Improve Your Life

Improve Your Life

productivity beyond the creative professional community.
Collaborations between organizations with different backgrounds often result in great realizations. To kick off LifeRemix, our group of bloggers collected a list of our 100 best "tips to improve your life." Leo Babauta, author of Zen Habits and member of LifeRemix, compiled the list.

While not specific to creative professionals, the list includes tips that are likely to boost overall effectiveness and the impact we are able to make with our ideas. For this reason, we re-post the list and encourage you to browse...

1. Find Inner Serenity by Making it Easier to Find Your Keys. For most people, getting control of clutter brings a greater sense of calm and decreased frustration.
2. Surround Yourself With Progress. When you complete a list of action steps, your instinct might be to throw the list away. After all, the work is completed! However, some creative professional teams take a different approach; they relish their progress. Some go so far as surrounding themselves with it.
3. Empty Your Inbox in 30 Seconds. Is your inbox filled with thousands and thousands of unread messages? Before you give up hope, there's an instant way to clear your inbox of old emails in less than 30 seconds.
4. Instantly Build Self Confidence. These tips will get you riding high in no time.
5. Reduce Your Trash To Almost Zero. Follow the No Impact Man experiment to reduce our trash as close as we can to zero.
6. Feel like a million bucks for cheap. Feel healthier and more energized right away without spending a fortune.
7. End Laundry Chaos. More than 20 tips to help you keep your laundry chaos to a minimum.
8. Learn the Secrets of the Super-Organized. A few simple habits keep clutter and chaos at bay.
9. Check Email Once a Day ... or Once a Week. Simple tips that will reduce interruption and increase your productivity.
10. Become an Early Riser. 10 benefits of rising early, and some practical tips on how to do it.
11. Learn Lessons from Google About Self-Image. How you think of yourself greatly affects how successful you can be. Google has got self-image down to a science.
12. Make a Good First Impression. Research shows that people decide what kind of relationship they want with you in the first ten minutes of a meeting, so making a good first impression really matters.
13. Know the Hype Behind Bottled Water. Have you ever stopped to think about just how incredibly odd it is to buy bottled water?
14. Leave Work at Work. Want more time for your family or personal life? Here's how not to think about your job 24/7.
15. Create a Landing Strip to Become Organized. We come from work exhausted, often carrying our work bags, groceries, and the mail. A landing strip will help you avoid disorganization from the time you get home.
16. Understand Time to Increase Return on Investment. Time is your most valuable resource. Understanding these ideas will help you make optimal decisions.
17. Give Your RÈsumÈ a Face Lift. Even if you can't hire a fancy designer and are stuck with Microsoft Word, a few tweaks can turn your blasÈ rÈsumÈ into an elegant and functional showpiece.
18. Boost Your Energy Level. Feeling energetic is a key to happiness and to self-esteem, so take steps to keep your energy high.
19. Actually Execute Your To-Do List. Many productivity systems will tell you how to organize your tasks, but what happens if you don't feel like doing them?
20. Keep Your Desk Clean and Tidy. Do you spend waste more and more time looking for lost items instead of being the brilliant creative person that you are? Here's how to get your desk clean, clutter-free, and keep it that way for good.
21. Learn the Truth About Baby Carrots. Baby carrots not really young carrots! They are also less nutritious and less flavorful than regular carrots.
22. Try Quick and (Almost) Painless Ways to Kill Distractions. Are you spending more time dealing with emails, IMs, phone calls, and random stray files than actually working? Here are ten actions you can do right now to kill distractions and get back to work.
23. Reduce Your Carbon Emissions. The most important lifestyle changes you can make to reduce your carbon emissions are listed here.
24. Put the Action Method Into Practice. After a couple years of studying how creative people stay organized, we developed a simple and easily customized method for managing projects. A good portion of 2006 was spent putting the Action Method into practice.
25. Gently End Procrastination. Need an easy way to remind you when you should be working and when you should be playing? Try using teaming up Flextime with Growl. Here's how.
26. Get the Most Out of Your RSS Reader. Seven simple tips for getting your feeds under control.
27. Use Catchphrases to Change the Way You Think. By keeping certain ideas active and accessible through review and repetition ñ whether itís ìSay yes,î ìFake it ëtill you feel it,î or ìPeople succeed in groupsî ñ you can shape the way you think.
28. Photograph Your Mementos to Free Up Clutter. Taking digital photos of your mementos can get rid of clutter, free-up storage space, and provide you with a simple way to walk down memory lane.
29. Save Trees With Ease. Want to avoid all the paper towels, paper napkins and other tree-killing stuff there's no need to use? Read here.
30. Organize Your Cluttered Desktop and Regain Your Sanity. Is your desktop littered with zillions of random files and folders often litter my desktop. Learn how 5 ordinary folders can keep your desktop immaculate.
31. Eat Slower. Why eating slower is better for your health, your sanity, your digestion, and more.
32. Maximize Your Lunch Hour. Your lunch hour should be the least "productive" moment in your day. If it lasts a mere 20 minutes-or just doesn't exist anymore-here's how to turn it around and make it joyful.
33. Increase Workplace Productivity by Not Being a Jerk. You get more flies with honey, as the saying goes. This is a brief outline for how to work and play well with your coworkers (and get more done).
34. Find Cheap Gas Instantly. If soaring gas prices are draining your wallet dry, here's five ways to find cheap(er) gas anywhere.
35. Find Your Purpose. We're all searching for our purpose. It seems tempting that having it appear by divine intervention would be great. Maybe not.
36. Make a GTD System for about $20. Putting together a functional GTD system for the price of a week's worth of Starbucks.
37. Avoid costly DIY mistakes. You can end up costing yourself more in the long run if you don't watch out for these mistakes.
38. Think About Whether You Can Afford NOT to Pursue Your Dreams. Pursuing dreams is crucial, even when it means taking a hit or entering financial uncertainty.
39. Plan for Success. Waiting for your ship to come in is a waste of time.
40. Improve Your Mind by Reading the Classics. How to use the wisdom of the classics to become a better writer, thinker, and speaker.
41. Break Habits of Highly Ineffective Emailing. A list of what not to do when emailing, avoiding these habits will take you a long way toward better, more productive email.
42. Make Your PDA Green. If you're worried about e-waste and the toxins produced by burying and burning old cell phones and PDAs, you may want to try my green hipster's pda.
43. Learn to Go From Solo to Successful Collaboration. Self-starters are often successful doing everything themselves. However, when forced to grow beyond the one gal/guy-show, many creative professionals are unable to take the leap from a solo success to a successful collaboration.
44. Create a Morning Routine. Developing a routine in the morning could lead to greater sanity and happiness, and achieving your goals.
45. Learn How to Survive a Road Trip. Road trips always begin on a high note, but by the end even Mother Teresa would be willing to shove her grandmother out of the car. Here are 9 tips to help keep you sane and happy on any road trip

