Improve your Eyesight Natrually with Simple Shaolin Exercises
Posted by Tim in Convenient Tips for Life, Health, Human Capabilities, The Brain on October 16th, 2009
In ancient China , Shaolin monks developed a fighting style based on the physical characteristics and iconic elements of the personality of the Tiger. They called this Tiger style Kung-Fu. Since a Tiger has very keen eyesight, the monks developed methods of exercising their eyes to improve thier eyesight. These would have been exercises that they trained and developed from a very young age. They would have been performed by eveyone training in the Tiger style regardless of whether they had so-called "20/20 vision". No matter how good you are at something, you can aways become better with more training.
I have been recently practicing the following exercises and have noticed an improvement in my eyesight over just the past couple months.
One exercise was to count the leaves on a far away tree. With meditative patience they would focus in and count hundreds of leaves at a time. (This is a good one to practice in the fall since the leaves are changing colors and you may be staring at leaves quite a bit anyway.) Start up close with some leaves that are easy to make out and count 50 of them. With patience, slowly pick trees that are farther away from you and then slowly increase the number of leaves you count. Work your way up to 200 which will give you a good amount of time with your eyes focused at a distance. Do this once daily.
Another exercise is to focus on an object very close to your face. I usually choose my hand. Get it as close to your eyes as you can while retaining a good focus on it. Look at it for about 2-3 seconds after you’ve fully adjusted your focus on it, and then pick another object that is more than 20 feet away. I generally pick a leaf on a tree or something else that has some fine detail that will allow me to really focus on finer and finer detail. If you pick a flatt wall or something that doesn’t have much texture or detail it will be hard to focus on. Again, look at the object for 2-3 seconds after you have achieved a good focus. Go back and forth between these two objects about 20 times and do this exercise daily.
One Second Meditation Practice. Achieving a Moment of Clarity
Posted by Tim in Convenient Tips for Life on September 4th, 2009
One-hour meditation too much to handle? 20 minutes? 5 minutes got you beat? Here’s a new approach to meditation with one very westernized quality about it. It’s very fast.
This method is less focused on meditation, but more about trying to sit peacefully and achieve a brief moment of clarity, or clarity of presence. This way of thinking comes from Zen philosophy. The idea here is to create an instantaneous state of mind, or state of being wherein your awareness or understanding of your immediate surroundings or situation is increased. Try not to exert effort when attempting this. It will inevitably lead to failure and regret. Failure to do something that you didn’t “try” to do, is not really a failure. If you want it to be a sunny day and it turns out rainy, you did not fail. If it rains, it rains; if it’s sunny, it’s sunny.
Hints to help you achieve a moment of clarity:
1. Focus on your heartbeat until you can feel it pushing the blood throughout all of your arteries.
2. Create a phrase or sentence that describes what it feels like to be alive.
3. Look at your hand and try to understand that no matter what happens in this life, all that’s sure is that you will have this body.
4. Picture yourself from a bird’s eye view. Visualize whatever you’re doing at the moment and zoom out little by little to picture the room, building, trees, street, town, state, country, continent, planet, galaxy, and all of the cosmos.
5. Imagine you have just been born and are seeing all of the things around you for the first time.
6. Do not concentrate, just pay attention.
7. Do something you absolutely love doing. Something that engages your mind and body 100%.
8. Rise to a challenge that is slightly more than you think you are capable of.
9. Breathe silently and listen to the other sounds your body may be making.
10. Focus on your skin until it begins to tingle.
Have a nice day!
How to Prioritize when Prioritizing is not a Priority
Posted by Tim in Convenient Tips for Life, Learning New Things, Productivity on June 30th, 2009
Everyone has something that they want to accomplish or get better at or do more often, and no matter how much we think about it, it just keeps slipping by. Another opportunity to eat healthier or practice a certain piano piece, etc. is trumped by other priorities, other obligations.
Accept that this will happen.
