Many of us work too much, and it’s hard to find the time for the after-hours activities we enjoy. Is it possible to balance the teeter totter of work and life? Maybe not, but here are nine tips to help you try: By Lindsay Olson | U.S.News & World Report LP

No: 1 Be 100 percent where you are: It’s easy to keep thinking about that project you’re working on long after you’ve left the office. And we’re all guilty of sneaking out our phones to check work email during dinner. But by doing so, we let work take up more space than it should in our lives. Make an effort to leave work in the office, physically and mentally. Decide when you are shutting off and then actually do it.

No: 2 Be more organized at work. One major reason many of us bring work home is because we constantly close out the day in the middle of a project, which makes it difficult to mentally leave it behind. Set up tasks on your calendar to finish projects or get to a stopping point each day, and prioritize what’s most important. That way, you leave the workday feeling complete and ready to relax.

No: 3 Find hobbies: Many people simply don’t know what to do with free time. If you haven’t had hobbies since high school, it’s time to find some. Explore sports, crafts, outdoor activities, or reading as a way to unwind. Take a class or attend a seminar about a topic that interests you. You might even learn something new.

No: 4 Plan your week: Not allotting time to handle chores and cook can make for a rushed work week. Cook a batch of food for your lunches on Sunday, and designate a half-hour each day to work on chores. That way you’re not overwhelmed with housework on the weekend, which frees you up for more leisurely pursuits.

No: 5 Enjoy your family When you’re focused on work, it’s easy to grow distant from your family. Small efforts—such as eating dinner as a family during the week—make a big difference.

No: 6 Learn to say no: If you’re feeling like you’ve over-committed to coaching soccer, singing in the choir, and volunteering at the library, then back off of a few things. Life is too short to commit to meaningless extracurricular activities that you’d rather avoid. Assess your activities and if anything starts to feel like a chore, decline politely.

No: 7 Institute a digital free zone: It can be hard to turn off the computer, tablet, and smartphone, but doing so will help you clear your head and connect with others. Designate one room or small space in your home where you can’t update your Facebook status, answer a work email, watch a YouTube video, or tune into the nightly news.

No: 8 Exercise: Keeping your body fit and healthy is key to being happy in work and at play. Find exercise that you enjoy, and fit it into your routine. Consider finding activities you can do with your family, such as taking a walk together. While fitting the time into your schedule may seem difficult, you’ll find yourself with more energy to be productive at work and home with a regular exercise routine.

No: 9 Be selective with your errands: Sometimes we can spend all of our free time running errands or doing chores. Perhaps you can hire a cleaner to come every few weeks to do the deep house cleaning or hire the kid down the street to mow the lawn. You can order almost anything online these days rather than spending your free time picking everything up in person. Even on a tight budget, you may find outsourcing some of these tasks worth the time you’ll have for yourself. Maintaining a balance between work and life takes effort. It’s a conscious choice you need to make. (Agencies)

It is a medical procedure that is fast opening a world of hope for women in India pregnant with identical twins.

For foetuses sharing blood vessels and struggling for nutrition in the same sac, a surgical in-womb separation through laser helps doctors save twin lives from abortion — earlier the only suggested solution to this rare complication.

In India for over two years, laser ablation is gaining ground to save twin foetuses from twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome (TTTS), which affects over 15 per cent of identical twin pregnancies.

“This rare condition happens in case of identical twin pregnancies when the foetuses are placed in a single sac — making them struggle for food in a common kitchen. So while one baby gets more blood supply and nutrients, the other one becomes too weak,” Anita Kaul, senior consultant at Apollo Centre for Fetal Medicine, said. “TTTS can be identified after 16-17 weeks of pregnancy. If it is confirmed, we decide on a laser procedure where we separate them inside the abdomen only,” she said.

While two babies’ blood vessels remain connected, they share a common placenta or essential food supplier. During the course, one baby (called the recipient) receives more blood flow, while the other (donor baby) gets too little supply of blood. Meanwhile, as the recipient twin becomes overloaded with blood, the strain caused on the baby’s heart to pump more blood could lead to heart failure. The complications of TTTS could be such that abortion is the most suggested option to couples.

However, the introduction of laser ablation in India last year has brought a new lease of life.

“Through a foetoscope and laser rods, we disconnect blood vessels joining the foetuses to separate them. If done appropriately, the technique gives 80 per cent chances that the couple will walk home with both the babies,” Chander Lulla, consultant and foetal medicine specialist at Jaslok Hospital in Mumbai, said.