Happiness Daily Life

Hapienes Daily Life

Here are a few tips for increasing happiness in daily life:

1) Endeavor to change the way you look at things. Always look at the bright side. The mind may drag you to think about negativity and difficulties. Don't let it. Look at the good and positive side of every situation.

2) Think of solutions, not problems.

3) Listen to relaxing, uplifting music.

4) Watch funny comedies that make you laugh.

5) Each day, devote some time to reading a few pages of an inspiring book or article.

6) Watch your thoughts. Whenever you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, start thinking of pleasant things.

7) Always look at what you have done and not at what you haven't.

Sometimes you may begin the day with the desire to accomplish several objectives. At the end of the day you might feel frustrated and unhappy, because you haven't been able to do all of those things.

Look at what you have done, not at what you have not been able to do. You may have accomplished a lot during the day, and yet you let yourself become frustrated, because of some small things that you did not accomplish. You have spent all day successfully carrying out many plans, and instead of feeling happy and satisfied, you look at what was not accomplished and feel unhappy. It is unfair toward yourself.

8) Each day do something good for yourself. It can be something small, such buying a book, eating something you love, watching you favorite program on TV, going to a movie, or just having a stroll on the beach.

9) Each day do at least one act to make others happy. This can be a kind word, helping your colleagues, stopping your car at the crossroad to let people cross, giving your seat in a bus to someone else, or giving a small present to someone you love. The possibilities are infinite. When you make someone happy, you become happy, and then people try to make you happy.

10) Always expect happiness.

11) Do not envy people who are happy. On the contrary, be happy for their happiness.

12) Associate with happy people, and try to learn from them to be happy. Remember, happiness is contagious.

13) Do your best to stay detached, when things do not proceed as intended and desired. Detachment will help you stay calm and control your moods and reactions. Detachment is not indifference. It is the acceptance of the good and the bad and staying balanced. Detachment has much to do with inner peace, and inner peace is conductive to happiness.

14) Smile more often.