You have priorities. Everyone does, and always will, that’s just part of human nature. Priorities that are higher on the list get done before those that are lower. Sometimes you have control over the priorities list and sometimes you don’t. Priorities come bundled with an inherent level of importance depending on your lifestyle and the elements you cherish.
Increasing the importance of a priority.
If you have something in mind that you have wanted to undertake, but have not been able to find the time for it, there is a way to increase the importance. Generally speaking the items that are a "bigger" part of your life get more attention – the house, kids, job, etc. So with this philosophy, if you make something a larger part of your life, it will inherently become more of a priority.
Make your priorities a hobby!
If you make something a hobby it will become more important to you because of the fact that it has become a larger part of your life. My wife recently became fascinated with eating healthy. She fed that fascination by learning about food from the bottom up. She studied hundreds of healthy foods, read books, blogs, labels and talked to other people with similar minds. She became immersed in this knowledge and has gained an invaluable understanding of what is healthy and why . She made this lower-level priority into a hobby that expanded and consumed spare moments that would otherwise have been used doing other things. Her other priorities didn’t necessarily have to wane to make room for it, but they were simply rearranged to accomodate for it.
The Unruly Mailbox “SpeedPost”
Posted by Tim in Book + Product Reviews on June 3rd, 2009
After far too many hours of putting up a mailbox with the "SpeedPost" this weekend, I have a few words for it. If you’re not familiar with the speed post, it’s basically a metal stake that has a receptacle for a 4×4 beam (mailbox, signpost etc.)
The instructions tell you to take a piece of 4×4 from the mailbox post that you’ve cut off, stick it in the "speedpost" and just pound it into the ground. Well guess what happens when you hit the end of a 4×4 multiple times with a sledge hammer… it splits open and permanently lodges itself into the square post receptacle. I ended up having to drill dozens of holes in the block to loosen it up, with the largest drill bit I have (3/8"), with a cordless drill (which of course only lasts for a dozen holes at a time.. I bent the steel out of the way to try to relieve its hold on the lumber, and then chipped away the fragments with the claw end of a hammer.
About 2 hours later, this is what it looked like:
In the end, the mailbox isn’t all that sturdy anyhow, and it’s not even straight because of all the rocks I hit on the way down. There’s really no good way to go about straightening it other than pulling it out and starting over, hoping you don’t hit anything.
This design is poor to quite poor.
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Avoid Back Pain When Standing for Long Periods
Posted by Tim in Health, Mini Wisdom Nuggets, Understanding Yourself on March 17th, 2009
- Image by nana untel via Flickr
Do you stand for long periods of time hurting your lower back? Many people like to stand up at their desks at work , but if you do, you’ve got to make sure you’re doing it right. Here are a few simple measures you can take to help avoid back pain.
1. Posture! Think of your spine as a stack of blocks, they want to be in a perfectly vertical line or else they will want to fall and your muscles will need to be constantly pulling on them to keep you standing up straight. Your muscles should be very relaxed in a straight posture.
A correct posture should allow you to keep your chest forward, shoulders straight, head up, feet evenly spaced with equal weight on each foot.
2. Don’t lean. If you find yourself leaning up against the counter or workbench or bar, step a couple inches back and stand up straight. By leaning on an object you are natually incurring muscle use.
3. Shoes . Make sure your shoes give you good support. A lot of back trouble can be attributed to lack of arch support in the feet.
4. Stand on a mat. There are plenty of rubber pads you can buy that give your feet and therefore your back a bit of cushion. Factories that require employees to stand up all day almost always use these rubber mats by equipment. You should too! There are mats especially designed to go in your kitchen too; either by the sink or the stove. http://www.matsmatsmats.com
5. Stance . Adjusting your stance, shifting your weight around can be comforting since it temporarily takes strain off of some muscles and puts it on others. But be cautious that you don’t stick yourself in some horrible posture for any substantial amount of time.
6. Adjust the work surface . Make sure that your work surface and everything you are working on is at the correct level and allows for correct posture and comfort. If you are at a desk bring your keyboard up so that your forearms are horizontal; etc. Basically if you can not keep a correct and comfortable posture then you need to adjust something.
