It doesn’t have to be this way, however. There is an easy way that you can take the power back in the kitchen—using a food journal to record your meals. Simple, yes, but unbelievably powerful. After all, here are just some of the things that start to happen when you track and monitor your food choices: In Closing When it comes to our diet a lot of us feel a little lost, or helpless....

It’s one of those things that seems so far-fetched. You hear stories of people doing crazy things just to get one more fix, and think to yourself “There’s no way I’d ever let that happen to me.” As if some people are just destined to be addicts, and you’re not one of them. It doesn’t work that way. Anyone can become addicted to chemicals that mess with your brain and convince you that everything is fine....

1. Get sufficient sleep An excellent way to keep your mind healthy is to make sure it’s well-rested. Sleep deprivation can ruin any mental progress you’ve developed, and make you more sluggish. Sleeping is a critical part of the memory-building process. Without sleep, your memories are unable to consolidate, and you’ll likely forget what you’ve learned fairly soon. If you can’t consolidate your memories, you won’t be able to recall them later....

Let’s bust these myths so that you can start reaping the practical benefits of meditation in just minutes a day. 1. You have to sit in a cross-legged position on the floor like a Buddha Here is the truth: meditation is simply exercise for your mind. The way we exercise our minds is through deliberately taking a time out to practice awareness. Whether we sit in a chair, lie in our bed, or immerse ourselves in the ocean, the practice has little to do with what physical position we are in: the important thing is what our mind is doing....

Not only does having the right tools with you afford you the chance to reach more customers, it also significantly reduces the frustration and friction of your customer service rep’s day-to-day job. This way, the time and energy spent on doing things manually can be dedicated to other ventures including expanding your business and improving your service delivery. That said, there isn’t a shortage of service tools either. If anything, they have been a proliferation of such tools especially in the advent of the Software-as-a-Service age....

If you are installing new flooring in your home, then you may want to consider using a sustainable flooring material. Don’t let the cost of using sustainable flooring deter you – in many cases, sustainable materials are actually more affordable – and even manage to add value to your home! The following are five different sustainable flooring materials to consider: 1. Bamboo Flooring Bamboo flooring has become a very popular alternative to hardwood, in part because of its environmentally friendly qualities....

With that said, i’m sure that many of you Life Hack devotees will be keen to learn more about how you can continue to hack life even when it’s over. The end of it all doesn’t have to be a time full of sorrow and grief. It can and should also be a celebration of who we were and a chance for us to put a big smile back on the faces of the people who loved us most....

Luckily, every year that goes by comes with a slew of new and exciting apps and tools that help people become more productive. If you are looking for a few tools to make your 2017 a success, try these. 1. Evernote Evernote is nearly an all-inclusive productivity app. It is supposed to help people organize everything they are doing into one neat place. We are talking about files, notepads, and other types of information....

Saying yes to every possible client that comes our way seems like the right thing to do but in most cases it’s actually hurting your business and here’s why. 1. You’re not working on your strengths I know we want to help people and we’ve been trained that we need to default to YES. Defaulting to YES does gets us doing work that’s outside of our strengths. If you’re best dealing with numbers and someone asks you for help to chair a meeting, is that really where you’d best serve the organization?...

If you hate waking up on weekdays, think of quitting your job and wish for the workweek to be over, you should consider your situation and ask yourself if the 40h/week (at least) you spend at work is well-invested time? If your corporate job feels like just a job where you only care about the monthly paycheck, it’s time to leave. There is much more out there to pursue than a paycheck and a corporate logo in your e-mail signature....

Thinking too much We lead busy lives – there’s no doubt about that. Some of us fill our daily lives with dozens, if not hundreds, of responsibilities and obligations. So it makes sense that, when we lay down to sleep for the night, our brain starts reminding us of everything it thinks we should be doing instead of laying dormant for eight hours. Unfortunately, when this happens, we often get caught in a thought-loop that makes it impossible to fall asleep....

They have their own way of doing things, most likely not conventional Sometime your bestie does the most peculiar things that have grown to be lovable and laughable. If they’ve done something weird enough to make you say, “I can’t believe they would do that in front of me”, they’re awesome and you know it. Your bestie may not eat some commons foods or have a ritualistic way that they eat or wind down from a long day....

As humans, we exercise the most powerful machine of recall on the planet, with a memory capacity that far exceeds any modern-day hard drive. When faced with the challenge of assimilating new information, the human brain goes through a specific method of cognitive processing. All input is stored initially in short-term memory, but this piece of our processing is like a small bucket, constantly overflowing and losing facts under a deluge of information and sensation....

Sure I had good grades, but they certainly weren’t anything special. And, because of this, my self-esteem and confidence levels were lower than many of my high-achieving friends. However, I later discovered one of the keys to abundant confidence. This discovery came about what I started to become interested in computer coding. As I began to learn how to code and to create programs, something unexpected happened — my confidence started to soar....

#1. Healthy Eating Change your diet. It’s one of the best things you can do to ditch acne. Throw away grains, processed food, processed oils, and sugars. All of these have an alarmingly high rate of being extremely inflammatory to the gut. Removing them from your diet will give you an idea which foods are causing your acne to breakout. After this step, you can start incorporating these foods back into the picture....

Features to look for: If you’re looking at trying a digital app to help manage your to do list, and you’ve struggled with productivity tools in the past, here’s a few features that you might want to look for before you try yet another app: Color coding: This is such a simple feature that so many tools are lacking. It astounds me. If you’re an intensely visual person, color coding functionality can make the difference between a tool being really useful (being able to see at a glance how many high priority tasks you have today, or how many tasks from each project, for example), and staring at an intimidating list of action items that looks totally impossible....

The Zika Virus was first found in South America but later it has traveled to many countries. The WHO has already announced emergency for the same. However, the most shocking part of the Zika Virus is that it can affect a pregnant woman and the fetus badly. As per the reports, Zika Virus can result in birth defects, and that can be dangerous in nature. It is therefore very important for every pregnant woman to know and understand about the Zika Virus....

The first thing is to make sure your papers are in order. In the European Union and neighboring countries (Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Andorra), a valid identity card is sufficient. But most other countries now require a bio-metric passport that you must carry out with the municipalities equipped with the appropriate equipment (digital photography and fingerprinting). The procedure can take up to two months, so it is better to do it in advance....

If you aren’t celebrating Christmas, it can be a real drag — most stores are closed, there’s nothing good on TV, and everywhere you go there are constant reminders of the wonderful time other people are having. It’s no surprise that depression spikes around Christmas! Well, here are a few things you could do to take advantage of the time off Christmas gives you. If you’re not Christian, or you are but really don’t care about Christmas, it can feel as if Christmas is forced on you....

I have had the fortune to be a part of several teams in both my professional and personal life, but only when I had a chance to be a part of a team building process did I finally understand the meaning of having a team where each member contributes their knowledge, personality and skills for the benefit of the whole. Here are some key factors that, in my opinion, make for a great team:...