Digital Photography tips

Digital Photography tips

You've heard this before: Digital cameras do all the work. You just push the button and great pictures magically appear. The better the camera, the better the photos. Isn't that right? Heck no!

The truth is that you can make great photos with a simple consumer point-and-shoot camera, or take lousy shots with the most expensive Nikon. It's not the camera that makes beautiful images; it's the photographer. With a little knowledge and a willingness to make an adjustment here and there, you can squeeze big time photos out of the smallest digicam.

To help you down the road to great image making, here are ten tips that will enable you shoot like a pro (without maxing out your credit card on all that expensive equipment).

1. Warm Up Those Tones

Have you ever noticed that your shots sometimes have a cool, clammy feel to them? If so, you're not alone. The default white balance setting for digital cameras is auto, which is fine for most snapshots, but tends to be a bit on the "cool" side.

When shooting outdoor portraits and sunny landscapes, try changing your white balance setting from auto to cloudy. That's right, cloudy. Why? This adjustment is like putting a mild warming filter on your camera. It increases the reds and yellows resulting in richer, warmer pictures.

If you don't believe me, then do a test. Take a few outdoor shots with the white balance on auto, then take the same picture again with the setting on cloudy. Upload the images to your computer and look at them side by side. My guess is that you'll like the warmer image better.

If you really want to add some punch to your images, then get your hands on a polarizing filter. A polarizer is the one filter every photographer should have handy for landscapes and general outdoor shooting. By reducing glare and unwanted reflections, polarized shots have richer, more saturated colors, especially in the sky.

What's that you say? Your digital camera can't accommodate filters. Don't despair. I've been using this trick for years with my point-and-shoot cameras. If you have a pair of quality sunglasses, then simply take them off and use them as your polarizing filter. Place the glasses as close to the camera lens as possible, then check their position in the LCD viewfinder to make sure you don't have the rims in the shot.

If your camera doesn't accept filters, then you can still achieve the effects of a polarizer by placing your sunglasses over the lens. Figure 2a is shot normally without any filtration. Figure 2b is shot during the same session, but with sunglasses placed over the lens. Notice the enhanced colors and deeper sky tones. (Canon PowerShot S200, Program mode)	Figure 2a.

For the best effect, position yourself so the sun is over either your right or left shoulder. The polarizing effect is strongest when the light source is at a 90-degree angle from the subject.

3. Outdoor Portraits That Shine

One of the great hidden features on digital cameras is the fill flash or flash on mode. By taking control of the flash so it goes on when you want it to, not when the camera deems it appropriate, you've just taken an important step toward capturing great outdoor portraits.

In flash on mode, the camera exposes for the background first, then adds just enough flash to illuminate your portrait subject. The result is a professional looking picture where everything in the composition looks good. Wedding photographers have been using this technique for years.





After you get the hang of using the flash outdoors, try a couple variations on this theme by positioning the subject so the sun illuminates the hair from the side or the back, often referred to as rim lighting. Another good technique is to put the model in the shade under a tree, then use the flash to illuminate the subject. This keeps the model comfortable and cool with no squinty eyes from the harsh sun, and this often results in a more relaxed looking portrait.

Remember, though, that most built-in camera flashes only have a range of 10 feet (or even less!), so make sure you don't stand too far away when using fill flash outdoors.

4. Macro Mode Madness

Remember as a kid discovering the whole new world beneath your feet while playing on the grass? When you got very close to the ground, you could see an entire community of creatures that you never knew existed.

These days, you might not want to lie on your belly in the backyard, but if you activate the close up mode on your digital camera and begin to explore your world in finer detail, you'll be rewarded with fresh new images unlike anything you've ever shot before.

Even the simplest object takes on new fascination in macro mode. And the best part is that it's so easy to do with digital cameras.





Just look for the close up or macro mode icon, which is usually a flower symbol, turn it on, and get as close to an object as your camera will allow. Once you've found something to your liking, hold the shutter button down halfway to allow the camera to focus. When the confirmation light gives you the go ahead, press the shutter down the rest of the way to record the image.

Keep in mind that you have very shallow depth of field when using the close up mode, so focus on the part of the subject that's most important to you, and let the rest of the image go soft.

5. Horizon Line Mayhem

For some mysterious reason, most human beings have a hard time holding the camera level when using the LCD monitors on their digicams. The result can be cockeyed sunsets, lopsided landscapes, and tilted towers.

