Sleep on it

Never underestimate the power of a good night's rest

SKIMPING on sleep does awful things to your brain. Planning, problem-solving, learning, concentration,working memory and alertness all take a hit. IQ scores tumble. "If you have been awake for 21 hours straight, your abilities are equivalent to someone who is legally drunk," says Sean Drummond from the University of California, San Diego.

Luckily, it's reversible - and more. If you let someone who isn't sleep-deprived have an extra hour or two of shut-eye, they perform much better than normal on tasks requiring sustained attention, such as taking an exam

These are not the only benefits of a decent night's sleep. Sleep is when your brain processes new memories, practises and hones new skills - and even solves problems. Say you're trying to master a new video game. Instead of grinding away into the small hours, you would be better off playing for a couple of hours, then going to bed. While you are asleep your brain will reactivate the circuits it was using as you learned the game, rehearse them, and then shunt the new memories into long-term storage. When you wake up, hey presto! You will be a better player. The same applies to other skills such as playing the piano, driving a car and, some researchers claim, memorising facts and figures. Even taking a nap after training can help, says Carlyle Smith of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario.

There is also some evidence that sleep can help produce moments of problem-solving insight. The famous story about the Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev suddenly "getting" the periodic table in a dream after a day spent struggling with the problem is probably true. It seems that sleep somehow allows the brain to juggle new memories to produce flashes of creative insight. So if you want to have a eureka moment, stop racking your brains and get your head down.

Completely Useless Facts Everyone Should Know

• The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.
• Of all the words in the English language, the word 'set' has the most definitions!
• What is called a "French kiss" in the English speaking world is known as an "English kiss" in France.
• It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open
• The placement of a donkey's eyes in its' heads enables it to see all four feet at all times!
• Your heart beats over 100,000 times a day!
• The elephant is the only mammal that can't jump!
• One quarter of the bones in your body, are in your feet!
• Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left-handed people
• Earth is the only planet not named after a god.
• You can't kill yourself by holding your breath
• A cockroach can live several weeks with its head cut off!
• "Rhythm" is the longest English word without a vowel.
• Months that begin on a Sunday will always have a "Friday the 13th."
• "Almost" is the longest word in the English language with all the letters in alphabetical order.

A touching story worth reading

~ Author Unknown

Dear Patrick,

I was then an only child who had everything I could ever want. But even a pretty, spoiled and rich kid could get lonely once in a while so when Mom told me that she was pregnant, I was ecstatic. I imagined how wonderful you would be and how we'd always be together and how much you would look like me. So, when you were born, I looked at your tiny hands and feet and marveled at how beautiful you were.

We took you home and I showed you proudly to my friends. They would touch you and sometimes pinch you, but you never reacted. When you were five months old, some things began to bother Mom. You seemed so unmoving and numb, and your cry sounded odd --- almost like a kitten's. So we brought you to many doctors.

The thirteenth doctor who looked at you quietly said you have the "cry du chat" (pronounced Kree-do-sha) syndrome, "cry of the cat" in French.

When I asked what that meant, he looked at me with pity and softly said, "Your brother will never walk nor talk." The doctor told us that it is a condition that afflicts one in 50,000 babies, rendering victims severely retarded. Mom was shocked and I was furious. I thought it was unfair.

When we went home, Mom took you in her arms and cried. I looked at you and realized that word will get around that you're not normal. So to hold on to my popularity, I did the unthinkable ... I disowned you. Mom and Dad didn't know but I steeled myself not to love you as you grew. Mom and Dad showered you love and attention and that made me bitter. And as the years passed, that bitterness turned to anger, and then hate.

Mom never gave up on you. She knew she had to do it for your sake.

Everytime she put your toys down, you'd roll instead of crawl. I watched her heart break every time she took away your toys and strapped your tummy with foam so you couldn't roll. You struggle and you're cry in that pitiful way, the cry of the kitten. But she still didn't give up.
And then one day, you defied what all your doctors said -- you crawled.

When mom saw this, she knew you would eventually walk. So when you were still crawling at age four, she'd put you on the grass with only your diapers on knowing that you hate the feel of the grass on your skin.

Then she'd leave you there. I would sometimes watch from the windows and smile at your discomfort. You would crawl to the sidewalk and Mom would put you back. Again and again, Mom repeated this on the lawn. Until one day, Mom saw you pull yourself up and toddle off the grass as fast as your little legs could carry you.

Laughing and crying, she shouted for Dad and I to come. Dad hugged you crying openly.
I watched from my bedroom window this heartbreaking scene.

Over the years, Mom taught you to speak, read and write. From then on, I would sometime see you walk outside, smell the flowers, marvel at the birds, or just smile at no one. I began to see the beauty of the world through your eyes. It was then that I realized that you were my brother and no matter how much I tried to hate you, I couldn't, because I had grown to love you.

