Chibilicious

The best time to learn is when you are relaxed and know how to deal with information.

And boy, I am learning this the hard way. With too many things happening simultaneously (at house, at work and with other extra-curricular activities) and with my curiously in-the-moment-wants-to-learn-everything stage, I experienced time and again burn-out to accomplish anything at all.

According to a trivia I heard a long time ago, Albert Einstein, one of the greatest minds that ever lived, actually used ONLY twelve percent (12%) of his brain. Imagine how much a human brain could actually do based on that fact! But, according to research, a human brain is like a sponge. It retains information the individual deems necessary to his well-being and filters everything out. At most times, the brain reacts with the conduciveness of the environment and a person’s well-being to easily adapt and retain information in his brain. That is why it is often pointed out to take good physical well-being into consideration within the process of learning something new.

Currently at my mid-20s, I’m experiencing some pressure in stabilizing myself in the not-so-distant future of approaching 30s. I admit I had previous years of leisure at my hands. Despite never-ending amounts of problems within the family, I was still content in the idea I had long years ahead of me to work for a good future. And yet, I feel I am presently zero on my goals and at this time I having the urge and motivation to take up learning’s I had deemed necessary before but never had the initiative to study.

I want to be the master of my current craft, which is Web Design. I want to be an expert on HTML, CSS and design layout techniques.

Afterwards, I will work on back-end sources, which are specifically PHP, MySQL and Actionscript for Flash.

There are also the vector techniques I want to learn for icon and illustration purposes.

Not to mention, I want to have a review on my Basic Japanese. It’s been so long since I last read a basic passage. I believe I’m not remembering much at all.

I had tried different ways to learn everything all-together in as little time as possible with the goal of updating my portfolio with what is recent and technologically advanced.

• I tried eating brain-foods while studying. But doing so with a sleepy mind does not help at all. Same thing with coffee.
• Waking up early morning to study is said to be effective since your brain is fresh and will easily pick-up everything. But if you slept really late from watching DVD and your mind diverts to focus on the work ahead of you, all that information you learned might easily go down the drain.
• Sitting alone in the living room on a lazy, bright Sunday afternoon with no harping family member, with only the sound of chimes as your music, and your book on your lap. And you end up dozing the whole time because everything is to relaxing to even think of reading.
• No, I didn’t take any every drink. Some say its effective but I don’t want to stay awake all day and sleep the whole of the next. I have responsibilities to accomplish each day.

It is hard setting up a routine for study especially for someone out of school for years and has responsibilities and obligations to think about.

At most, I have diverted back to a book that was given for free when I was in elementary on how to review well in any chosen subject. The author is a man who had a family at an early age. He was forced to work for his family and at the same time study in college. Amazingly though, when he was single, he was an average student but when he became a family man, he learned techniques for time-management and mind-enhancement skills to get straight A’s in all subjects!

Some of the techniques I remember (I haven’t read everything yet, I just scanned earlier) are the ff:

• Know how to find keywords that will help you remember facts.
• Always bring index cards with your notes and keywords in them. Anything of the day, when you are free, you can look at them and review. Making this a daily habit would end up you having your notes planted deeply in your brain without you realizing it.

  With our latest technologies, index cards are almost obsolete in use. With cellphones, PDAs, and the internet, there are various ways to store information in selected gadgets and access them easily anywhere, anytime.

• Make it a point to subscribe to publications, RSS feeds, newsletters that is related to the subject you are studying. Make sure they have regular updates and you allot some of your time in actually reading them especially if they are daily RSS updates. Constantly reading an article about the subject would have you understand a lot of things. Facts, dates, procedures, news, etc.
• Who says you can’t study with background noise (e.g. tv, radio, etc.)? You can do these things while studying with the use of notes you recorded on a tape. You can listen to your notes while watching sports. One ear hears the commentator while the other hears your notes.
• Work in an environment you are most relaxed in. May it be in a park , beside a pool, in your room etc. As long as you are sure the environment could help you in studying and would not provide you distraction you hate.
• FOCUS AT ONE SUBJECT AT A TIME. This is the big boo boo I made. I may get to learn a lot of things but I can’t master one.