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Let Today be Forever Known as the “Inspiration Age”
Posted by Tim in Human Capabilities, Mini Wisdom Nuggets, Spirituality, The Brain on March 4th, 2009
I woke up this morning and the words "Inspiration Age" were ringing in my head. Not sure why, but when I got to thinking about it, akin to the industrial revolution of the 18th & 19th centuries or the Space Age which began in the 50’s, it does stand to reason that the first part of the 2000’s will forever be remembered as the "Inspiration Age".
Our world is on an extremely fast and volatile evolutionary path, and wherever we end up 50 years from now, what we do TODAY will have been the inspiration that crafted it.
In this article I’ve listed what I believe to be the major contributors to today’s inspiration.
"Go Green"
Of course today’s buzzword is "Green". This is getting engineers optimizing existing products and creating new technologies across the board as well as take a closer look at the entire Earth, its processes and their interrelations as a system. But this inspiration is not just limited to engineers, everyone conscientious enough is taking a fresh look at their daily life and coming up with new ways to optimize it that would have less of an environmental impact.
Budding New Technologies
So many technologies are in their infancy right now and there is much more research and learning being done than actual development or commercialization in the fields of cloning, consumer space flight, nano-technology, thought controlled devices and many more.
Revolutions in personal communication devices present an interesting topic for inspiration as well. New developments in everyday devices are revolutionizing how we go about our lives. What this means to me is the combination of all of our cool new gadgets into one tiny little device: Phone, Camera, PDA, Music player, and any other form of communication available “out there”. This has been on the horizon and greatly anticipated ever since cell phones started taking pictures and on the forefront of this effort is the iPhone which has been the first to really nail this. (it sounds to me like everything else pales in comparison – sorry Blackberry users). All of you people (myself included) who have been expecting this product for some time now, have provided a great deal of inspiration and motivation for product development engineers. Thanks everyone! From all of us.
These devices allow creative minds to focus on creativity, drawing inspiration and creating inspiration rather than organization of thoughts or communication.
Life Hackers
There seems to be a large presence of people out there who have become very interested in optimizing every facet of life. Relationships, chores, work, parenting, making money… or just day-to-day tasks – hence the creation of this blog. ☺ I think this is a fascinating concept and, like the convenient devices discussed above, the idea is that if you can optimize certain tasks so that you don’t need to spend as much doing them, you have more time to spend focusing on the more enjoyable things in life. Enjoyable things inherently offer more inspiration to people because you can generally allow yourself to contribute 100% of your focus to these things. If you are attempting to enjoy something against your natural instinct you most likely won’t allow yourself to be completely immersed in it.
Another benefit to "life hacking" is that it offers an entirely new subject to scrutinize – The optimization of life itself. This is completely new and very creative in itself. It provides inspiration for the scrutinization of a vast number of other subjects that we currently take for granted or accept for what they are.
"Millennials"
Otherwise known as the Net Generation, Generation Y, Echo Boomers, and iGeneration, Millenials are basically the generation following the baby boomers. Many business owners are afraid of Millennials because they are known to expect too much of the work place and they have the desire to shape their lives according to their own personal schedule and goals as opposed to committing to a life and goals dictated by a company’s progress. I can understand why this would be frightening to an employer, unless of course the employer is, themselves, a part of the millennial generation or at least understands them.
This leads to an exciting evolution of all businesses adapting this millennial mindset and being able to happily accommodate a world that moves faster than ever. Daily market changes, trends and expectations will be accommodated much easier and with greater success.
Recession
Life is extremely tenacious, we’ve been reminded of this throughout 300 million years of evolution. When life struggles it pulls out the heavy artillery. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, if you will… In our current economic state there are a lot of business tactics that are being used to ensure a company’s success through this hazardous economic environment. There is creativity being used everywhere in business right now to build stronger practices and keep companies alive. This will undoubtedly contribute revelations on heartier methods to the western industrial world that can be used in the future that will better accommodate a more diverse economic environment.
