Saving Time on Routine Tasks: Optimized Reading

If I were to attempt to project the demographics that make up a typical lifehackista, according to the comments I see here and the roots of the phrase life hacks, I’d say that the average specimen spends a heck of a lot of time reading and writing, online and off, pretty much every single day.

It surely doesn’t apply to everyone who loves lifehacks, but then again, you’re reading this now. You may have typed a URL or search query to get here. In the quest to save time on routine tasks, there are plenty of ways we can optimize these core practices of everyday life.
In the next couple of articles, we look at making reading and writing quicker and easier. Let’s start with reading.

Saving Time on Reading
When you think of saving time on reading, the first thing that comes to mind is reading quicker - otherwise known across the Western world as speed reading.
There are a bunch of techniques popular amongst the personal development crowd that boost your reading rates in only a few minutes, with a bit of practice and attention. These techniques are derived and boiled down from plenty of different speed reading systems. If you read a lot of books, you might have seen some of these before.

1. Tracing with a Pen
A good idea is to take a pen or pencil (or a twig, if that’s what suits you) and use it as a pointing device while you read. Keep its tip under the word you are reading as you go, constantly moving, and your eye will follow. You can practice moving the pen faster as you get used to reading this way - as your eye starts to naturally follow along, you’ll be able to read faster just by moving the pen faster. Be steady and consistent. Speeding up and slowing down a lot isn’t recommended.

2. Learn to Capture Phrases
A common obstacle in increasing reading speed is your eye span, or the number of words you take in at a time. If you read each word individually, you’re crippling your speed. If you take in phrases in one glance, or fixation, instead of single words, you can boost your reading speed by an amazing amount. This takes a fair bit of practice, but there’s really nothing more to it than taking a mental “photograph” of a cluster of words at a time, instead of just one. Don’t overanalyze what you see in front of you. Some call it looking through the words instead of at them, but I think the best analogy would be taking a snapshot. Fake it until what you’re reading starts to make some sense!

3. Capture Quickly with Snapshots - Not Long Exposure!
When you’re taking in clusters of words instead of single words, work on reducing the amount of time the fixation takes. As you get started with this skill, you’ll be stopping and starting and reading in a fairly jerky fashion as you move from one cluster to another. This is because the fixation time takes longer. The solution is to smooth this out by taking faster snapshots.
Intuitively, one might think it’s best to practice speed reading until you naturally get faster. In fact, it’s better to learn this not by expecting it to come with time, but by forcing it; start running your eyes across each line without stopping in a smooth but rapid fashion, attempting to capture phrases and speed read as you go. You probably won’t have great comprehension at first, but your brain will be forced to keep up with the movement of your eyes and you’ll get it with repetition and dedication. Just remember not to stop the eye movement to take longer fixations, or you’ll get nowhere!

You will have to temporarily sacrifice comprehension until you are good at it, so don’t try this on important documents unless you intend to re-read them later.
Once you get this skill down, you’ll be able to read a line in the amount of time it takes to roll your eye across it.
It takes dedicated practice (like all things that are worthwhile), but eventually you’ll be able to capture not just phrases but entire lines at once (perhaps in two glances for really wide texts, ie one-column websites). At this point, you can practice making the process even faster by scanning down the page rapidly, instead of across.
Allow your eyes to run over each line without stopping. With practice, you’ll be reading each line in the time it takes to run your eyes over it.

You can practice your speed reading skills at Spreeder.

Remember that the most common reason for slow reading is fear (just like most obstacles in life); fear of missing an important word or line, of confusing the meaning of the text down the track, of having to go back to the top of the page and start again. Lose this fear and allow yourself to go with the flow, keep reading forward - never backward, unless you’ve truly missed something. This takes practice, because backtracking is an ingrained habit, ever since your first grade teacher told you to read slow and take your time, word-by-word. How inefficient!

