7 Successful Ways to Become a Smarter Person
Posted on April 20, 2008
Filed Under Personal Development
Boosting your mental faculties doesn’t have to mean studying hard or becoming a reclusive book worm. There are lots of tips, techniques and habits, as well as changes to your lifestyle, diet and behavior that can help you flex your grey matter.
Here are 7 ways that will help you become a smarter person:
1. Brain exercises. Exercise of the brain is as important as exercise of the muscles. The
human brain is able to continually adapt and rewire itself, even at an old age, it can grow new neurons. Severe mental decline is usually caused by diseases, whereas most age-related losses in memory or motor skills simply result from inactivity and a lack of mental exercise and stimulation. In other words, use it or lose it. And this is your chance to use it, in this brain exercise.
2. Good Brain Foods. The brain is an organ metabolically active, making it a very hungry, and precisely at this eater. It’s becoming pretty clear in research labs around the country that the right food, or the natural neurochemicals that they contain, can enhance mental capabilities—help you concentrate, tune sensor motor skills, keep you motivated, magnify memory, speed reaction times, defuse stress, perhaps even prevent brain aging.
3. Always learn something new. Make a conscious effort to keep your brain active and functioning at optimum levels. Learn a new vocabulary word or a new piece of information as often as you can. It will keep you sharp and alert. Read more
How to Stop Worrying in Your Life
Posted on April 7, 2008
Filed Under Psychology, Personal Development
<Anxiety and worry disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the U.S., affecting over 19 million people.>
Worrying is a permanent preoccupation with past or future bad events. Worry can create emotional stress and negative feelings.
There are many different types of worries. They include pessimistic thoughts about what might happen in the future, about what is happening in the present, and about what was happened already in the past.
Helping yourself stop worrying involves a combination of challenging the worrisome thoughts and calming yourself physically and emotionally.
Important steps to reduce your worries:
- Confronting your fears
At bottom, there is frequently a fear of the unknown, and trying to define that fear can help you to overcome it. By facing whatever it is, you may find you know what to do about the situation. You can begin to think about how you might deal with it, what you can do, and who might help you, if necessary.
- Writing a list
Make a list of what is troubling you. Use statements, rather than questions. Instead of, ‘What will happen if I don’t get there on time?’ say, ‘I am worried that I won’t get there on time’. This focuses on precisely what the fear is.
Another constructive way to put your fears into perspective is to try writing down the reasons why something bad might not happen. This may help you to see more realistically which situations are worthy of worry and which are not.
- Take action now.
Any action towards a goal tends to reduce worry. Thinking too much about your goals or plans, especially if you dwell on the hurdles, will cause you worry and stress. Of course you should plan well, but when planning drifts towards worrying; it is time to start doing something positive. Read more
Learning to Listen to Your Body
Posted on January 11, 2008
Filed Under Life, Health
“Each patient carries his own doctor inside him. They come to us not knowing that truth. We are at our best when we give the doctor who resides within each patient a chance to go to work.”
- Albert Schweitzer, M.D.
One of the most important ways for you to become a healthy person is to learn to listen
closely to what your body tells you, to recognize what it needs and desires in order to feel fit and comfortable. When you listen long and hard enough to your body, you will begin to differentiate sensations and feelings.
Can you feel any tension in your neck? Are your knees locked or at ease? Can you feel all 10 toes on the ground? Is your breath long and smooth or short and fast?
Reality is, most of us are focused on our external environment most of the time. We use our minds so much to accomplish and discriminate that we often lose awareness of the body our mind inhabits. Some of us even seem to have “disinherited” our bodies for various reasons, such as harsh judgments about our physical condition, aches and pains, chronic disease, abuse or simple neglect.
Regardless of your particular circumstances, you know you inhabit a body. However, can you feel your body right now? Can you compassionately observe your own body without judgment, simply being aware and present to what is going on right now? Here are a few tips on how to get started.You can begin right now by observing your body by feeling your breath coming in through your nose and flowing down into your lungs. Allow your awareness to stay focused in your chest area, appreciating your capacity to breathe without even thinking about it. Your mind may wander off. If it does, simply bring it back to feeling the breath with patience and no harsh judgment about yourself. Read more
Stop Being A Workaholic - Easy Lessons
Posted on December 17, 2007
Filed Under Life, Personal Development
A workaholic. This is what you have become. The only time you don’t think of work is during the three or four hours a day that you spend sleeping. You devote 16 hours of your day each day to working furiously: making money, reaching goals, working on giving your families the best, planning and mobilizing yourself for success.
Here are a few tips to help you, the workaholic, re-focus and get the best out of life :
- - STRICTLY FAMILY ON WEEKENDS! Resolve to make Saturdays and Sundays
strictly for family time. And stick to this! Mondays until Fridays you make an excuse not to relax and spend time with your family because it’s work time, why not make a similar excuse for Saturdays and Sundays? “I can’t work today because I’m spending time with my family.”
