements – air, fire, water, earth and space. Translated, this means, giving him/her more space (space element); making sure the food and water intake is apt (fire and water elements); that he/she gets enough physical activity (earth element) and that he/she is exposed to nature (air element).

Energy imbalance occurs when these five elements go awry. All you need to get back to normal is to realign them in your and your child’s lives.