There are more ways to enhance our brain power and studying skills. But the bottom is, you must take into consideration which learning is a priority. Afterwards, you could proceed to another subject. It is best to learn study skills to aid in learning as well as maintain time management (especially for professionals). Ability to maintain a balanced life is also key for better learning.

Life can be difficult and full of worries, and when you’re not taking good care of yourself, things can become quite demanding. Without a proper diet and exercise, along with proper sleep, you could find yourself run down extremely fast. This caused unwanted stress and anxieties in our everyday living. A major part of improving your personal life revolves around elements that can keep you from going off the deep end.

Get exercise with a proper diet

Getting the right exercise for your body does not consist of trying out for a marathon. Nevertheless, if you want to stay in shape and maybe lose a few pounds, here’s the perfect way to start.

Walk for 30 minutes twice a day with a backpack containing up to five books.
Instead of having an extra alcoholic beverage, eliminate it, replacing it with water.
Substitute daily one serving of starchy carbohydrate with two servings of green vegetables. Rather than skipping breakfast and lunch and overeating on snacks, try snacking consisting of five small meals daily. Make sure you incorporate that with fruits and vegetables.

The key is to watch what you eat and drink. You are guaranteed to feeling better; giving yourself more energy that will allow you to tackle other tasks. Stress will be coped with much easier. Another way for stress is massage therapy.

The Benefits of Massage Therapy

Massage therapy offers many benefits. It helps to start your day relaxed, which is essential for balance. A simple practice would be starting at your head and scalp. What people fail to realize is that until they have massage they do no know how much stress they are carrying. Once you have an awareness of where stress is lodged in your body, you’ll know exactly which pressure points to work. This is what massage therapy can do for you:

Relief of muscle tension and stiffness
Greater joint flexibility and range in motion
Healthier and nourished skin
Improved posture
Faster healing from pulled muscles

Getting enough sleep

It is a proven fact that when you do not get enough sleep, this can make you ill. There are even studies that says healing is done while we are sleeping, meaning deep sleep produces the bodies highest form of hormones. A constant sleep pattern is necessary for the immune system to function at its peak. Have a regularly scheduled bedtime. Avoid exercising within three hours before bedtime. If you have problems winding down, do something relaxing like watching television, taking a bath, or listening to soft music.

It doesn’t take money to improve our lives or even watching or favorite talk shows. All it takes is a little discipline and action, and we’ll be well on our way to better our personal well-being as we age.

Proper rest, exercise and training your mind to think positive are a great way to improve your life. The best thing you can do is getting started now. Prolonging good health only sends you back to the same patterns. If you want to improve your personal life, you must take action and maintain that action for the course of your life.

Something to keep in mind is that exercise alone has proven to relieve people suffering with asthma, diabetes, heart disease, etc. In fact, studies have shown that people who exercise live a longer, improved and happier life. In fact, exercise has proven to relieve and even heal symptoms emerging from arthritis. If you have back pain, you will benefit from exercise since it will relieve your pain as well. To learn more, check out books at your library or visit the Internet.

Herbs are an option we have that treats misaligned joints. We use natural herbs to improve health. Herbs can be grown in your backyard. You can buy them in the grocery stores or a health stores. People even grow herbs in their kitchen window.

Herbs are all natural and can be used on a daily basis along with a well balanced diet. Substitute salt by using thyme or marjoram. Pepper can be substituted with savory or basil. Try mixing different kinds of herbs in your recipes to change the taste and make it a little different.

People use herbs in their daily diet as well as treating their simple aches and pains. Using herbs is the natural way and sometimes it is a cheaper way to keep your body strong and healthy.

For relieving that awful stress that you’ve been under try using some Borage leaves. When Borage leaves is used as a tonic to put your glands back naturally after being stressed out.

