In our everyday life, we’re usually doing things in seemingly the easiest and most rational
way, yet we face the same problems repeatedly.
Because there’s no way to bounce back from not getting enough sleep; task management
doesn’t seem to work at all; and how in the world could you make a paper cut less
painful?
Check this out:
1) It’s hard to fall asleep again after going to the bathroom at night.
Wanna know why?
That’s because you switched on the lights to see what you’re doing.
Our brain is trained to think that the light naturally means morning.
Even though you’ve only slept for a couple of hours, your body will think it’s time
to wake up.
The production of the sleep hormone, melatonin, can actually be suppressed by exposure to
light.
The solution is easy – you need to close one eye on your way to the toilet and back.
This doesn’t allow as much light in, tricking your brain into thinking it’s not that bright
yet, and you can keep sleeping!
Or simply have a dim night light already in the bathroom.
2) Stumbling on things in the dark.
If you decide to fix this whole ‘light means morning’ issue radically, or there’s simply
no way to conveniently turn the lights on, you’re probably going to stumble on something.
Loud noises also don’t help anyone get a good night’s sleep, so the best you can
do to save yourself is to move your eyes rapidly in the dark.
We’re naturally prone to see moving objects clearer, so it’s much easier to see in the
dark while you move your sight from one thing to another.
Of course the obvious answer would be to remove the stuff on the floor before bedtime so you
don’t trip on it later.
But that might be asking too much.
3) Losing weight in your sleep.
Sometimes it’s hard to make time for exercise in a day, or you just feel too tired after
a long day of studying or working to lift weights.
This isn’t that big of a problem; you have nothing to blame yourself for.
A good diet and healthy sleep will make up for it with a little extra on top.
Our metabolism keeps working when we sleep.
On average, you burn around 500 calories overnight if you get 8 hours of sleep, which is the
recommended time anyways.
You can boost this process by drinking a glass of water right before going to bed – this
way, you’ll also wake up feeling light and fresh, and needing to go to the bathroom.
But be careful not to oversleep, or eat before bed.
It could reverse the effect.
And if that’s not enough for you, you may want to try lowering the temperature in your
bedroom or get rid of warm pajamas – we lose more calories when we sleep in comfortably
cool surroundings.
4) You can cheer yourself up at any time… forcefully.
This one may sound really strange, but have you ever tried to force a smile for a couple
of hours straight?
Don’t laugh, it really helps.
Try to do this on a particularly bad day, and in the evening you’ll see that it eventually
became effortless, and you’d been smiling the rest of the day without even noticing.
Your brain will naturally connect the smile with happiness and good thoughts, and you’ll
keep this attitude for the rest of the day.
5) Want to sort things out?
Spend a day just making yourself attractive.
I too sometimes feel like I can’t catch up with the list of stuff I need to do in
my life.
These days you feel like the least important thing in the world is how you look.
But seriously, all you might be missing from time to time is just a little bit of self-confidence
and appreciation.
Believe me, you can deal with everything else if you devote just one day on taking care
of your looks.
Combine it with some reasonable shopping, which is a good means of stress release.
Then take a warm bath with aroma oils, get all dressed up, and you’ll instantly feel
capable of anything.
6) Forget about task management apps.
They don’t work as well as you think they do.
There’s always at least one notification that catches you off guard when you already
planned to do something else with your day.
The best thing to do is actually take a notebook and pencil and write down what you’re planning
to do in the next few days.
The tactile sensation of writing something down provokes you to think about it positively
and creatively.
Make this process comforting by writing at the end of the day when you can relax and
give your plans some thought.
And if you really want to make sure it gets done, put it in your calendar, where only
the most important stuff should go.
7) Wake up and write again!
No coffee, no breakfast, don’t even rush to the bathroom.
Everything else must wait.
Instead, as soon as you get up, sit at your desk and write on a blank sheet of paper.
Write anything that comes to your mind.
About your worries, your hopes, your dreams; about your wishes for how good this day can
be and what obstacles might come up.
Then hide the note from yourself, because it’s recommended that you not reread what
you’ve written.
This will help to block the part of your consciousness that wants to criticize you.
The rest of the day it’ll be much easier to listen to your inner thoughts, and to follow
your feelings about things.
As it becomes your habit to write in the morning, you’ll notice how easy it is to be yourself.
8) Argue with the textbooks and manuals you need to study.
It may seem like the best way to learn something is to cram with your textbook until your head
feels overwhelmed, but that’s not always the case.
It’s like a car that can’t catch traction on the road – there’s nothing for your
brain in the way of relating to all the information you consume.
To help, try to guess the upcoming information beforehand.
Take a topic about some law of physics, for example: guess the explanation of this law,
and then start to argue with the article in the book that gives the correct explanation.
If you guessed right, the better for you, because learning it will fill like positive
stimulation in itself.
If you’re wrong, then the information will still have much more meaning for you, and
therefore will be easier to remember.
9) If you’re going to have a test tomorrow – have a good laugh.
First of all, on the most basic level, you want to avoid stressing out and forgetting
everything right as the test is handed to you.
That happened too many times in my life, and I would’ve been happy to know that it’s
just because I wasn’t laughing enough.
This works similarly to the previous mind trick – our brains need to build strong
relations with what we want to remember.
And nothing helps more than something that gives them positive emotions.
No matter how good a person is at holding a grudge, it’s just in the nature of our
mind that we tend to recall good things much faster, and in better detail.
It works just as well for short-term memory; just find something to laugh about the next
time you try to remember something important, and you’ll remember it for good.
10) Don’t be afraid of being too noisy if you want to win people over.
It goes without saying – even if we find some person a bit irritating, it’s more
probable that we’ll remember them for a longer time.
And since our memory crosses out negative emotions and keeps positive, it’s also more
probable that we’ll remember something good about this person.
So the next time you think to yourself that it’s best to behave and be humble when you’re
surrounded by people, try not to miss a moment when you can really shine bright.
11) Hot tea will help you to get through a hot day.
The same goes for an ice-cream if you feel cold.
The trick is in our body.
It’ll produce much more heat if you eat an ice-cream during a cold winter day, which
will, in turn, warm you up.
But don’t overuse this trick.
Just one cone, once in a while, would be fine; eat too much and the heat of your body may
work against you.
No one wants you to catch a cold!
A cup of hot tea on a summer afternoon will deal with thirst much better than a glass
of water, and it’ll help you release heat from your body and feel better.
12) Unexpected medicine.
Flipping through a book may be dangerous, we all know that.
Some people even say that nothing hurts worse than a paper cut.
These people don’t get out much, or at least haven’t been to a hospital.
But anyway, there’s a medicine for those paper cuts.
And it’s Chapstick!
Just put it over the cut and feel the pain disappear.
And it’s good for your lips too.
Another sore that can catch you off guard is a burned tongue.
There’s seemingly no way to get rid of the burning sensation.
Add to that the fact that the tongue is the most mobile part of your body and you’ll
get why it can easily ruin your day.
But if you burned your tongue, just put a bit of sugar on the burn, and the pain will
go away.
Easy as that!
How about you, kiddo?
What strange tricks do you use in your everyday life?
Let me know down in the comments!
If you learned something new today, then give this video a like and share it with a friend.
Remember: Stay on the Bright Side of life!