A New Awakening
This is along the same lines as the life hackers and millennials. Overall, it seems like today’s society is becoming more aware of the intricacies of daily life and is making "living happily" more of a priority. I recently read A New Earth – Awakening to your Life’s Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. It is an amazing book about the new spiritual revolution of today’s world. It coincides directly with the rise of eastern religion in the west and life hackers, and living happily. As stated above, when we are enjoying what we’re doing and living contently overall, it is easy to become completely immersed in all that we do. This then makes it easier to draw inspiration and create inspiration for all others.
Sharing of Ideas
Digital mediums such as blogs, e-books, networks, social groups, etc, make sharing ideas and knowledge a snap. This is pretty simple, the more ideas, the more inspiration available.
Cheers, to the inspiration age! It’s a lot of hard work that we’ve got to do now to create a better future for everyone.
What do you think? Is this possible? 50 years from now, what will you be calling today’s years?
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How to Eat your Snack Slowly and Make it Last
Posted by Tim in Health, Over-Eating on February 20th, 2009
Too many times I take out the 10am snack only to find that it has disappeared by 10:05 and I can’t even place exactly what it tasted like.. This has happened to you, no doubt? Here’s a list of tips to help you slow down, enjoy, appreciate, and actually make your snacks last. Eating one snack more slowly will help you avoid or at least postpone your cravings. (See questions to ask yourself when cravings hit )
1. Reward yourself – Use food only as a reward for being productive or accomplishing something. Don’t go crazy though, you don’t deserve a reward for everything , you know..
2. Keep busy – If you’re simply busier, hypothetically, you won’t have as much time to be snacking. Read my post on how to stay motivated and on task at work .
3. Clean out your mouth – Between each bite make sure your mouth is clean. Get all the extra goodies out from between your teeth and from all of the little places where food gets stuck. Take a sip of water if you want.
4. Portion control – Bring only as much food as you think you need to eat. Only buy the small bag of chips this time; only pack one handful of pretzels instead of three. Note that this is probably less that you would want to eat, but not more than you need to eat to stay content.
5. Bring a variety – Something like trail mix (it’s good for you!) And eat only one thing at a time. One peanut, one raisin.. Take your time deciding which piece it will be next. Consult your taste buds and consider all of your options before making the BIG DECISION! Too much of the same thing can make you complacent and your appreciation for each bite will be reduced.
6. Exploit your own discomfort – Put your snack just out of your reach so that you are required to lean over or get out of your chair or otherwise inconvenience yourself in order to grab a bite.
7. Appreciation – Notice how much different a peanut tastes when you eat one (or one half) at a time as opposed to a handful. How many different flavors do you notice? What do you notice from the shape? How is one peanut different from another? How does the flavor change as you slowly eat your way through the peanut?
8. Include all senses – Smell your snack or look at it closely before putting a piece in your mouth. This goes along with appreciation. Chinese and Tibetan monks have even been known to listen to their food before consuming it. The idea here is that it makes each bite feel larger and more important.
9. No one can eat just one? – Take the challenge.
10. Set a timer – Say you want your one little bag of peanuts to last for 3 hours. Estimate how many peanuts are in the bag, divide that number by two. Divide 3 hours by the previous number you got, and that means at that interval you are allowing yourself to eat 2 peanuts. IE, if I had 24 peanuts (a handful) I could eat 2 of them every 5 minutes and they would last for an hour. Use a timer on your watch, phone, computer, etc.
As I wrote this list I made a couple handfuls of trailmix last for an excess of 3 hours. And I can still taste every bite! It was great. I challenge you to give it a try. And let me know how it went!
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10 Tips on How to Stay Motivated at Work
Posted by Tim in Convenient Tips for Life on February 18th, 2009
You’ve had the "oh-man, I-don’t-feel-like-I’m-doing-anything-meaningful-at-work-and-can’t-bring-myself-to-stay-on-task-for-the-life-of-me" blues. I know, so have I.