One Book at a Time
Maybe one word at a time is a bad idea, but perhaps not so much when it comes to reading one book at a time!
Trying to read two fiction books and four non-fiction books at once is not doing you any favors. In fact, you’d be sabotaging yourself from every perspective; it would take more time, since it’s harder to pick up the book and keep reading where you left off if your attention is divided between more than one, and you’d have a much harder time absorbing the content. So, the multitasked books are not only taking more of your time, but there’s no reason to read them in the first place since you’re not learning anything. That’s a lifehackista’s nightmare!
It is wise to limit yourself to one fiction and one non-fiction book at all times. This is the perfect reading level, and not only do I suggest you not exceed it, but you should not be reading any less than this amount at a given time. Both are important for different reasons to our productivity and growth.
You can safely read a fiction and non-fiction book at the same time - your brain won’t confuse the two like it will confuse two stories or two textbooks.

Ditch Yer Browser, Use RSS
One excellent way to read faster, when it comes web content, is to use RSS wherever it’s available. The process of switching from one website to another, and then going deeper into each website to read new content, takes a lot more time than reading the new content in one aggregated location. I’d say using an RSS reader can at least halve the time it takes to do your daily online reading. Take advantage of it.

10 Hard Ways to Make Life Better

Some of the most worthwhile things in life aren’t easy. One of the things I dislike most about “power of positive thinking”-style personal development philosophies (such as “The Secret”) is the implication that if you just have the right attitude and the right state of mind, the rest will just fall into place. I think it causes a lot of hurt and disappointment in people who invest their time, effort, and of course, money into these systems and find themselves, one or two or five years down the line, exactly where they were before.

“You must not have wanted it badly enough,” the authors of these philosophies seem to be saying. “There must still be something wrong with you.”
I don’t think that, ultimately, God or the Spirits or the Universe or the world “provides”. I think a lot of times the world puts obstacles in our way, and no amount of positive thinking makes them go away. And I think that a lot of the people who are “successful”, by whatever standard you want to use, have as much “wrong” with them as a lot of the ones who aren’t successful. Maybe more.

In any case, wherever the motivation comes from, the things that really make our lives worth living can be quite difficult. (And who knows, maybe thinking positively helps take some of the edge off of doing the hard stuff?) What’s more, they can take a lot of time to do, and even more time to get right. But I think that doing is the important thing, not the result — throwing yourself into something with all your heart, mind, and soul is the success, not the “growing rich” part.
Here, then, are ten things that are really hard to do but which have an incredible power to make your life better.

1. Start a business
My dad, who has been self-employed almost all his life, used to tell me that “Only jerks work for jerks.” Working for someone else puts you at their mercy and subjects you to their whims — and often their poor management skills. Not only that, but the profit of your labor goes into their pockets.
Starting a business puts you in control of your work life, and your money. It’s hard — small businesses fail every day. But the rewards of even a failed venture can far outweigh the risk. Just knowing that your failure was the result of your own choices — instead of a decision made at a corporate office a thousand miles away — can be liberating.

2. Organize a group
What makes you passionate? Chances are, being around other people who are passionate about the same thing would make you even more passionate about it. Often the only thing keeping you and them from coming together is that nobody’s put out a sign saying “Come and talk!” Getting a group going is a tremendous challenge, and very often the personality of the founder leaves a tremendous mark on the group as a whole. Seeing a group grow and take off can be tremendously awarding — but even failing can teach you important things about leadership.

3. Volunteer
I don’t mean spend Thanksgiving at a soup kitchen, though that can often be challenging enough. What I mean, though, is to make a long-term investment in your community by joining school committees, donating three hours a week in a shelter, hosting a monthly read-along at the library, tutoring at-risk children after school, teaching adult literacy classes at a local prison, or any of a million ways to play a role in the lives of people who need you. Perhaps the most pressing need in our society is for people to take an interest in and engage with their communities.

4. Take an active role in your children’s’ activities
Pick one thing your child does and commit yourself to it. Coach their team, become a Brownie leader, spend a weekend day in the workshop with them, buy a bike and ride along with them — make their passions your own. Don’t crowd them — especially if you have teenagers — but show them that you value something they do by giving them your time and interest.