Culinary herbs can be used to strengthen the immune system and help prevent cancer. If you don’t have, any culinary herbs try using garlic, cumin, and green tea, along with exercise. You need to keep the immune system strong to fight off virus and other alignments.

There are many herbs that help fight off a cold or a respiratory problems. Elderberry is another herb and it stops the virus of a cold from producing and getting worse. Take elderberry at the first signs of a cold.

When treating a cold you’ll find there are many herbs out that will help fight off that virus as well as work for others things too. Garlic is good for the cold and respiratory system and it comes in leaves or in a capsule.

Ginger comes in fresh leaves or a powder that can be used for treating common colds along with keeping the bowel system clean, since it supports the stomach, spleen and the intestines too. Make hot ginger tea when you are having cold symptoms to make you sweat that virus out of your body. Ever heard of Hyssop, another herb used to treating colds, it will loosen up the mucous.

Lemon Balm is used for treating depression because it helps to relieve the stress. In addition, Lemon Balm has been known to relieve fevers when you have a cold or the flu. When using the lemon balm try to use it fresh if you can, but dry with work and can be found wherever herbs are found.

Peppermint is another good herb used to treat the cold and fever. Along with treating the cold, it is good to relieve an upset stomach and relieves pain.

Yarrow is best used to treat the fever that comes along with the common cold. Yarrow is best when mixed with Elderberry or Peppermint.

When using herbs you need to be careful that you take the right amounts and know the side effects that herbs can cause. Herbs are safer than using drugs but they are very strong. There are side effect to using some herbs if not used properly and could cause fatal injuries and maybe death.

Read up and search for all the information you can find before using herbs. Read the labels and be sure to read the warnings not all people can use herbs for healing and general health precaution. If you don’t understand or are sure about one don’t use it, taking the wrong one could do more harm than good.

If you’re over 65 and want to start taking herbs start out slow. The older a person get their system gets weaker and if they are already taking any kind of drugs the herbs could cause a reaction. Watch for any new changes other than normal, a headache, and an upset stomach are just a couple of things could happen. If you are starting on herbs and get sick, right after stop taking and consultant you physician. Herbs help heal the soul, which promotes improvement of personal life.

The house I live in now is an old colonial-looking two (2) story wooden structure that has been standing for more than 50 years old. Indoor amenities are also old compared to modern conveniences. Light switches are of the old types, water taps are of versions you wouldn’t see nowadays, numerous plants adorn the garden and hedges, fast growing grass cover the grounds, and we even have our own coconut tree at the back part of the house. Yep, it looks old but it has its old-style homey charm. Though the maintenance can be a bit of a headache, with it being dominantly wooden and the back part of the house even still has the “aluminum” looking roof that is really noisy when rain falls on it.

The house underwent a couple of renovations through the years. Looking about right now, I’m trying to remember just what this house looked like a few years ago. The wallpapers, the furnitures, the windows, the curtains, etc. How the house looked like before is like a past dream but with all the changes that happened, one thing still remains.

Mosquitos.

They’re freaking everywhere and as a study tells, mosquitos tend to go towards white colored victims since they can easily distinguish color white with their eyesight. Unfortunately, with me having a white skin, I’m prone to a lot of mosquito bites. At present, we keep a stock of mosquito coils for defense against these blood-sucking insects when their urge to feed arise. The mosquito coils work but the smoke can make me sneeze to much for my own good. I also make sure to have bug spray at all times but the smell can be too strong for the nose to take.

I remember a long time ago when the city mayor has this project of having this citywide pest control project wherein selected people smoke the streets and sewers of neighborhoods with these chemicals to kill any mosquito colony that are breeding within.

I’m just wondering how come I don’t remember this project done in years. I wonder when will city hall renew such project such as what Terminix does. It’s a good project especially since there are too many dengue cases in the country to count. Indoors are no longer safe from these disease carrying pests so there can never be too enough precautions for safe and good health.