Part of the problem is that your camera's optics introduce distortion when rendering broad panoramas on tiny, two-inch screens. Those trees may be standing straight when you look at them with the naked eye, but they seem to be bowing inward on your camera's monitor. No wonder photographers become disoriented when lining up their shots.





What can you do? Well, there's no silver bullet to solve all of your horizon line problems, but you can make improvements by keeping a few things in mind.

First of all, be aware that it's important to capture your images as level as possible. If you're having difficulty framing the scene to your liking, then take your best shot at a straight picture, reposition the camera slightly, take another picture, and then maybe one more with another adjustment. Chances are very good that one of the images will "feel right" when you review them on the computer. Simply discard the others once you find the perfectly aligned image.

If you practice level framing of your shots, over time the process will become more natural, and your percentage of level horizon lines will increase dramatically.

6: Massive Media Card

When you're figuring out the budget for your next digital camera, make sure you factor in the purchase of an additional memory card. Why? Because the cards included with your new high-tech wonder toy are about as satisfying as an airline bag of peanuts when you're dying of hunger.

If you have a 3 megapixel camera, get at least a 256MB card, 512MBs for 4 megapixel models, and 1GB for for 6 megapixels and up.

That way you'll never miss another shot because your memory card is full.

7: High Rez All the Way

One of the most important reasons for packing a massive memory card is to enable you to shoot at your camera's highest resolution. If you paid a premium price for a 6 megapixel digicam, then get your money's worth and shoot at 6 megapixels. And while you're at it, shoot at your camera's highest quality compression setting too.

Why not squeeze more images on your memory card by shooting a lower resolution and low quality compression settings? Because you never know when you're going to capture the next great image of the 21st century. And if you take a beautiful picture at the low 640 x 480 resolution, that means you can only make a print about the size of a credit card, not exactly the right dimensions for hanging in the museum.

On the other hand, if you recorded the image at 2272 x 1704 (4 megapixels) or larger, then you can make a lovely 8- x 10-inch photo-quality print suitable for framing or even for gracing the cover of Time magazine. And just in case you were able to get as close to the action as you had liked, having those extra pixels enables you to crop your image and still have enough resolution to make a decent sized print.

The point is, if you have enough memory (and you know you should), then there's no reason to shoot at lower resolution and risk missing the opportunity to show off your work in a big way.

8: Tolerable Tripod

I once overheard someone say, "He must be a real photographer because he's using a tripod." Well, whether or not you use a tripod has nothing to do with you being a true photographer. For certain types of shots though, these three-legged supports can be very useful.

The problem is tripods are a pain in the butt to carry around. They are bulky, unwieldily, and sometimes downright frustrating. Does the phrase "necessary evil" come to mind?

For digital shooters there's good news: the UltraPod II by Pedco. This compact, versatile, ingenious device fits in your back pocket and enables you to steady your camera in a variety of situations. You can open the legs and set it on any reasonable flat surface such as a tabletop or a boulder in the middle of nowhere. But you can also employ its Velcro strap and attach your camera to an available pole or tree limb.





You might not need a tripod that often, but when you do, nothing else will work. Save yourself the pain and money of a big heavy lug of a pod, and check out the svelte UltraPod. Yes, then you too can be a real photographer.

9: Self Timer Fun

Now that you have your UltraPod in hand, you can explore another under-used feature found on almost every digital camera: the self timer. This function delays the firing of the shutter (after the button has been pushed) for up to 10 seconds, fixing one of the age old problems in photography: the missing photographer.

Hey, just because you've been donned as the creative historian in your clan, that doesn't mean that your shining face should be absent from every frame of the family's pictorial accounting. You could hand your trusty digicam over to strangers while you jump in the shot, but then you take the chance of them dropping, or even worse, running off with your camera.

Instead, attach your UltraPod, line up the shot, activate the self timer, and get in the picture. This is usually a good time to turn on the flash to ensure even exposure of everyone in the composition (but remember that 10 foot flash range limit!). Also, make sure the focusing sensor is aimed at a person in the group and not the distant background, or you'll get very sharp trees and fuzzy family members.

Self timers are good for other situations, too. Are you interested in making long exposures of cars driving over the Golden Gate Bridge at dusk? Once again, secure your camera on a tripod, then trip the shutter using the self timer. By doing so, you prevent accidental jarring of the camera as you initiate the exposure.

10. Slow Motion Water

I come from a family where it's darn hard to impress them with my artsy pictures. One of the few exceptions happened recently when my sister commented that a series of water shots I had shown her looked like paintings. That was close enough to a compliment for me.