5. Start a family
I don’t mean have kids. That can be all too easy! Make the decision to have a family, which means to give of yourself fully to another person or several people. Risk being vulnerable by sharing your fears, quirks, and failures with someone else; you might find it makes you stronger than ever before.
This transcends marriage and parenthood. There are lots of people who can’t marry because the law prevents it. There are people who can’t have children. These are not the essential ingredients of family. The essential ingredients are love, mutual respect, trust, and open giving. Find (or make) someone you can share that with.

6. Write a book
It feels really, really good to see your name on a book cover, but it feels even better to know that someone, somewhere, might find his or her life changed by something you’ve written. Share your particular expertise, whether it’s story-telling or woodworking, with the world — or just your family. Time isn’t the big issue (though it is an issue — don’t let the positive thinkists tell you otherwise!) but if you commit yourself to a page a day — a couple hundred words — within a year you’ll have a pretty decent-sized manuscript. That’s something to work with!

7. Learn an art
Take painting lessons, a pottery workshop, a music class, whatever — learn to express yourself and you might find a self worth expressing. Don’t settle for being a “Sunday painter” — devote yourself to an art and master it.

8. Run for office
The world needs smart, dedicated, and upright people to take care of all the fiddly details of making things run. As it happens, running for local office isn’t as challenging as you’d think (which isn’t to say it’s easy) — Michael Moore, the filmmaker, ran for school board while he was still in high school. Just for kicks. And won! It’s fine to have your heart set on the White House or Capital Hill, but try your hand at city councilperson, county registrar, or something closer to home first. And be clean — run for the experience of putting your community on a better path, and not for the power.

9. Take up a sport
Enough with the working out already! Sure, you want to be healthy, but the whole treadmill-running, iPod-listening, 45-minutes-after-work thing is a little anti-social, don’t you think? OK, you want some solitude once in a while — fine. But at least add a sport, something you do with other people. You’ll be spending time interacting with others, while also developing team-building and leadership skills. And, you might learn something from your fellow players.

10. Set an outrageous goal — and achieve it!
The nine tips above are only a handful of ideas about how to make your life better. Maybe you want to record an album, climb a mountain, make the Hajj (the pilgrimage to Mecca), see 20 countries — don’t just settle for tiny goals, push yourself all the way to the edge and figure out how to make the craziest thing you can think of happen. Yes, you’ll have to learn a lot along the way, and plan months or even years in advance — that’s what makes outlandish goals worthwhile.
I don’t want to suggest that you need to do all these things to be happy — doing just one is quite a handful! But if you’re unhappy with your life, if you want to make a change for the better, you need to think big and you need to be ready to put in the work to make it happen. It’s easy to “visualize success” and to “think positively”; it’s not so easy to throw yourself into the unknown and make it work. But if you can make it work, you’ll gain far more than you can imagine.

CO2 level is at record high, but Earth may cool for a decade

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 387 parts per million, the highest level in 650,000 years, and it has been rising by 2.1 ppm each year since 2000, NOAA scientists report. (About 150 years ago, the Earth’s CO2 level was 280 parts per million.)

Certainly the world warmed up from 1998 until last year. The question now is, will that warming continue at the same rate forever, or even warm faster with more CO2?

If the trend of the last 10 years continues, and Earth grew that much hotter each decade, many of us on coastal cities soon will be frying in unbearable heat and chased by rising oceans into the suburban highlands.

Cooling interim? But other scientists are predicting the next decade will be cooler. If the CO2 level is rising, and if increasing CO2 causes global warming, why would the world cool over the next decade? Scientists in Germany say natural shifts in ocean circulation will do the cooling and then, after the next decade, we’ll be heating up again.

Global warming is here, but let’s have more debate on what is causing it, how long it is likely and what the risks are. I think we’ve heard only one side so far.

Choose A Secure And Hack-proof Email Password

To create an email password that is hard to crack:

• Pick a sentence you can remember easily.
  
