How to Sleep (My experience)

Sleep?

As we all know, sleeping is incredibly important to us in not just helping us in rejuvenating our body and mind but some research also show that sleep is related in storing our memory, rebalance our hormones, growth and the list goes on. But knowing the importance of sleep does not make us sleep better or faster as we cannot force ourselves to sleep anytime we want it. But there are few tips to 'guide' your body to prepare for sleep naturally and improve your sleeping quality so read on!

5 tips to remember to sleep better

Here are the 5 things that I personally apply in my life to ensure that I have better sleeping quality so that I can wake up energetic. By applying them, I get to improve my quality of life, feel happy in general and looking forward to the next day.

Avoid eating just before sleep 

What this means is simply avoiding supper. Sure, eating sometimes may make you feel drowsy and it becomes easier to sleep but it is not guarantee that you can sleep in a full tummy. Try your best to control your urge to snack on something 1 to 2 hours before your sleep. This really helps your body to prepare for sleeping. Of course, drinking water is fine but absolutely no sugary food, they will make you feel energetic! Avoid eating late night also comes with a benefit, you can intentionally practice intermittent fasting until your next meal (breakfast) and allowed your body used that energy storage of yours! For more on eating, do check on my post. 

Do not do any rigorous exercise 

Doing some stretches or slow-paced activity like yoga may be beneficial in relaxing your body but not the extreme ones where they will caused your body to tense up and unable to relax for a certain amount of time, causing you almost impossible to sleep. While I know that we all have busy schedule in the morning and only have the time to do some workout at night, I am only saying that you should not do it immediately before sleeping, just put a few hours gap before sleeping and you are good to go. If you are interested on how I turn from chubby to fit with my workout mindset, do check out my post.

Meditate

I am sure that you know meditation not just making your body relaxed but also your mind too! It allows you to focus your attention towards a certain thing or in other words, mindfulness. This will allow your mind to let go of unnecessary thoughts while gradually relaxes your mind. Through meditation, you can also focus on every inch of your body and exert effort to relax them. Starting from top of your head slowly gliding down to your toes which will result in your body to be fully relaxed and ready to sleep. However, to actually meditate despite all the distractions and noise around you can be hard. Hence you can read up on my post to learn my guide.

Avoid blue screen 

Gadgets like personal computer, smartphone and television all produced light so we can see the image or visual on their screen. While not going into technical stuff, light essentially is made up of several spectrums of electromagnetic waves and blue light is one of them. Blue light is found to affect our sleeping through interrupting the production of melatonin, a hormone important to induce sleep therefore affecting the circadian cycle. Many applications allow you selectively cut off or reduce blue light on your gadgets at night so download them to sleep better. Or better yet, turn off all blue-light emitting sources and do other beneficial activities like reading a book, talking physically with family members or playing board games!

Try cold shower

Yes, you did not see wrong, cold shower helps to bring down your body temperature to the point that your body is ready to sleep. You ask that not everyone can do this? Well, everybody sure can! When you first enter the shower, you can turn the water temperature up however, when you are almost finishing up, turn the temperature down gradually till the heater is off, at least in my case. Then, try to stay for a few minutes until you are slowly adapted to the cold shower, in which your body temperature will surely go down by a little. Do this often and you will see this actually helps in the long run.

Conclusion

Well, there you go, the 5 things I do every time at night to sleep better. Doing just one thing may not help at much but adding one thing at a time will surely help to improve your sleeping quality. Take it slow, be consistent and make it a long-term habit so that you will proud of yourself in the future.

How to Workout (My Way)

Working out?

With the year coming to an end, we all have some kind of new year resolutions and working out to achieve your ideal body type or a strong and healthy is one of them. However in reality, the thoughts to exercise are often short-lived and we are again back to square one. I am sure everyone have experienced this at one point in their life including me so rest assured, you are not alone. I was once a chubby kid in my childhood years and I have come a long way in achieving a fit body that I can be proud of. So I am writing this to share how I workout, well not the type of exercise and anything like that as I am not a fitness expert but to share about the mindset that I practiced.

5 principles to hold

I will be sharing my top 5 principles that motivate me to start working out and continue to do so over the years. Do not worry, it is not something difficult to practice and in fact, once you get into the cycle, it is very hard NOT to workout anymore.

Find your spark.

First thing first, remember strongly what make you have the thought to start working out. It can be anything like new year resolutions but for me, the ONE spark that really push me to do the first push-up is that people around me started laughing at me for how chubby I am. While it is not to the point of bullying, it hurts my pride, a lot. Another point to add to the fuel is that I want to impress the girl I like. So with that, I did the first push-up and sit-up and I was exhausted. But do not worry, see the next point.

Start small.