No matter what your job is, it is most likely important that you have it, if not for the community or the planet, at least for the survival of you and your family. So whether or not you actually find the immediate task at hand entertaining or otherwise captivating, you must convince yourself that it is worth the battle if not for the sole purpose of your own survival.
Oh yeah, and if you really don’t like your job and think you could do better, have more fun, contribute more to society at another job, by all means, QUIT and get another job! But that’s a topic for another post…
If you do, in fact, enjoy your job (as I do) and feel that it is the right place for you to be right now, but sometimes have trouble staying on task or motivating yourself, I’ve come up with a list of little tricks I’ve tried to keep up a good work flow and avoid the bosses raised eyebrow that says: "Really, what is your purpose here?"
1. Make a to-do list. Write all of your tasks down on a piece of PAPER; not on the computer or in your PDA. Something that will remain right in front of your face no matter what you are doing.
2. Listen to music. But not just any music, and certainly not your favorite music (that can be distracting) find the right music to motivate you. I find that I work best to fast music with no lyrics. I also find Japanese drums to be invigorating, and there’s always the old stand-by: Iron Maiden. Great for productivity.
3. Play games with yourself. Get in touch with your inner child and make believe that it is your duty to save the world and the only way to do it is to press a button at the bottom of your stack of papers (or something else relevant to your tasks).
4. Compete with peers. Maybe not outwardly, not if it would be awkward, but play a game where at the weekly meeting you have 2 more things to report than everyone else in the room. Or maybe you have assembled more product, or stocked more boxes than anyone else.
5. Stretch. Take a few minutes a few times a day and do some stretching. Feeling relaxed and avoiding fatigue is critical to getting good work done. Read this article on Eye Exercises that can be done at your desk. And here is a link to some stretching you can do without leaving your desk. (and here )
6. Try standing up. Stand up at your desk for a new perspective and a better posture. Read Try Standing up at your Desk for more info on how this can be beneficial.
7. Include yourself in more tasks – Force yourself to partake. Take on a challenge and give people something to expect from you. If there are short term results that people are expecting, it will be much more difficult to slack off.
8. Offer your services in other areas – Carry water jugs, refill the soap in the bathroom, fix someone else’s computer, etc. IE: Take on some task that is not technically yours. This will give you a little variety and should make it easier to come back to your position with a new perspective.
9. Take a "Dry Bath". This is a technique that originated in ancient Chinese Kung-Fu. Rub your hands together vigorously until the palms heat up. Immediately rub your arms, shoulders, head, torso and legs. This is said to be good for blood flow, metabolism and internal organs. I find that it is also useful in waking yourself up or bringing you into the present moment.
10. Take a "Brain Bath". Also a concept from ancient China, a "brain bath" is removing yourself from an arduous environment and giving your senses something more soothing to experience. This can be listening to birds or a stream, looking at artwork or flowers, petting an animal or otherwise giving pleasure to your senses. This is good for invigorating the functions of the brain. Upon returning to work you may find that a portion of the dullness of your tasks has been eradicated.
There may be another list a little later since this was kind of fun. But for now, let me know if you use any of these or if I missed any big ones for you.
How to Save on Gas – Some Quick Tips
Posted by Tim in Convenient Tips for Life, Energy Saving Tips on February 15th, 2009
Thankfully, gas isn’t the price is was in ‘08, but it’s on the rise and will undoubtedly spike fairly high again and again. Oh yeah, and then there’s the whole natural resources thing to think about… And pollution.. So no matter how you look at it, using less gas is a good thing, for you, for everyone around you and for your children.
I’ve put together a list of simple tips, many of which you’ve probably heard in the past, but hopefully some will be new to you.
1. Don’t drive.. duh, great tip… This will not increase your mpg, but will increase your dpg (days per gallon). If you can consolidate many errands into one trip you’ll save time and gas.
2. Run errands in low-traffic hours. Sitting at lights or in stop-and-go traffic is basically like pouring your gas out the window.