What she was responding to was one of my favorite types of photographs: slow motion water. These images are created by finding a nice composition with running water, then forcing the camera's shutter to stay open for a second or two, creating a soft, flowing effect of the water while all the other elements in the scene stay nice and sharp.





You'll need a tripod to steady the camera during the long exposure, and you probably should use the self timer to trip the shutter. If you camera has an aperture priority setting, use it and set the aperture to f-8, f-11, or f-16 if possible. This will give you greater depth of field and cause the shutter to slow down.

Ideally, you'll want an exposure of one second or longer to create the flowing effect of the water. That means you probably will want to look for streams and waterfalls that are in the shade instead of the bright sunlight.

Another trick is to use your sunglasses over the lens to darken the scene and create even a longer exposure. Plus you get the added bonus of eliminating distracting reflections from your composition.

Final Thoughts

Most digital cameras, even the consumer point-and-shoot models, have a tremendous amount of functionality built into them. By applying a little ingenuity and creativity, you can take shots that will make viewers ask, "So what kind of camera do you have?"

You can tell them the answer, but inside, you'll know it's not the camera responsible for those great pictures. It's the photographer

Hair Style Tips

Hair Styles Tips

When your bad hair days outnumber your good ones, it may be time for a change of hair style! Yet, before you go under the knife - scissors, take time out to sharpen up your style knowledge with a few hair styling tips!

Solving Common Hair Styling Problems
Corralling the Bang CowlickBangs are great for softening a severe cut or style and can add dimension to a too angular face shape but, when accompanied by a cowlick (Patch of hair that won't normally lie flat because it grows in a different direction), they can transform a hair style from chic to hick. To corral bang cowlicks, try drying bangs forward using a vented dryer or round brush.

Alternatively, you can turn the negative into a positive by basing your hair style on the natural lift of your cowlick.

• Camouflage your cowlick and add a look of natural lift to your bangs by parting your hair at your cowlick.
• Using your styling brush or vented brush like a hot roller, imitate the lift of your cowlick in other sections of your bangs.
• Pull short layers forward to effectively weigh down the cowlick.

Don’t Flip Out - Flip Under!When your hair is rubbing you the wrong way, don’t flip out. Use your styling brush or vented brush to flip hair into a hair styling classic, the pageboy. Dry hair to about ¾ and then apply a working spray to the ends of your hair. Turn your dryer to hot. Then just as you would with hot rollers, use your styling brush or a vented brush to roll your hair under. Blow dry for about 15 seconds. Let the curl cool for about 10 seconds; then carefully remove your styling appliance. If you’re lucky enough to have a lot of volume, you may wish to separate your hair into ‘bottom’ and ‘top’ sections. Pin up the top section and use the technique on the bottom section first and then the top.

Grounding Fly-Away HairThe reason hair doesn’t fly away everyday is because hair follicles naturally attract and retain moisture. However, it takes moisture to attract moisture; when conditions are dry, you need to provide your hair with some supplementary help. Although the better commercial moisturizers contain “humectants” to assist in moisture attraction and retention, you can find one inexpensive yet effective alternative right in your kitchen! The safflower oil you use for cooking is one of the beauty industry’s best-kept secrets for treating dryness in hair due to weather, perms, hair coloring, and hair relaxation techniques... and all it takes is a couple of drops.

Rub a couple of drops of safflower oil between your palms. Your hands will look shiny in the light. Then scrunch the oil into your dry hair, starting at the ends and working towards your scalp. Leave this “conditioning” treatment in your hair. You won’t even notice it, but you will notice that it works wonders in keeping frizzies and fly-aways in their place – completely out of sight!
To keep ends in better condition, always dry with focus on the hair closest to your head and not your ends.

Taking the Limp Out of Long HairTo build volume in thinner hair – while it’s still damp, lean over and let your hair hang forward. Finish drying starting at the nape of your neck and working towards your forehead. When you flip it back, you’ll likely see that your “mop” has turned into a magnificent mane!

Choosing Your Hair Style
Face shape, curl (straight, wavy, curly, kinky), texture (fine, medium, thick) and the volume of your hair are the deciding elements in choosing your best hair style. However, with today’s hair styling techniques you can change almost any aspect of your hair, so the most important consideration is your face shape. Determining Your Face Shape
Put long hair into a pony tail; wet and slick back short hair. Using a bar of soap, a water soluble marker, or a crayon, look into a mirror and trace the outline of your face. Follow your hairline and trace starting with the center of your forehead to temple, jawbone, chin, jawbone, temple, and back to forehead. Stand to one side and look at your outline. It should resemble one of seven shapes. Oval, Triangle. Square, Round, Heart, Oblong, Diamond.