Yes, start small. It is not a shame at all that you can only do one push-up or one sit-up, I have been there, so do everybody else. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" is the quote that I keep to myself. You cannot run a marathon right off the bat without learning to walk. Starting small is better than not starting at all. Once you started, then only you think plans to improve further.

Consistency is key.

Next important factor is consistency. This goes without saying, you will not see much changes in the span of a day, a week or even a month. Without consistency, you will simply go back to your previous self. Motivation makes you start but it will not be the factor that makes you to keep working out, you need something deeper, something more meaningful to you. It may be developing a passion, a need to have strong body to fight diseases or like me, to change for the better and regain my pride. You can experience with different goal in mind and stick with the one with the greatest 'energy'.

Do not beat yourself if you break the chain. 

I know there will be times where we simply cannot go on and must take a break. Experiencing a pain and being ill are some of the reasons so it is fine to break the chain. But just remember not to stray too far from your intended workout day and do not make it an excuse every time you break it. Focused in continuing your streak rather than blaming yourself is more crucial during this stage. Once you started the streak, you will find new resolution to continue the chain until one day, it is simply too difficult to break the chain anymore.

Reward yourself. 

You heard me right! Reward yourself properly after reaching your workout goals is also important to working out. Work must be properly compensated only then people will do. Praise yourself in front of the mirror, get yourself your favorite snack or buy a movie ticket, anything that motivates you further. For me, it is simply gaming. If I reached my goal, I give myself extra time to play a game. Varying the type of rewards also helps so try it out for yourself.

Conclusion

These 5 principles are what in my mindset and they are important to form a workout cycle that is hard to break. Taking the first step to workout is always the hardest. But once you acknowledged this, you already clear the first hurdle. You can do it and remember, everybody else is also struggling to take the first step so you can be the pioneer the pave your own path to working out.

How to Eat (Personal Plan)

Eat healthily?

This post serves to share my tips on healthy eating and I am not expert in any sense, I just found the diet that best suited life style and I enjoyed it. I am sure everyone have different diet plan and some may face eating problems that I may not be able to help. Do note that you can always approach nutritionist and dietician as they will provide you with the best advice based on your body type, metabolism rate, allergies and other important factors. With that being said, let's get right into it!

General considerations

I am a student and cooking is not my passion, and hence I do not cook often. Thus, I may not say things like cooking is best for you, well in fact it is but here I am sharing things other than cooking healthy food that keep me healthy (at least I feel healthy). I often eat out at the cafeteria, almost every day and I do cook when they closed on weekends.

Factors that I considered

Here are the top 5 factors that I incorporated into my diet plan and I try my best to follow my plan whenever possible. 

Eat consistently 

In my dictionary, eating consistently means having your meal at a consistent time, every day. I practiced 3 meals per day and I generally have my breakfast at 8 am, lunch at 12 pm and dinner at 6 pm. Eating consistently helped me stay full throughout the day and this programmed my body to be hungry at certain time but active at non-meal time. Sure, we can be busy sometimes that we skip our meal but try not to stray too far from your normal meal time, you can always find time to snack on some food to replenish energy. For me, when I know I am going to be busy at certain time, I will be sure to pack some food (biscuits or bread) so that I will not have excuses to skip a meal.

Keep in mind the type and amount of nutrient you need 

When you cook, this is easy to keep track of as you control the amount of food you will prepare to achieve a balanced diet. But as a student that rarely cook, I often buy food at the cafeteria. I have the option to choose what to take and in what portion. We all learn what the food pyramid is and I picture that as my guide when taking my meal, getting enough vegetables, protein and carbs in a plate. Portion is another thing to note. We may like certain food so we will take that more and avoid the food that we disliked, in which I think will lead to an unbalanced diet. Of course you can vary the amount of food intake to see whether it will last you till the next meal. One tip from me is never eat too full as it makes you drowsy and hampers your ability to focus.

Drink plain water 

Try to only drink plain water and avoid other sugary drinks. I know some of us may need coffee (including me) but you can always choose not to add in creamer or sugar, just black coffee. If not, 1 small cup of coffee with milk and sugar is still acceptable so try to limit your intake. Alternatively, drink tea (just plain tea). Do not get me to started on soft drinks. REPLACE them with water. I do not really like soft drinks as they are too sweet (and vibrant) for me but I cannot say everyone should be like me. What I always do is to avoid going to the corridor where soft drinks are sold to avoid temptation. And yes warm water is preferred than cold water.

Control your cravings for junk food 

We know junk food is named junk food because... they do not provide much essential nutrients to us but generally just have a lot of sugar, salt and fat. Sometimes I do find myself wanting to eat something sweet whenever I study. In that case, I always have some kind of snacks to keep me going. Do not get me wrong, it is not about eliminating sweets and snacks at all costs as that will make your cravings worse in the long run but to keep the intake low and gradually decrease it till you do not see them as temptation anymore. One thing before I take my snacks is to look at the nutrition fact, it scares me how much a small bag of chips packed so much salt and fat so I will remind myself to keep the amount low. You can a step further by looking at the nutrition fact at the supermarket before buying, I avoided a lot of junk food this way, plus I saved a lot of money too!

