Chocolate for Breakfast and 6 Other Simple Ways to Be Happier Each Day Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions. ~Dalai Lama You’re not alone in your search for it. Happiness is an elusive thing for many people. What would happen if we began to take joy in little, meaningful activities each and every day? Here is a list of really simple things you can enjoy in some capacity that will make your day and your life a lot happier. 1. Sounds amazing doesn’t it? 2. What a great way to start the day. The toasty aromas that waft through my house every morning are somehow comforting. 3. Along the same lines as coffee, a great cup of tea in the afternoon is a soothing way to transition into the latter part of the day. Sounds like something you can feel good about drinking. 4. You see it on all kinds of lists. Exercise makes you feel better for a number of reasons. On top of that, try going outside. Why do you think people get cranky if they’re stuck inside for too long? 5. Satisfy your sweet tooth. It’s almost too good to be true. 6. 7.
Life Skill - Assertiveness What is Assertiveness? Assertiveness is the ability to honestly express your opinions, feelings, attitudes, and rights, without undue anxiety, in a way that doesn't infringe on the rights of others. Where does Non-Assertive Behavior come from? Many of us are taught that we should always please and/or defer to others, that it is not nice to consider our own needs above those of others, or that we shouldn't "make waves", that if someone says or does something that we don't like, we should just be quiet and try to stay away from that person in the future. Why is Assertiveness important? If you don't know how to be assertive, you might experience: Depression -- Anger turned inward, a sense of being helpless, hopeless, or of having no control over your life.Resentment -- Anger at others for manipulating or taking advantage of you.Frustration -- Why did I allow that to happen? Most people find it easier to be assertive in some situations than in others. Is Assertiveness always the best way to go?
How the Color of Your Office Impacts Productivity (Infographic) If your office walls are painted dull gray -- the cold color of warships, concrete and cubicles -- it’s time for a makeover. A recent University of Texas study found that bland gray, beige and white offices induced feelings of sadness and depression, especially in women. Men, on the other hand, experienced similarly gloomy feelings in purple and orange workspaces. Similar scientific studies have shown that colors don’t just change our moods, they also profoundly impact our productivity, for better and for worse. Related: How to Transform Your Workspace With Color Low-wavelength colors, like restful green and calming blue -- two of the most common colors in Mother Nature’s palette -- improve efficiency and focus. Red, a high-wavelength color, is active, intense and alarming at times. Meanwhile mellow yellow, often viewed by color psychologists as the shade of optimism, is energetic and fresh. Related: Improve Your Office's Productivity by Boosting Employees' Sleep Quality Click to Enlarge
How stress affects your body - Sharon Horesh Bergquist Let’s take a closer look at how the stress response works. When your brain senses danger, your amygdala, the part of your brain that helps with emotional processing, sends an alarm signal to your hypothalamus. Acting as command central, your hypothalamus activates your sympathetic nervous system. This part of your autonomic nervous system leads to the release of adrenaline (also known as epinephrine) from your adrenal glands into your blood stream. All this happens in a split second. After adrenaline subsides, the second phase of your stress response kicks in. There are two parts to your stress response—turning it on and turning it off. Without the latter relaxation phase of the stress response, stress can spiral into a chronic state. Stress can even take years off your life. Fortunately, you can dampen your stress response by changing how you perceive a stressful event.
GANDHI RESIST NOT EVIL Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born in 1869 in Porbandar, an Indian seaside-town north of Bombay. In 1888 he came to Britain to study law. Here he read some of the Bible for the first time and was particularly impressed by the Sermon on the Mount with its advice to "resist not evil". He returned to India in 1891 to work as a lawyer but he was unsuccessful because he was shy, yet unwilling to be pushed about. Gandhi joined with his fellow-Indians in working for their rights, and it was in this struggle that he developed the nonviolent techniques he was to use later in India. In 1907 he began a campaign against the laws that made Indians register if they wanted to live in South Africa. 3,000 Indians publicly burnt their registration cards. Gandhi returned to India, an experienced political campaigner. SALT MARCH Gandhi became involved in campaigns helping the Indian people. The second stage of the campaign was to try and take over the salt works at Dharasana.
Setting SMART Goals for Students and Employees | Administrate Teaching students to set goals for themselves is not a skill that is typically taught in most educational situations, yet it is a valuable life long discipline. Most managers will agree that in order to be successful one must begin with the end in mind. Both students and employees can therefore benefit from learning how to set goals. The old adage of “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!” Set SMART Goals A helpful guide to setting goals is found within the acronym SMART. Specific Goals need to be well defined and easy to understand. Example: I want to get in shape, so I will run a marathon with Bob, in Boston, on July 21st. This example answers our five “W” questions and can be understand by anyone. Measurable Clear goals should have ways to track progress, both for motivation and for accountability. How Much? Any other quantifiable factor is fine for measurement. Example: I will follow Hal Higdon’s marathon training schedule each week, and look to finish the marathon in under 4:30.
7 Cities That Are Starting To Go Car-Free After over a hundred years of living with cars, some cities are slowly starting to realize that the automobile doesn't make a lot of sense in the urban context. It isn't just the smog or the traffic deaths; in a city, cars aren't even a convenient way to get around. Traffic in London today moves slower than an average cyclist (or a horse-drawn carriage). Commuters in L.A. spend 90 hours a year stuck in traffic. A U.K. study found that drivers spend 106 days of their lives looking for parking spots. Now a growing number of cities are getting rid of cars in certain neighborhoods through fines, better design, new apps, and, in the case of Milan, even paying commuters to leave their car parked at home and take the train instead. Unsurprisingly, the changes are happening fastest in European capitals that were designed hundreds or thousands of years before cars were ever built. Here are a handful of the leaders moving toward car-free neighborhoods. Madrid Paris Chengdu Hamburg Helsinki Milan
How Chronic Stress Leads to Hormone Imbalance - The Paleo Mom When we think about the effects of chronic stress, we think of cortisol. We think of weight gain, especially around the middle. We think of headaches and depression and anxiety. We think of poor sleep quality. Those of us who are very knowledgeable about health and nutrition think of increased cardiovascular disease risk. Not many of us think about PMS, low libido, heavy or irregular periods, or amenorrhea. As you’ve probably heard the likes of Robb Wolf and Diane Sanfilippo say “writing a health book is one of the worst things you can do for your own health“. So, I asked for help. I knew something was broken that diet and lifestyle couldn’t easily fix. We ran a battery of tests. What did surprise me was that I also had hormone imbalance. So, how did that happen? What is the link between stress and sex hormones? And what happens when you’re chronically stressed? And what happens when your sex hormones are out of whack? The HPA Axis The HPG Axis This is an oversimplification. [cc_h_line]
4 Common Shopping Fallacies and How to Avoid them | INTO MIND As some of you may know, my background lies in Psychology, specifically social cognition, which is the study of how we process information to make sense of the world. Today’s post is going to be a quick intro to one specific area of social cognition that had a huge positive influence on the way I shop: heuristics. Heuristics are what psychologists call all those little (mostly subconscious) mental shortcuts we use to make decisions in our everyday life. In this post I’ll cover the four most common shopping fallacies, the psychological principles behind them and what you can do to avoid them. Let’s start with perhaps the number one shopping fallacy: A higher price equals a higher quality. 1. Sure, in an ideal world every manufacturer would use the extra money they get from higher retail prices to produce a higher quality product. 2. Prevention (I’ll buy anything with Alexa Chung’s face on it) We are especially likely to succumb to the power of social proof under two conditions: 1. 2.