Archive | October, 2011

Wake Up Duty

28 Oct
Ancient weapons of mass destruction

Image by vintagedept via Flickr

Good morning soldier,

Today you must prepare yourself for duty in your own personal quest!

Get you groove on and move out!

Here are your orders:

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Relax!                                                                (calmly assess your surroundings)

Look Alive!                                                       (endeavor to at least look  alert)

Sit Up, or roll over to Child Pose!      (start the journey towards vertical)

Make Ready the Coffee Machine!       (pop some vitamins if you got em)

Prepare the weapon of mass destruction!       (tooth brush)

Engage the enemy                                                            (plaque)

Scrub and suit up!                                                          (dress)

Chow down!                                                                       (eat)

Make a Plan!                                                                 (strategize)

Get additional WMDs HERE.

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Sleep Tip #2

27 Oct

Melatonin = “Mellow-tonin”

sleepy_mk

Zzzzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzz zzzzzz!

Usually Sleep Tip #1 does the trick in about 10 minutes.  That is, alternating listening to the nothingness, and relaxing.  But on those nights that that is not enough I have another weapon.

For the last 2 nights I have tried to go to bed early only to have ideas pop into my head that I felt the need to follow up on such as:

  • looking up the caloric breakdown of peanuts vs cauliflower on the internet.
  • I know it’s kind of geeky, but did you know cauliflower has more protein per calorie than peanuts?

Anyway, I stayed up too late and was tired in the morning two days in a row.  So last night I decided I was really going to get some sleep so I pulled out my secret weapon.  Melatonin.

I buy the 3mg Melatonin capsules and break them in half, and then in half again so I get  somewhere around 1mg.  You have to experiment with the dosage yourself, too little and you don’t notice any difference, too much and you are too sleepy in the morning.  1mg seems to work really good for me.  I only rarely use this method to induce sleep, but man did I sleep great last night!

The great thing about melatonin is it is something your body naturally makes that gives you the sleepy feeling.  Also, if something/someone wakes me up for some reason, falling back to sleep is really easy.  Normally falling back to sleep after a disturbance is as hard as falling asleep in the first place!  I hate that.

So in recap – if Tip #1 is a little lacking in potency at times, try a mg or so of Melatonin and see how it goes.

Hopefully you will find yourself out like the monkey in the pic above!

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Perfection?

25 Oct
“Perfection”

Image by zigazou76 via Flickr

Really?

You don’t really have to be perfect.  I’m not.  Today I barely managed to get 4 of the 8 things in my Daily Template post accomplished.

  • Brushed my teeth with my weapon of mass destruction (tooth brush).
  • Showered and got dressed.
  • Ate a  healthy something.
  • Was thankful for not having a migraine headache like I did  Saturday morning.

I did not stretch, listen to music, clean up after myself, or be loving to those I live with (well, my housemate was out of town so I did not have an opportunity).

So I managed about 50% on my list.  At least I am somewhat keeping track.  I am really trying to monitor my own habits.  By recognizing my shortfalls I can try to show improvement tomorrow.

You obviously do not need to follow my list, but you might want to make one of your own and see how closely you can follow it.

Do your best most of the time and take note when you are slacking. 

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Seek Challenge

24 Oct
Hurdles

Image by julie.froo via Flickr

What new challenge will today bring?

Challenges can:

  • cause fear – maybe it is something you are not looking forward to that is ahead.
  • bring excitement – a golf game perhaps, or that fishing trip
  • create progress – perhaps building something, or managing people (even a family)
  • cause growth – such as working out builds muscle later when you are resting
Yes challenges can be stressful, but stress is not bad, distress is bad, and a good challenge will almost always cause growth.  Getting out of bed can be considered a very simple challenge, but I swear it will cause you to grow!
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Why seek a challenge?

  • There can be simple pleasure involved even in easy challenges such as taking a shower.
  • There can be enormous pleasure in accomplishing a big task.
  • Seeking a challenge is better than the opposite – hiding!

So get out there today and make a difference!

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Sleep Tip #1

22 Oct
Sleeping, male baby cat. Red hair.

Image via Wikipedia

Feeling good in the morning is seriously affected by how well I sleep, and nothing is worse than laying there ready to sleep but not sleeping!

  • When I find that my mind will not give way to sleep I follow this method and I fall asleep every time.
  • I first discovered it a few years ago by experimenting with my thoughts.
  • Then I tested it one afternoon when I was not even sleepy and found myself waking up an hour later.
  • So what is it?

Here it is —  Alternate the following two steps every few seconds.

Step 1:   Listen to the sounds in the room with your eyes closed and try to listen for something that is absent!  For example – 1)  if there are no bugs flying around, listen for flying bugs.  Make a note of all the other sounds, but filter them and search for the flying buzz sound.  2) if you so not live near a train listen for a train sound.  By listening for something that is not there you are effectively filtering out everything else!