  
  
  • This could be a summary of a significant event, a description of your favorite place or the first difficult sentence you learned in a new language.
  
  
• Combine word segments to form a new string.
  
  
  
  • Make sure the string is at least 8 characters long. Strive for 10 or more characters, though. Your password's length is probably the prime ingredient for security.
    
  • Combine word endings, beginnings and other parts similar to how new words are formed out of two existing words. Make sure the resulting string is easy to remember and has nice ring and rhythm.
    
  • Do not use too mechanical a process — like using every word's first character, for example.
  
  
• Capitalize two or more characters where it makes sense.
  
  
  
  • Pick the "words" that convey your sentence's core message, for example.
    
  • Do not just capitalize the first or last character.
    
  • Some email systems may not regard to case in passwords. I'd still use the mixed-case password in these cases, except when the email service does require an all-lower-case password.
  
  
• Introduce two or more numbers, dots, ampersands or other special characters.
  
  
  
  • Look for places where punctuation makes sense in your string, preferably somewhere in the middle.
    
  • Of course, do turn numbers (in your original phrase) into digits. You can also replace "for" with "4", and look for other expressions that lend themselves to being turned into numbers easily.
    
  • Some email services may not allow extra characters. Make sure you have an all-character password ready and well-established for these.
  
  
• Include a character or two derived from the email system for which the password is used.
  
  
  
  • Make sure you can easily reproduce the characters you come up with.
    
  • This creates a unique password for each email service.

Secure Email Password Example

Let say...

• Momotaro went walking toward the sea.
  
  
  
  • ...is our initial sentence.
    
  • From a hugely popular fairy tale, this sentence is not perfect, of course. Try to pick something unique and personal that does not yet appear on the web.
  
  
• morowewalintodse
  
  
  
  • I have picked a few characters and word segments, mostly by random (our password does sound like a somewhat twisted Japanese word now, though, does it not?):
    
  • momotaro went walking toward the sea.
  
  
• moroWeWalintodSe
  
  
  
  • Let's say went walking and sea contain our original sentence's core message.
  
  
• moro%WeWa1in2dSe
  
  
  
  • The l looks a bit like a 1, so let's exchange the two.
    
  • To, of course, becomes 2.
    
  • Finally, a percent sign marks our hero, little peach boy.

How to make successful relationships

Among the many pleasures we experience in life, one of the most important and potentially rewarding is the pleasure we derive from our relationships with friends and loved ones.

The people with whom we have the most contact will have either a positive or negative impact on our levels of confidence, satisfaction, well-being and optimism.

We all know people who are positive, happy and joyful to be around. They brighten our days with their vibrant, optimistic attitudes and their ability to energize everyone around them. In their company we feel like a million dollars.

Most of us also know negative thinkers who drain our energy and bring us down. They see difficulties in every possibility and disasters around every corner. We may find these individuals right in our own families. Whereas we can’t choose our family, we can choose our friends and romantic partners.

Supporting others to be more positive

Ideally, we want to surround ourselves with happy, positive, encouraging friends. But what if you have a good friend who tends toward the negative and yet you value the person’s friendship and want to maintain it? With a little finesse, you can make them aware of how their negativity is impacting the people around them — not to mention themselves.

Start by modeling a behavior called "Active-Constructive responding." It’s a simple, powerful communications tool that results in more successful relationships.

If you want to be more proactive, sit down in a quiet moment and share this model with your friend. True friends who are psychologically mature will respect you for speaking up and supporting them.

When something goes right

When we have a positive experience or a success in our lives, most of us want to share it; our joy will not be contained. We want a witness to the moments that make our lives worth living, so we turn to those close to us — our friends and loved ones — to share with, savor, relive, and celebrate our joy. How they respond can have a positive or negative impact.

Likewise, how we respond to someone else’s excitement can either boost them up or bring them down. The way we respond to good events has a striking effect on the quality of our relationships with others. It can spell the difference between success and failure. When something goes right for someone, we may respond in one of four ways:

• Active-Constructive: Enthusiastically asking lots of questions, being present and engaged, maintaining eye contact, showing genuine interest, enjoyment and excitement about the good event.