 Oval: Sometimes called the “perfect” face shape, the balance of the oval allows you to wear almost any hair style you choose. However, don’t cramp your style with heavy bangs or forward directed hair styling that masks your lovely cheekbones or features.
Triangular: If you have a cleft in your chin, your face shape is the exact opposite of the heart shaped face. Short cuts will help balance your dominant jaw line and you are a great candidate for today’s wedges, shags, and other styles that feature fullness at the temples.
Square: Soften the angles with short, wispy bangs and soft tendrils along the sides of your face. Naturally curly hair is an ideal accent for a square face. If you don’t have it, consider a perm or body wave. Add extra dimension to your style by layering in extra height at your crown and wearing an off-set part.
Round: Lengthen you face to get the appearance of an oval by adding some height at your crown. Keep hair swept back to show your features to their best advantage. Wear off centered parts to draw attention away from the symmetry of your face. Wear either short or long hair styles, but stay away from the medium. Keep hair either above or below your chin line.
Heart: Chin length (or longer) hair styling looks great on the heart-shaped face, adding fullness and volume where you need it. You’re also a candidate for styles that feature wispy bangs, layered at the sides to sweep forward, accenting your eyes and stunning cheekbones.
Rectangular or oblong: Try short to medium length hair styles with extra fullness at the sides. Use wispy bangs and romantic tendrils to soften the angles. Layers also add softness and roundness to straight lines. Too long hair, high hair, and center parts will serve to lengthen your face. Keep your hair above shoulder length and work to add volume at the sides of your hair style.
Diamond: Your face is almost an oval, but a bit more angular, which gives you a dramatic look that allows you to try many different hair styles. Leave weight at the nape of your neck to add weight to a narrow chin and do keep the hair out of your face to keep from hiding your great bone structure!

tips (long hair care tips)

Tips  (long hair care tips)

Caring for long hair takes a lot more time compared to caring for short hair or hair of normal length. Just washing and drying long hair can be quite a task in itself. Below are some tips on managing long hair.
Long Hair Care Tips
Avoid sleeping with tightly braided hair or hair in a tight ponytail. The stress can cause breakage and/or hair loss.
When your hair is braided, make sure that it is not too tight or it could cause breakage and/or hair loss.
If your hair is braided or you have a ponytail, use a specially treated band or scrunchie which will prevent breakage of your hair. Limit your use of clips, bows, and untreated bands.
Even if you plan on growing your hair out further, you should trim your hair once every 3 months, if not split ends will cause your hair to break off and your hair will begin to lose it's beauty. If you plan on just maintaining your length, a trim once every month and a half to two months should suffice.
Don't use a brush to detangle your hair, this will stretch your hair and may cause your hair to break off. Instead use your fingers, a pick, or a wide tooth comb to detangle your hair.
When detangling your hair work your way from the tips of your hair up to the hair roots. Work on detangling one section of your hair at a time and go in a downward direction.
Be gentle when detangling; pulling down on your hair too hard will cause breakage.
If you detangle your hair before washing it, it'll be easier to dry and style as well as decrease the knots and tangles after you are done washing your hair.
Don't rub your hair dry with a towell, instead blot the water out of your hair, when you rub, it'll cause your hair to tangle.
Hair can get caught on cotton pillow cases and break when you are sleeping especially if you toss and turn a lot when you sleep. Using a satin or silk pillowcase where your hair will make it so that hair will slide across the pillowcase without getting caught. Another tactic to prevent breakage is to put your hair up in a ponytail on the top of your head with a scrunchie or specially treated band (that prevents breakage).
An alternative to the silk pillowcase is to wear a satin or silk scarf over your hair before your sleep to prevent breakage.
Brushing your hair is important because it spreads the the hair oils out across the length of your hair. Use long strokes starting from the roots of your hair when brushing and stroke your hand over your hair after you are done brushing to get rid static.