Reduce fast food 

This goes without saying, a lot of fat, salt and sugar are used in fast food. In Malaysia, fast food are comparatively more expensive than the typical food I eat so I have another factor to avoid eating fast food but in some countries, it may be cheaper to choose fast food over healthy alternatives. Hence, you can choose 'healthier' options on the fast food menu. For example, opt for chicken breast than wing or thigh, choose plain wedges without the cheesy sauce or pick ala carte meal without the side dish or soft drink. Every little actions helped in the long run.

Conclusion 

As you read the article, you can see I am not that strict on my diet plan and I do reward myself sometimes (do not worry, I can assure you I am on the fit side). I always take care of my weight and food intake and the key is moderation. Every thing is a poison if the dose or intake is not right, in a chemistry sense. So you do not need to punish yourself for eating that sweet but remember you are responsible for your every action you took and that small actions add up in the future.

How to Meditate (My tips!)

Meditation?

For me, meditation is about mindfulness, where I completely focused my mind in a particular thing and not let my mind wander elsewhere. I once had a wrong impression that meditation is all about emptying your mind and let your mind rest. But actually, your mind does not rest. We are constantly thinking of something, especially in our fast-paced life, we have so many things to keep track of. Hence, meditating narrowed down the thing we should prioritized at the moment, which is the present.

Why you should do it

Now there are many reasons to meditate and here they are! When you meditate, you can relieve your stress by not thinking excessively and just for the moment, let go of stress-causing thoughts. When you do this, you are giving yourself more time to grasp and assess stressful situations better. You can also get into the mood to sleep faster and improve your sleeping quality. Through meditation, you are able to calm yourself emotionally and allowed you to control your emotions. Physical health benefits include reducing resting blood pressure and resting heart beat. 

Here's how

Finally, we get into the process! Here I prepared 4 simple steps for you to grasp on.

First, find a suitable space. 

It can be on your bed, on a yoga mat or on the grass. As long as you feel comfortable, anywhere is possible! But not just that, there should be no distractions especially your smartphone near you, at least for your first time. If you meditate long enough and gain experience in doing so, this become less of a concern to you as you can meditate anywhere, anytime even with distractions around you (in the street, in a traffic jam or in a room full of people)! 

Next, get into position.

Just like choosing a suitable space, you will also need to get into a comfortable position to start meditating. You may start with a typical sitting position but there are others like lying down, standing or even walking if you want to try. Just remember, whichever position makes you relax, choose that.

Then, focus you mind.

Now the key to meditation is again, not about keeping your mind blank but to focus in one thing in your thoughts. One thing you can focused on is your breathing, count your breath one by one, in... out... in... out... in... out...  This is also what I always do when I meditate but in addition, I focused on my nose too! I feel how my breath enter into my body through my nostrils, slowly reaching my lungs (just imagine how it enters your lungs is fine). Besides, you can think about your daily life: what time did you wake up, what did you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner, who did you talk to, what other events happened today etc.

Also control your breathing.

Another thing to keep in mind is your breathing. Control the rate of breathing to be as smooth and slow as possible. You can do this while you are counting your breaths. Each time when you count, lengthen the time of the count. This will gradually relaxes your whole body and when it does, you enter into state of mindfulness and relaxation.

Extra tips

Have some music. 

Some people prefer to meditate in complete silence, but having some kind of soft music soothes certain people (like me!) which makes them better at focusing their thoughts rather than making the mind wander endlessly. I recommend listening to Lo-Fi music which you can easily find on Youtube.

Change the place you meditate. 

Of course you should do it in a comfortable place with a comfortable body position like for example meditating in the park where you are most close to the nature might help you train your mindfulness. In my case, I like to meditate on my bed in a crossed-leg sitting position.

Vary your meditating style.

There are many styles of medication that you can practice. You can incorporate some movements like how it is done in Tai Chi and Yoga. You can also chant a mantra or engage in prayers. The possibilities are endless. There is no one true of style meditation so meditate however you like as long as you achieve what you intent to!

Do it together.

You can also try to meditate with your loved ones, friends or just with anyone in a group. Sometimes, this can help to motivate each other to meditate better. Plus, you can form deeper bond with your loved ones! You can think of your loved ones while you meditate, how did you spent the time with them, what are the activities you did with them and perhaps how you are going to spend quality time with them in the future.

Conclusion 

I know this may all sound tedious and long however there is no need to get everything right in the first run, or better do you it your style! These are my methods and they helped me get into the 'zone' but it may be different for you so be creative and explorative and most importantly enjoy the process. Thank you!