Post-treatment, the heart of the recipient baby returns to normalcy, while the donor or malnourished baby begins gaining nutrients.

In the complicated procedure, a slender foetoscope is pushed into the womb to transmit images. Through the foetoscope, a laser fibre is inserted to burn the shared blood vessels, separating the babies for equal spacing. The surgery costs over Rs 100,000.

“Foetal surgery has been in practice in the West for over 20 years. In India, there are few experts and centres of excellence who can take this to people,” said Lulla, who conducted the first such surgery in Mumbai with a team of doctors in January 2011.

The surgery has spelt hope for many couples.

Like south Mumbai’s Aseem and Prateek Sharma, now the proud parents of twin baby girls.

Aseem was five months pregnant when she was told one of the twins was way too under-developed with chances of miscarriage, leaving termination as the only solution. “That was a heartbreaking moment when my wife was told post an ultrasound scan about the babies... We didn’t want to lose them so we consulted over 10 doctors... Eight of them suggested abortion,” Prateek Sharma (35) said.

The family got to know of laser surgery through a chain of friends and doctors. The surgery was finally conducted at a foetal medicine centre in the national capital in October last year after which routine scans were conducted through a coordination of doctors in Delhi and Mumbai.

“The doctors assured us, answered our apprehensions and gave us a real picture. But the final decision to undergo this procedure in Delhi rested with us,” he said.

Some of the challenges doctors face post-surgery are pre-term labour, preventing infections and maintaining health of the twins.

With just 10-odd such centres across the globe, the technique is still gaining ground in the country, experts say.

“There is immense training needed, state-of-the-art infrastructure and high-end equipments to conduct laser ablation. It is a learning curve and expertise will take its scope ahead,” Kaul said.

Interestingly, mushrooming IVF (in vitro fertilisation) clinics have added to the occurrence of TTTS among pregnant women.

“IVF increases the chances of identical twins who could suffer from TTTS,” she said.

Madhulika Sonkar

The effects of suggestion are wider and often more surprising than many people might otherwise think, say researchers.

Psychological scientists Maryanne Garry and Robert Michael of Victoria University of Wellington, along with Irving Kirsch of Harvard Medical School and Plymouth University, delve into the phenomenon of suggestion, exploring the intriguing relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. Across many studies, research has shown that deliberate suggestion can influence how people perform on learning and memory tasks, which products they prefer, and how they respond to supplements and medicines, which accounts for the well-known placebo effect. But what can explain the powerful and pervasive effect that suggestion has in our lives? The answer lies in our ‘response expectancies,’ or the ways in which we anticipate our responses in various situations.

These expectancies set us up for automatic responses that actively influence how we get to the outcome we expect. Once we anticipate a specific outcome will occur, our subsequent thoughts and behaviors will actually help to bring that outcome to fruition.

So, if a normally shy person expects that a glass of wine or two will help him loosen up at a cocktail party, he will probably feel less inhibited, approach more people, and get involved in more conversations over the course of the party. Even though he may give credit to the wine, it is clear that his expectations of how the wine would make him feel played a major role. But it’s not just deliberate suggestion that influences our thoughts and behaviors - suggestions that are not deliberate can have the very same effects.

As the authors point out, “simply observing people or otherwise making them feel special can be suggestive,” a phenomenon termed the Hawthorne effect.

As a result, people might work harder, or stick to a task for longer. And this case is more worrying, said Garry, “because although we might then give credit to some new drug or treatment, we don’t realize that we are the ones who are actually wielding the influence.”

It is for precisely this reason that the issue of unintentional suggestion has important implications for academic researchers. “In the scientific community, we need to be aware of - and control for - the suggestions we communicate to subjects,” stated Garry.

The researchers noted that some recent failures to replicate previous research findings may ultimately be explained by such unintentional suggestion. And the unintended effects of suggestion aren’t just restricted to the laboratory - they cut across many real world domains, including the fields of medicine, education, and criminal justice. For example, converging evidence on eyewitness identification procedures demonstrates that the rate of false identifications is significantly higher when lineups are conducted by people who know who the suspect is than when the lineups are conducted by people who don’t.

While research has provided clear evidence for the phenomenon of suggestion, there is still much more to learn about the underlying relationship between suggestion, cognition, and behavior. As the authors point out, researchers still don’t know where the boundaries and limitations of these effects lie. (Agencies)