Step 2:    Focus on relaxing some specific part of your body.  Your jaw, your eyes, your ears, your nose, your arms, your fingers, etc.  It can even be something that you think you really have no control over – like your hair, or your fingernails.  Your body needs to relax in order to sleep and your brain can actually help it with these thoughts.

After a while you can get to where you do step 1 on inhaling, and step 2 on exhaling.

How does it work?  I think it gives your brain something simple to do while alternating the relaxing part.  Pretty soon you will notice yourself sighing, then you will notice slight daydreaming.  At this point you are nearing sleep so don’t stop doing steps 1 and 2.  Next thing you know you will be waking up and not even remember how you fell asleep.  I absolutely swear by this method!  It beats laying there for hours!

 

Listen – Relax – Listen – Relax – Listen – Relax

 

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Why Brush?

21 Oct
Earth

Image via Wikipedia

You know it’s a good idea to brush your teeth right?  But if you are like me, it can sometimes get forgotten.

If you can get a vivid image of the scumbags that are trying to camp out in your beautiful mouth, maybe you can muster up enough energy to fight back!

You might want to take this Mouth Germs Quiz from WebMD:

http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/rm-quiz-germs-your-mouth

I’ll hep you out with a few of the quiz Q’s –

  • There are commonly more bacteria in your mouth in the morning than people on planet earth!
  • And they mostly reside in the plaque goo that builds up on your teeth while you sleep.
  • Research has shown a link between gum disease and
    • Cardiovascular disease
    • Diabetes
    • Alzheimer’s disease

Yuk! Yuk! and Yuk!

Every brushing takes out billions of these little alien buggars.

So in effect – your toothbrush is a weapon of mass destruction!  Use it wisely.

Be Thankful

20 Oct
Mickey Doodle the cat

Mickey Doodle - my cat (posterized!)

When you wake up, or somewhere within your morning, it is a great idea to think of something you are thankful for and say it out loud to yourself.

A friend suggested this, and that I add it to my daily template, so first I tried it out.

  • Yesterday I was thankful that I had the use of my legs.

Simple enough, but I am especially thankful because I was in a gnarly bike accident last weekend and managed to not break anything.  I repeated this out loud to myself several times throughout the day and it had an uplifting and grounding effect each time.  So I am officially recommending this practice and am going to go back and add it into my daily template post.

  • Today I am thankful for my cat Mickey Doodle (aka “Dude!”) shown above in the photo.
If you need a little help, take a visit over to Be Thankful. com

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Music can make it happen

19 Oct
Music guitar

Image by doug88888 via Flickr

This set of Samba music is pretty good at starting some wiggle action in the reluctant morning body.  http://pl.st/p/22570909451

Latin music, samba, bosa nova, any island sounding music gives a happy feeling like I am on vacation somewhere exotic.  I know it is just a trick to pick up my soul tempo but I don’t care. It feels pretty good, that’s what counts.

You can easily make your own playlist too at Playlist.com.

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Focus

18 Oct
Focussing Hard

Image by Sam Judson via Flickr

Focus is something I seem to lack when I wake up.  I am a person that does not like alarm clocks in general, so usually I just wake up.  But when I do wake up it feels like everything is a blur.   It is like the whole world is mentally out of focus because I have been in the dream world.

By trying to focus on something, I can then climb into reality, and begin to function, get out of park and into drive so to speak.

Whatever you choose to focus on is up to you.  When you do focus, I think you will find getting up a little easier.

I try to narrow my focus to achieving one of the 8 things in my basic  day template like Yoga.  Then the other 7 things kind of follow.

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Motivation or Inspiration?

13 Oct
W6 - Women

Image by Siddy Lam via Flickr

Motivation is a something that drives you. Intrinsically or extrinsically.

  • Being chased by a barking German Shepherd would motivate me to run away fast.  This would minimize impending pain!
Inspiration is something that leads you to be creative or inventive.
  • A beautiful woman with two ice cold Mai Thais would both inspire and motivate me to run towards her fast.  It would be a beautiful thing if I could get there fast to share that lovely Mai Thai with her.  Perhaps we could create beautiful music together!  It is motivational in that this could maximize pleasure!
Either way there is running!
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I’m sure there is more to it than that.  But if you are lacking drive today  you might want to ask yourself which you are lacking in.  I suppose you can persevere or run for the sake of running some of the time, but it is nice to have a goal to run towards or away from.   That’s just my thought on it.
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From wikipedia:

Inspiration or Inspire may refer to:

Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic.[1] The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation. According to various theories, motivation may be rooted in a basic need to minimize physical pain and maximize pleasure, or it may include specific needs such as eating and resting, or a desired object, goal, state of being, ideal, or it may be attributed to less-apparent reasons such as altruism, selfishness, morality, or avoiding mortality. Conceptually, motivation should not be confused with either volition or optimism.[2] Motivation is related to, but distinct from, emotion.

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