Awesome tips fir losing waight

Awesome tips for losing waight

2. TIPS FOR LOSING WEIGHT

Without further ado, let’s get into the tips:
1. No skipping. Don’t skip breakfast and lunch, and then have a massive meal during dinner time. That’s actually what sumo wrestlers do in order to maintain their weight.
2. Many small meals. It’s better to have a lot of smaller meals throughout the day, than one massively big meal all at once. Try going for 6 small meals rather than 3 big meals.
3. No starving. Don’t try to starve yourself all at once by going on a huge diet. This will give your body the impression that you’re starving at it’ll try to reduce your body’s metabolism so that more food gets stored up so you can survive the starvation.
4. It’s the lifestyle. Make losing weight a part of your lifestyle so that it comes naturally with your daily habits. There’s no point losing weight by going on diet in order to gain it back again later on.
5. Try moderation. You may not want to try totally abstaining from any foods. This may lead yourself to develop strong cravings. Instead, try practicing moderation. Eating one chocolate once in a while won’t make you fat. Eating a lot of chocolates will…
6. Exercise strictly. Create a daily exercise routine for yourself. Get yourself some accountability partners and make sure you stick with it.
7. Start cooking. Start eating out less, and learn to cook healthy meals at home on a more regular basis. Not only are restaurant portions increasing yearly, but a lot of extra seasonings like salt and MSG being added to the food will contribute to your weight gain.
8. Start learning. Educate yourself as to why you are gaining and the proper steps that you should be implementing in order to stop the weight gain process.
9. Start noting down. Some people have found that keeping a food diary can really help in managing and identifying areas of weakness that should be eliminated.
10. Eat slower. This helps give your brain time to start processing the signals necessary to tell you that you’re full. It does take a while.
11. Chew properly. In line with the tip above on eating slower, slim people are often better at chewing their food more thoroughly. Some people even recommend chewing your food at least 22 times before swallowing.
12. Stop overeating. A lot of people enjoy eating till their completely full to the brim and can hardly move after that. Once you’re full, you should stop.
13. Understand overeating. If you can’t seem to stop overeating, dig down to the root cause and eliminate it. Sometimes it may be because of stress or some emotional grievances.
14. Think small. Rather than making large changes and commitments that are hard to keep, make small changes one at a time and get them into your lifestyle.
15. Use substitution instead of elimination. Instead of completely eliminating certain unhealthy foods in your diet, consider substituting them with healthier alternatives.
16. Join a weight loss forum or find friends with similar goals. Working together and receiving encouragement from others can go a long way in helping you to cut down that weight.
17. Drink enough water. A basic tip but one very often overlooked. Drinking enough water can reduce the space available for taking in other sugary drinks. Also, we often mistake ‘thirst’ for ‘hunger’ and making sure you hydrate yourself enough may reduce your hungriness. The common rule is 8 glasses a day.
18. Cut down on salt. The amount of salt in your diet can lead to you gaining more weight through water retention. Cut down on the amount of salt in your meals, and on salty snacks too.
19. Eat more fruits. Eating more fruits can help to reduce the cravings for sugary foods that often come about. Fruits can also form the basis of a good healthy meal.
20. Get more active. Chances are that you have a really sedentary lifestyle, sitting in the office most of the day during working hours. Get more active, walk more whenever you can. Take the stairs instead of the elevator when it’s available to you.
21. Walk to work. Instead of driving to work, to may want to walk to work. Or you might want to drive but park somewhere a bit farther away and walk the rest of the way.
22. Stand up while working. You may not be able to do this in the office, but if you can stand up while working in front of your computer at home, it’s a lot better than sitting down. Try putting a piece of memory foam under your feet to keep them from getting uncomfortable too fast. Also, make sure to balance your weight evenly between both legs.

