Why Do Babies Cry So Much?, Global : Today Indya

Why Do Babies Cry So Much?

Global

wonderopolis

Have You Ever Wondered...

-- Why do babies cry so much?

-- How do babies communicate?

-- What is colic?

You're flying down the hill in front of your house on your brand-new skateboard. Everything is going fine until you try to negotiate that curve at the bottom of the hill. Before you know it…bam! You've lost your balance and hit the ground as your skateboard goes sailing off into the distance.

The pain of your scraped knee creates an agonizing, fiery feeling throughout your leg. Despite your best efforts to stop them, the tears begin to flow. Your best friend, who was trailing behind you, skates up and tries to distract you by chiding, “What's the matter, you big crybaby?"

The teasing works and you're soon back up and boarding, after you wash your skinned knee and apply a bandage to it. Later that day, you think back about the aftermath of your accident and your best friend's teasing. Were you really being a crybaby?

Not at all! Injuries hurt, and tears in such situations are natural. Crybaby, on the other hand, brings to mind the seemingly-endless crying of young infants. You begin to WONDER…why do babies cry so much anyway?

It's simply a fact of life. Babies cry. Babies cry a lot. They all do it. Some babies cry more than others, but they all cry as soon as they're born, and it can seem like many don't stop until a couple of years later!

A baby's cry is the primary means of communication from the moment of birth. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a baby? Of course not! They can't talk and won't learn to speak for quite a while.

Despite their inability to speak, babies still have needs. They need food. They need sleep. They need affection and attention. They feel pain. They can experience fear. When needs arise and feelings occur, how are babies supposed to communicate them to you? They cry!

New parents know that it can be tricky to interpret a baby's cries at first. Over time, though, parents learn that babies cry in different ways at different times. Experienced parents soon learn to distinguish between an “I'm hungry" cry and an “I need my diaper changed" cry.

Babies may also cry for many other reasons. They might be overly tired. Sometimes they just want to be cuddled. At other times, they may feel pain from an upset stomach or need to burp. Or they could simply be trying to convey another message entirely, such as “I'm too hot in this blanket" or “I'm bored."

When babies cry excessively, they may have a condition known as colic. Doctors don't know for sure what causes colic, but they define the condition as intense, inconsolable crying for more than three hours a day, three days a week, for more than three weeks in an otherwise healthy baby.

Colic might start up as soon as just a few weeks after birth. Although treatments for colic aren't always very effective, the condition tends to improve significantly within three months or so. Those months can be very difficult for parents, though. Colicky babies are hard to comfort. A visit to the doctor can assure parents that the baby is healthy, and a doctor can also recommend measures to help parents provide as much comfort as possible to their crying infants.

Article Original Source : https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-do-babies-cry-so-much

Office workers in these economies clock up the most extra hours

Global

weforum

Most people will have stayed late at work to finish urgent tasks or might even have pulled an all-nighter to hit a really tight deadline. When those occasions are the exception rather than the norm, there’s little lasting harm done by working extra, unpaid hours. But in some organizations, there is an expectation that everyone will work beyond their contracted hours as a matter of course.

This can lead to a culture where people who leave on time are regarded as disloyal or showing a lack of commitment. Even if this attitude doesn’t exist among senior managers, there may be one or two individuals who make a point of staying later than everyone else in a public display of dedication. But presenteeism, as it is sometimes called, can be damaging to people’s health, productivity and wellbeing.

A global research project undertaken by the insurance services group, Maxis GBN, found that workers in the UAE spend more time at work beyond their contracted hours than anywhere else in the world.

Each month, a typical worker in the UAE is likely to clock up an extra 24 hours at work and 71% of them feel their workplace suffers from presenteeism. The United States and Hong Kong come second, with 23.2 additional hours worked per month. French workers, despite their famous workplace protections and employee rights, aren’t far behind with 22.4 extra hours per month.

Regardless of which country they were in, respondents to the survey said culture was important when considering a new job – 82% said they consider it important and 58% rate culture as very important.

Last year, research from the UK’s Chartered Institute of Personnel Management found that 86% of UK workers had observed presenteeism in their organization over the preceding 12 months, up from 72% in 2016. In 2010 that figure had been just 26%. The same research found 55% of respondents had reported an increase in anxiety, depression and other common mental health conditions, up from 41% in 2016. As well as blighting lives, depression and anxiety combined cost the global economy $1 trillion every year in lost productivity.

The challenge for organizations with a culture of presenteeism is the impact it can have on employee welfare. As has been widely reported, Japan’s problem with long working hours has led to an epidemic of sleep deprivation leading, in the most extreme cases, to death.

While working an hour or so extra every day isn’t likely to bring on karoshi (death from lack of sleep), the cumulative effects can still be extremely harmful. From denying people opportunities for a healthy work/life balance and fostering a culture of only the strong survive, the net effect can be to trigger a range of stress-related problems. Those, in turn, can soon metastasize into more serious mental health problems such as depression or anxiety.

Productivity also suffers from such workplace cultures. For although there are obvious gains when people stay long enough to finish their tasks, over time, tired and disaffected staff start to under-perform. Those who suffer longer-term depression-related illnesses are likely to need time off work, too. Ultimately people will be more inclined to leave if they feel things are unlikely to improve, triggering the cost of hiring and training new staff.

Interestingly, countries with shorter working hours often register higher productivity. At the World Economic Forum’s Annual Meeting in Davos, organizational psychologist and Wharton professor Adam Grant and economist and historian Rutger Bregman argued that reducing working hours could have a range of benefits for workers and employers.

Creating workplaces that support wellbeing could call for significant changes to some organizational cultures.

Last year, LinkedIn surveyed 5,000 hiring professionals and found one of the major trends in recruiting strategies is offering flexible working arrangements. Since 2016, LinkedIn has seen a 78% increase in job ads that offer flexible working.

Article Original Source : https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/02/office-workers-in-these-countries-cl...