• Active-Destructive: Becoming critical, finding the cloud in the silver lining, pointing out the potential problems or downsides of the good event.
  
• Passive-Constructive: Saying little, displaying a muted happiness for the other person, underplaying the importance of the good event.
  
• Passive-Destructive: Being indifferent, disengaged, not paying attention, showing no interest or concern about the good event.

Here is an example of the four responses in action. Liz, an emerging artist and freelance illustrator, gets off the phone and excitedly tells her husband, Mark, that the head art director at the publishing firm she has been working for just asked her to illustrate a new series of wraparound book covers. Mark’s possible responses:

• Active-Constructive:“That’s great news! Your skills and beautiful work are definitely paying off. Your goal to be a sought-after illustrator will happen in no time. What’s the new series about?”
  
• Active-Destructive: “Honey, you’ve never done anything like that. Are you sure you can handle it? It sounds like a lot of work. You’ll probably have to put in even longer hours.”
  
• Passive-Constructive: “That’s very nice, dear.”
  
• Passive-Destructive: “I’m tired. Save it ... say, what’s for dinner?”

As you can see, three of these responses are joy-deflating to varying degrees. Only the active-constructive response succeeds in nurturing an emotional bond between Liz and Mark.

When we respond enthusiastically — in an active-constructive manner — we are accomplishing several things. We are acknowledging the importance of a positive event to our friend or loved one and recognizing the associated implications. This conveys shared values, caring and closeness.

Passive and destructive responses convey the opposite — that the good event is insignificant, or that we don’t know or care about what the other person finds important.

This response conveys that the other person’s thoughts, emotions and values are of little or no concern or importance.

Destructive and passive responses don’t contribute to healthy relationships. When we are responded to with disparaging criticism, with no acknowledgment or interest in what we value, we experience a diminished sense of connection to the person with whom we are engaged. This creates feelings of alienation as well as a decrease in positive emotion, well-being, and optimism.

A common mistake many people fall into is to hone in on the potential problems in an otherwise positive event in an effort to protect a friend or loved from future disappointment or in the name of realism and objectivity. This does not affirm the other person and is not really supportive. Celebrate with them first, and set potential problems aside in your mind for discussion at a different time.

Another pitfall is attempting to respond when we are preoccupied with work or some other pressing issue. In this situation we may, without meaning to, find ourselves using a passive-constructive response.

Realize that at that moment you’re not in a position to do justice to what your friend is telling you. Be honest and say something like, “That sounds terrific. I definitely want to know more, but right now I’m tied up with something I must finish. Would you fill me in when I’m done, please?”

10 Quick fixes to make your windows faster

Your computer running Windows isn’t running in the same speed that it used to run when you first used it. It’s slower, crappy, takes a while to start and tests your patience like anything. There are many reasons for this, let’s try fixing up a few things on your slow Windows PC:

Slow Start Up
There can be a variety of reasons to Windows loading slow during start up. Go to Run, type msconfig and hit enter. Under the ‘Start Up’ tab, uncheck the unwanted programs and press OK. Things should be a bit fine the next time Windows boots.

Another program worth mentioning here is StartUp Delayer which will help in setting after how much time programs should be loaded after Windows boots. For instance, you could set your instant messenger program to load 50 seconds after Windows starts up.

Slow Loading Start Menu
If the Start Menu items are loading slowly, you can open the Registry Editor by typing in the Run menu ‘regedit.exe’ and pressing Enter. Go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Look for MenuShowDelay, and double click to edit the value. The lower the number specified, the faster the Start Menu will load.

Slow Right Click Context Menu
Probably the Windows Right Click menu on your computer is loading slow because too many programs added unwanted entries there. Just download this program called Mmm, install it and then modify your context menu to remove unwanted items to speed it up.

Slow Send To Menu
If the Send To menu loads slowly, you can type ’sendto’ in the Run Dialog, and remove unwanted items in the Explorer Window that appears. This should add some speed to it.