3. Think about the friction on your brake pads whenever you stop. The heat they generate is 100% counterproductive — By design, of course, but think about if you just coasted to a stop every time, how much further you could drive on the same amount of gas. I agree that’s not really practical, but just avoid over-braking.
4. The chemical energy present in gasoline is converted into kinetic energy in the form of momentum of the large mass you call your car. Come to a stop more slowly to conserve that kinetic energy.
5. Use neutral . Instead of coasting while your car is in gear shift to neutral to eliminate the need to overcome the force required to turn the engine. You’ll coast a lot further with the same amount of momentum, plus you’ll be running the engine at a much lower RPM.
6. We all know, no "jack-rabbit starts" but if you can plan a route that avoids as much acceleration time as possible that will help. Pick a route with few stop lights, pedestrian crosswalks, moose crossings.. etc.
7. Fill your tank during the coldest part of the day when gasoline is densest. Pumps charge for volume not density.
8. Keep your tires inflated to the maximum inflation pressure published on the sidewall.
9. Use the terrain. Use downhill sections to help you speed up. Slow down on uphill sections. Isn’t that what you would do on a bike? And why? To conserve energy right? If it’s easier for you on a bike, it’s easier for your car as well.
10. Remove ski racks and luggage racks unless you’re using them. Aerodynamics plays a large role in mileage.
11. Remove any flags and try using stickers instead.
12. Otherwise make your car more aerodynamic. See this website for some great tips on how to do that. Like lowering your car, adding fairings, changing antennae, etc.
13. Lighten up your vehicle. Remove unnecessary weight from the trunk, or the truck bed. Again, think about the poor guy on the bicycle, pulling an extra rider or even an extra 20% of the total weight is gonna to suck..
14. Drive slower. Once you get up into highway cruising speeds, your need to overcome wind resistance is greatly increased. If possible stick to 40-50 mph to avoid this wind drag.
15. Keep up your vehicle. Keeping your vehicle running smooth will contribute to better gas mileage. Typical efficiency is about 20-40%, which means that 60-80% of the gas you buy is NOT working to move your car.
16. Run your car on water. There are many skeptics, but I’ve got faith this will catch on. See for yourself.
17. Give the other guy a break. Don’t make other people stop quick or accelerate fast. Their gas (and frustration) is costing you too. Maybe not in dollars, but in air/life quality.
18. Shut off the engine if you know you’ll be sitting still for more than 20 seconds. While it’s not great to stop and start your car all the time, sitting idly you’re getting zero mpg.
19. Park in the first spot you find. Drive less, walk more!
20. Use online tools to find the best price . Sites like www.GasBuddy.com will give you a list of all the daily prices in your area. Remember not to drive too far out of the way to get your deal though!
21. Wait to fill the tank . Only fill up when your tank gets fairly low. This will give you more driving time with less weight in the tank. Less weight = better mileage.
22. Fill the tank only halfway. If you have a large tank, and if it works for you try only filling the tank halfway. Each gallon of gas is approx 6 lbs of extra weight. If you don’t need it, don’t carry it around.
23. Install a gas mileage gauge . Monitoring your driving habits can make you more aware of what helps and what doesn’t. While many hybrids have a MPG gauge built-in, ScanGauge has a gauge you can install into your car that will give you a readout of your current MPG. Keep an eye on this gauge and make it a goal to raise that value! Alternatively, just calculate your mileage by heand and keep tally.
24. Adjust your work hours to avoid those heavy traffic times. Keep from sitting in stop-and-go traffic.
25. Don’t top off the tank. Gas expands on warm days and can leak out.
26. Look ahead . Instead of just watching the car in front of you and hitting the brakes when they do, look two or more cars ahead and anticipate traffic patterns so that you can avoid sudden unexpected stops and keep your velocity fairly uniform.
Help me out and add your two cents to the list in the comments!
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Did You Know? #9: Facial Emotions
Posted by Tim in Did You Know? on February 12th, 2009
Humans recognize the emotions of others better by observing the left side of the face rather than the right.