- - WORK TO LIVE! Always keep in mind that you work so you can live and have a comfortable life. Always remember that you don’t live to work. Working is just one of the many useful and fruitful activities you do that enables you to live a good life and give your family (or any of your dependents) their needs. Don’t make work your life.
- - SAY “NO” if you are over-committed or before you get in that position if possible.
- - HAVE A MOTIVATION REFUEL. Physical fatigue is not the only threat to your energy. Emotional fatigue in the form of rejections, disappointments or making mistakes can all dampen your motivation. Having a motivation refuel means having a day, hour or even a few minutes where you go over your goals, listen to motivational tapes, meditate or do whatever will recharge your drive. Read more
Negotiation Tips: How to Be a Winner
Posted on December 3, 2007
Filed Under Career, Psychology, Personal Development
“Negotiation is an art. Treat it like one.” - Donald Trump
We negotiate all the time.
Each day we face some opportunity for negotiation. Let’s face it, negotiation is a part of our every day life and dare I say that almost everything is negotiable? So being able to acquire powerful negotiation skills so you can negotiate effectively and successfully can make a big difference in your outcomes.
Negotiation Tips and Goals:
- Active Listening - If in person, use body language to demonstrate your
attentiveness. Make eye contact, respond to statements with visible recognition, and do not allow yourself to be distracted by other activities or people. In not in person, be direct in questions and patient when receiving responses. Use “Active Listening Techniques” to get the most out of the communication. Listen for the Values implied as well as the ones stated.- Park your emotions outside from where the negotiations take place. It is critically important to keep calm, focused, patient, professional and friendly at all times, including those times when the other person loses his or her cool.
- Work from goals, not positions! The most important thing to remember is to work from common goals, not positions. When parties negotiate based on positions, any compromise feels like loss because someone loses ground on their specific position (i.e. lowering price). If you can shift the emphasis to what each party really wants rather than what their stance is, it allows room for flexibility to occur without creating a winner/loser atmosphere, hopefully allowing the difficult negotiator to back down without losing face.
Love Our Earth: 15 Great Tips to Stop Global Warming at Home, Office and on the Road
Posted on November 20, 2007
Filed Under Green corner, Family
Global warming is the next big impact that will bring about a change in the weather patterns. By definition, Global Warming is the increase in average temperature that gradually warms the Earth’s atmosphere. It is a phenomenon, which has been on the rise but in the last century, the increase in the levels have been alarming.
Global warming is a dramatically urgent and serious problem.
The good news is we don’t have to wait for technical solutions to reduce the impact of these big offenders. We have the technology and ingenuity to reduce the threat of global warming today. We just have to start using them. Here are 25 simple ways to do your part to start making a difference now.
1. Use water efficiently
Saving water around the home is simple. Municipal water systems require a lot of energy to purify and distribute water to households, and saving water, especially hot water, can lower greenhouse gas emissions. Look for products with EPA’s WaterSense label; these products save water and perform as well or better than their less efficient counterparts. There are also simple actions you can take to save water: Be smart when irrigating your lawn or landscape; only water when needed and do it during the coolest part of the day, early morning is best. Turn the water off while shaving or brushing teeth. Do not use your toilet as a waste basket - water is wasted with each flush. And did you know a leaky toilet can waste 200 gallons of water per day? Repair all toilet and faucet leaks right away.
2. Change Five Lights
Replace your five most frequently used lights or the bulbs in them with ones that have earned the Energy Star and you’ll use less energy, which means less pollution from power plants. Your household will also be saving about 700 pounds of carbon dioxide a year and save $90 a year in energy costs (If every household in the country did it — we would save a trillion pounds of greenhouse gases.) Take the “Change a Light Pledge” and change at least one light in your home.
3. Use Less Heat and Air Conditioning
Adding insulation to your walls and attic, and installing weather stripping or caulking around doors and windows can lower your heating costs more than 25 percent, by reducing the amount of energy you need to heat and cool your home. Turn down the heat while you’re sleeping at night or away during the day, and keep temperatures moderate at all times. Setting your thermostat just 2 degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save about 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide each year.
4. Use the “Off” Switch
Save electricity and reduce global warming by turning off lights when you leave a room, and using only as much light as you need. And remember to turn off your television, video player, stereo and computer when you’re not using them.
It’s also a good idea to turn off the water when you’re not using it. While brushing your teeth, shampooing the dog or washing your car, turn off the water until you actually need it for rinsing. You’ll reduce your water bill and help to conserve a vital resource. Read moreRelated Posts :
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- Stop Being A Workaholic - Easy Lessons
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- 10 Habits that Increase Your Personal Productivity
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