Slow Defragmentation
The Windows Defragmenter can’t get any slower. You need to have an alternative to the Windows Defragmenter, and Defraggler is just one of the best ones available in the market. It’s free, and works like a charm and can speed up defragmentation manifold. For some alternatives, see Five Free Programs to Defragment your PC.

Slow loading My Computer Window
If the My Computer Window loads slowly, in the Explorer Window, go to Tools >> Folder Options >> View and uncheck ‘Automatically search for network folders and printers”

Slow loading Add or Remove Programs Applet
This is one of the most annoying piece of programs present in Windows, it takes ages to load if you have a considerable number of programs installed on your computer. You can either use the all-in-one CCleaner for this purpose, or get MyUninstaller that comes as a speedy replacement for Add or Remove Programs.

Slow Ending of Unresponsive Programs
If you’ve clicked on ‘End Task’ if any program is running unresponsive, you might have noticed that the program is not terminated immediately. You can alter this by going to Run >> regedit.exe >> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\ and change this value to 1000.

Disable Animations and Appearance Overhauls to maximize performance
If you’re a serious performance junkie, you probably won’t bother about eyecandy. Go to System Properties in the Control Panel. Click ‘Advanced’, then ‘Performance’ and click ‘Adjust for best performance’. This might boost your PC’s performance up a bit.

Additional Tips:

- Always keep your computer clean. Remove Junk and Unnecessary registry entries. Use CCleaner for this purpose, one excellent tool that just does what it says.

- Don’t keep installing software. Install a program only if it really serves you a purpose.

- Keep as less programs as possible running on the System Tray. This essentially means reducing the number of programs that start during Windows start up.

10 Ways to keep yourself Happy

In the previous post we have seen reasons to keep yourself happy, Now we see how to keep ourself happy

Sometimes is very difficult to keep yourself happy all the time just to return to doubt, fear or sadness mode that way we push away happiness and enjoyment from our lives. Here there is 10 ways to give direct access to happiness in our lives:

1. Enjoy the quest of Looking what you like to do!
When we do activities that we like and satisfy us we increase our happiness state. If we work in what we like the most happiness will be always present.

2. Get Active!
Keep yourself active, being inactive keep our minds idle and produce isolation in many cases. Look for exciting activities, sports or other things that require creativity like playing an instrument or some kind of dance is an excellent happiness booster.

3. Be Social!
Look to have social contact, keep in touch with your familiar group and friends. It is always more gratifying to be in a social environment than lonely.

4. Enjoy Nature!
Keep contact with nature and animals. Nature charge our energetic batteries, do a long walk in the woods and you will feel renewed.

5. Be Optimistic!
Develop an optimistic way of thinking. That way you can keep focused on your goals.

6. Get some Laughs!
Develop your sense of humor, take situations with some humor and lightly that way you will always feel happy.

7. Be the real You!
Be yourself, letting other people know you exactly as who you are will make you feel free and will make you happy.

8. Feed the love!
Feed your social relations. Love is first priority, showing some love to others is very gratifying. If you give love you will be loved, so if you want to feel love from others then give love back first.

9. Enjoy Life!
Value every single thing that you experience. If we are grateful for what we receive and we give something back our well being will increase to points in which you will attract all the good things you wish for yourself.

10. Don’t Worry Be Happy!
Forget about those things that worry you. Do not dedicate time or energy to things that have not yet occurred or things that might never occur.

Feel the freedom of being happy…

7 reasons to keep ourself happy

Being Happy, is a sign that we are vibrating positively and in the right way to make our wishes come true, here are seven reasons why you should keep yourself happy all the time

1.- Being Happy, let us enjoy life in a positive way, enjoying every single detail and every experience that we live. We value people, situations and all that surround us.

2.- Being Happy, let our body work correctly and use our skills in a balanced way. A great health is fundamental to achieve Well Being.

