You spend 1/3 of you life sleeping. This thought scares people when you put it like that. the fact is, people like to be ignorant and knowing that a third of their life is “wasted” sleeping can force them into insomnia. well luckily for me i am not one of those people phased by this fact. i love sleeping and 2 thirds of my life awake is more than enough.

~courtsey of cd c:art

like every college student and working class adult, we all dread the feeling of waking up early because of how groggy and depressed we feel. there are NUMEROUS articles on sleep and you would be amazed at the different approaches used to get a good night rest; ranging from wearing socks to sprinkling lavender oil on your pillow, from having a warm shower to repeating a “sleep” mantra. there was a certain trend i saw in the different articles, when it comes to sleeping well. the main gist is to essentially trick the brain into simulating sleeping and waking up “naturally” (in other words falling asleep and waking up as nature intended).

The stuff that really fascinates(frustrates) me about sleep are the inconsistencies. 8 hours todays makes me feel great and 8 hours tomorrow makes me feel like shit. then i stumbled on this post from 3 years ago, Alarm clocks are bad. How to wake up and feel better, by Vincent Cheung. The truth is that the main purpose of sleep is to rest the mind, the body can be rested by just staying still. so the feeling of being “tired” when you wake up is actually psychological. experts have identified 5 stages of sleep and the stage we wake up in affects how we feel. the stages cycle and the best time to wake up is in the first or second stage.

People have tried different methods to exploit this system, such as waking up every 15 or 30 minutes to ensure they are always in the first 2 stage, but the truth is that the length of the stages vary from time to time and from person to person. The brain has cues that signal time for sleep or time to wake and replicating these cues to the best effect could speed up the stages “naturally.” and i think the easiest thing to do would be to introduce the smallest stimulus possible just as you about to wake up. like gentle sounds and light to similate sunrise. this makes sense, because its a lot easier to wake up during summer, because of the earlier days than it is to wake up during winter. The key thing also is to avoid abrupt light or sounds when waking up, because that forces the brain out of sleep versus a gradual transition.

the perfect first experiment to see if this works for you is to follow the blog post i linked from Vincent Cheung. simply using very gentle sounds from like 30 minutes before your actual alarm goes off could trick your brain into a natural awakening, meaning you feel alot better when u actually get up.

Disclaimer: i am not a sleep doctor, i’ve just read alot about sleeping.

here are some useful links:

Wake up refreshed! Mornings don’t have to be hard.

How much sleep do you really need?

All about sleep

It seems that everyone is looking for motivation. Whether it is to wake up in the morning, to go to work, or even motivation to have patience with the people around you. Most people have reached a stage in their life, where there is simply no reason to use up any energy to do anything. I’m sure like me, people might have sought advice from outside sources hoping to get hold of some information, something inspiring or insightful that will provide that lil kick to make them look forward to the next day.

In my personal opinion, motivation is something you have to find on your own. It is a lot harder, but is more rewarding. one of my philosophies is that we are all capable of self healing, if our bodies heal from wounds, we can also heal from “mental wounds.” I have personally been training to just think, change perspectives and reflect. As vague as that sounds, it has helped me deal with a lot of things. Every problem can be simplified into smaller approachable steps. So taking a step back, lookin at WHY you are unmotivated, you’ll be able to simplify the problem into much simpler tasks to accomplish, to lead you towards what you want.

for example, in my case, my lack of motivation came from mundane repetitions and predictable routines day in day out. And one thing that psychology has pointed out, is that we are built to recognize change. you enter a room, you immediately notice the temperature and other things, and after a while you become accustomed to the room and it is off your mind. this simple concept can be applied to your daily lives as well. If everything around you is unchanged, you become accustomed to it and you are simply not receiving enough mental stimulation. So the next step is, what can i do to spice things up? I avoid routines, do things in no particular order and keep trying new things, trying new hobbies, new foods, new movie types etc. It may not make you want to go to work, but the mental stimulation definitely provide a lil kick in your step, and things seem a lot bearable.

However, there maybe more or different variables in your equation and the key is to try and break it down yourself and simplify it as much as possible. simple problems are easy to solve. This practice of simplifying everything into smaller problems or parts makes every task seem like a breeze at least from a mental approach. give it a try!

Ok, so last night i walked passed a couple of girls as i left my apartment, and then i saw a red phone on the grass outside. So i picked it up walked back into the building hoping to catch em. but they had already entered one of the 8 apartments and i did not know which. so, i decided to call the last contact on the phone and try and find out where she lived so that i could drop off the phone. It was after the call i realized how creepy it might have sounded, some guy calling “claiming” to have found a phone and trying to find out where the owner lives. It sounds like something from a horror movie lol.

So even if i had the best intentions in mind, i kinda felt awkward because of how it appeared and it made me laugh a little. Regardless the guy i called didnt give me a name, so i didnt know which apt to knock on or even the apt number. I dont blame him lol. I decided to just call security to try and drop it off in the lost and found. luckily for me, i on the way back to my apt i heard some girl voices next door, i knocked and it was one of the girls, so i returned the phone.

Most of us were brought up to not trust strangers, but that was when we were kids. right now we are suppose to be able to evaluate a person on the fly from experiences to tag on a “trustworthiness rating”. A lot of our experiences come more from movies than personal experiences for most people. the little event got me thinking, what criteria do we use when we try to trust a stranger, especially if you are not interacting with the person face to face? Because face to face, the key things people use are stereotypes and attractiveness. but if you only hear a voice, what do you base your decisions on? it was just an interesting thought, can a person voice be reassuring? I think that maybe something nice to look into, psychological effect of voice….

there is something just wrong with this infomercial. its just weird lol