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23. Walk while working. The latest trend when it comes to healthy work at home habits include walking while working by using a treadmill desk. Put your computer on the treadmill desk, hit go, and let yourself walk slowly while you’re doing your work.
24. Walk while on the phone. After sitting down the whole day, get yourself a bit more active while talking on the phone by walking a bit through your house.
25. Walk while waiting. While waiting for anything to get done, whether you’re waiting through a commercial or for the water to boil, walking up and down a bit helps too.
26. Sit up straight. A lot of us have bad posture while we’re sitting. This leads to back problems, and also weakens our tummy. Try to make it a habit to sit up straight.
27. Before and after. Take a picture of yourself before you started gaining weight and put it in a place you can see daily. Strive to get back to your slim and fit old self.
28. Visualization. In your mind, just picture yourself as the slim and stunning individual that you want to be. This will help keep you motivated and steer your mind in the right direction.
29. Walk the dog. It’s a great way to get some healthy exercise. You may even want to run with your dog if it’s feeling up to it.
30. Eat more fibers. Make sure you eat a lot of fruits and vegetables to get those fibers going through your body. Constipation is often a huge cause of weight gain.
31. Eat yogurt. The healthy bacteria in your body might be at an all-time low, leading to poor digestion. Have some non-fat organic yogurt to keep the healthy bacteria count up.
32. Cut down on the dairy. Dairy products like milk, cheese, and butter have been shown to contribute to obesity. You might want to replace these items with vegan alternatives.
33. Go vegetarian. Going vegetarian can be a good way to lose weight. You might not want to go vegetarian all your life, but perhaps doing it at least once or twice a week would help.
34. Cut down on the fried foods. Definitely cut down on those fried things, and go with baking or steaming instead if you can.
35. Eat more. Yes, eat more healthy stuff like fruits and vegetables instead of cutting your meals down and starving yourself. Fill yourself with greens and fruits.
36. Go small. Using smaller bowls, plates, and cups can help you reduce the amount of food you take in. Sometimes using plates that are too big cause us to take too much and accidentally overeat, even though we never intended too.
37. Cut down on stress. Getting yourself often stress out can cause your digestive system to deteriorate. Try to relax more and make sure you don’t get stressed out.
38. Get more sleep. It has been shown that getting not enough sleep can make you fat. Even if you have a lot of work to do, getting more sleep can make you more productive and that means getting things done much more quickly.
39. Understand the implications. Many people don’t know how dangerous to the health it can be for you to be unhealthy overweight. By understanding the implications of an unhealthy weight, you can often motivate and drive yourself forward to maintaining a healthy weight.
40. Understand the situation. First, find out your ideal weight. Then, take your current weight. Use your current weight and subtract your ideal weight from it. This is how much extra weight you’re carrying around every day. Get something that weighs the same thing and try carrying it around for a while. Heavy isn’t it?
41. Go direct. Losing weight can be easy if you direct yourself straight to the goal. Unfortunately, too many people overcomplicate things by trying out new fad after new fad and running around in circles. If you stuck with the basics, you would have lost that weight long ago.
42. Clear up. As you start losing weight, you can start donating or giving away the clothes that don’t fit you. Getting yourself a change in clothing can often serve as a strong motivator.
43. Eat quietly. Don’t put yourself in front of the PC or the TV while you’re eating your meals. Studies have shown that it can affect our ability to tell how full we are, and you might start getting hungry a little sooner than usual later on.
44. Watch TV less. Going on a tangent from the previous tip, studies have shown that watching more TV can actually cause you to eat more. The long story short – watch TV less.
45. Order small. When eating out, order less than you think you could eat. Often, this is more accurate, and we often order too much and overeat because we’re hungry and we overestimate the amount that would actually make us full.
46. Never say never. If I told you, ‘Don’t think of a pink elephant’, you’ll probably start thinking about it. Instead of telling yourself what you shouldn’t be eating, tell yourself what you should be eating.
47. Weigh yourself. A lot of people looking to lose weight are afraid of seeing their own weight. But you can’t improve if you don’t keep track, so it’s important for you to weigh yourself daily.
48. Less white flour. A lot of products with white flour, such as bread and pasta, can actually be bad for your weight. Replace them with whole wheat alternatives instead.
49. Change of color. It has been proven that the color red tends to increase the appetite, while the color blue tends to decrease it. Knowing this, you might want to have more blue stuff lying around.
50. Read this again. Reading through something once is often not enough. To really start getting it, you’ll often have to read through it several times or even once a day. Bookmark or print this page out, and go through these tips again and again and again to reinforce the concepts in your mind and to remind yourself. We do often forget.
51. Stop reading this. It tends to be a habit actually that most people spend more time reading and learning about something than actually doing it. My final tip to you… stop reading this article for now, and start putting these tips into action. Nothing will change until you do…

3. CONCLUSION

Thanks for taking the time to go through these 51 tips. I hope you enjoyed the information, and that you will find it useful in your ongoing quest to maintain and lead a healthy lifestyle.
Make sure you especially take note of Tip #50 and Tip #51. I can’t stress this enough. People often read about something, and put it down without taking any action. And then they wonder why they don’t get any results…
Try your best, and I wish you good luck. Patience is a virtue.
Remember to post your success stories after you’ve started losing weight using these tips in the comments section below. Oh, and don’t forget to support my work by voting it up and sharing it with your friends who need it.
Thanks again for taking the time to read this, and all the best to you…