3.- When we keep ourselves happy, we attract to our life positive experiences that help us achieve our goals, positive thoughts are important to attract to our life all those things we want, when we keep ourselves happy most of the time our life will develop successfuly.

4.- When you are happy you act actively in your life, you make things you enjoy, you make things that entertain you and consequently you will be more productive.

5.- Being Happy let us discover our unique purpose in life and give us the hope to develop it.

6.- Being happy, make us accumulate and regenerate our energy which are not wasted with negative thoughts our unnecessary worries.

7.- When you are happy you will attract people which are also happy and which are worth to have a friendship or a love relationship with, this way we create stable relations in our life.

These are just 7 reasons to be happy every day, try to be happy for at least 30 days and you will notice how everything changes.
If in 30 days you are not happier then we will get your Money Back hahahaha

There are millions of reasons to be happy everyday, do you have any other reason? Let us all know…

How to be cool this summer

To many it’s not a big deal. Summer is just another season which will make you sweat a lot and then move on to another season. For me weather really has a direct effect on my lifestyle. So what is the key to a happy summer? A wee bit of change in lifestyle can really ease the heat this summer.
So here are things which can keep you cool this summer

• Cotton is the mantra of this season. Yes its time to take out those cotton kurtas which are the bottom of your trunk. Seriously it really makes a lot of difference even you have a 24/7 air conditioning.

• Go fresh! Eat lots of fresh fruits (melons especially, it is also good to loose those extra kilos) Stuff yourself with fruits. Fruits will keep you cool and fresh. Unlike heavy, spicy food which will trend to make you feel drowsy and heavy.

• Liquids please! Many don’t feel like eating much due to the heat ( I am one of them) and hence skip meals. But a hectic day at work can drain you off all the energy. So substitute your meals (if you’re not in the mood for it) with fresh juices, lime soda and get a bit adventurous with some mocktails.

• Avoid alcohol! It can get you all the more dehydrated (Alcohol dehydrates the body in any weather) and also trigger migraines (if you are prone to migraines)

• Water; No am not talking about Deepa Mehta’s movie here. Drink lots of water. You can lot health problems due to the heat by just increasing your water intake itself.

• Carry an umbrella. Yes umbrellas not only protect you from rains but also from sun.
• Always carry a high SPF sunscreen lotion. Lap it generously whenever you get out.

Seven Ways To Stay Calm In Tough Times

There is an inspiring chain mail circulating on the internet these days. It tells you to follow the 90-10 rule for a happier life. The 90-10 equation is as follows:

90% is what happens to you-it's out of your control. 10% is how you react to what happens to you-that is totally in your control.

What can be better advice than this in times that are truly uncertain, and fraught with situations that seem beyond control?

Through Transcendental Meditation®, yoga, diet and good rest, I advises you to do just this: control how you react to life and its ever-changing situations.

Reach Out: Loneliness aggravates anxiety. Be in the company of those you love. But instead of merely spending time with family and friends

Take control of your responses: An instant way to calm jittery nerves is to start breathing slow and deep. This brings down the heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension, sending a relaxation response throughout your body and mind.

Eat Right: eat foods that help you relax. Choose foods that help beat back stress-generating free radicals. All fresh and seasonal fruits, lightly cooked and spiced vegetables and whole grains will repair your tired mind and body

Drink Up: At least 8 glasses of water a day are essential for efficient flushing out of disease-causing toxic matter from your system

Exercise: Moderate exercise is a great way to de-stress

Sleep Well: Recognize the sleep robbers around you.Try to go to bed early — between 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. This period is ruled by the Kapha dosha, which is associated with calm and restfulness.

Child's Pose (Balasana)
How You Do It: Kneel on your shins, buttocks resting on your heels, knees together. With your arms at your sides, palms up, bend from the hips and extend your upper body over your knees. Resting on your thighs, bring your forehead to the floor. Breathe deeply, hold for as long as is comfortable. Then slowly sit up
This simple asana floods every cell of the body with both oxygen and prana (life force energy) helping eliminate physical and emotional toxins