During the next few days, we again became acquainted with each other. I would buy you toys and give you all the love that a sister could ever give to her brother. And you would reward me by smiling and hugging me.

But I guess, you were never really meant for us. On your tenth birthday, you felt severe headaches. The doctor's diagnosis --leukemia. Mom gasped and Dad held her, while I fought hard to keep my tears from falling. At that moment, I loved you all the more. I couldn't even bear to leave your side. Then the doctors told us that your only hope is to have a bonemarrow transplant. You became the subject of a nationwide donor search. When at last we found the right match, you were too sick, and the doctor reluctantly ruled out the operations. Since then, you underwent chemotherapy and radiation.

Even at the end, you continued to pursue life. Just a month before you died, you made me draw up a list of things you wanted to do when you got out of the hospital. Two days after the list was completed, you asked the doctors to send you home. There, we ate ice cream and cake, run across the grass, flew kites, went fishing, took pictures of one another and let the balloons fly. I remember the last conversation that we had. You said that if you die, and if I need of help, I could send you a note to heaven by tying it on the string of any balloon and letting it fly. When you said this, I started crying. Then you hugged me. Then again, for the last time, you got sick.

That last night, you asked for water, a back rub, a cuddle. Finally, you went into seizure with tears streaming down your face. Later, at the hospital, you struggled to talk but the words wouldn't come. I know what you wanted to say. "Hear you," I whispered. And for the last time, I said, "I'll always love and I will never forget you. Don't be afraid. You'll soon be with God in heaven." Then, with my tears flowing freely, I watched the bravest boy I had ever known finally stop breathing. Dad, Mom and I cried until I felt as if there were no more tears left. Patrick was finally gone, leaving us behind.

From then on, you were my source of inspiration. You showed me how to love life and live to the fullest. With your simplicity and honesty, you showed me a world full of love and caring. And you made me realize that the most important thing in this life is to continue loving without asking why or how and without setting any limit.

Thank you, my little brother, for all these.

Breakups in Relationship !

Read an article in a Forum. Just Sharing with you all. Formatted for readability.

".........

This is a write-up on misconceptions that is widely spread across many youths in India today and the description of characters in this write-up are not imaginary. This is not to hurt the sentiment of anyone and this does not generalize everyone. Any comment on this write-up needs to be directed only to the author.

We always hear that breakups in relationships are always caused by women .Relationships here I mean both Love and friendship. Lets see the actual fact.

• This is being spared for guys who indeed maintain true friendship with girls.

By fact "More than 60% of guys have friendship with girls looking to propose to her sometime or the other". It is enough for them if a girl smiles at them some 3 or 4 times. Immediately they fall in love (they call so). And even if he does not think so, the friends group around him ,say some 4 or 5 people make him think so by saying "Hey man, she’s looking " And the hero starts dreaming. The guys who read this will know if the above saying is true or not.


There are days where girls have friendship with only girls and boys only with boys .Later this trend changed (and welcome too) as friendship took a new turn where boys and girls started speaking freely.I spare a few guys who maintain that friendship till the end. But all others??

The girl considers him a real friend, a true friend and share whatever problems she has, her sorrows, her joy all to him, considering him a real good friend.

It is natural that any guy thinks if a girl is too close to him sharing all her moments, he starts to think that she is in love with him. You know those girls share all those information with purely no intentions in their mind. He is just her friend and he is the one in whom she believes.

And suddenly one day, the guy goes and says to her "I think Am in love with you". This will be a real shock to her if at all she had no such intentions towards him. So she will decline his proposal. (If at all she does not have a feel towards him)

So what does the guy do then? He thinks his life had come to an end, grows beard, loses concentration and blabber "Love Failure! My love failed" The reason "He has made her the highest priority when she has not considered him even an option"

Why should she? She considered him a good friend only and did he be faithful to that belief?
So do you think if this is his fault or her fault of considering him a good friend? As she has considered him a real good friend, she tries her best to get him back on track. But does he become normal again? No way, he thinks that as he proposed her, she can no longer be his friend as close as before. That's absolutely true. Once any other feeling other than the friendship comes into the mind, it is very difficult to come back to square One. So the friendship breaks off.
Is the girl responsible for this break up?

• The Other Side of it (No Guts to express)

I know a friend who has been a very close friend to a girl who now lives in Pune.They have been such a close friend that they were quoted as "Living examples of friendship" Each and every friends of them felt that they are made for each other but dint express to neither.

The reason? Each thought that they are friends, what will happen if he mistakes if she proposes him and vice versa. So they did not say about this to anyone. As I am his friend, I got to know about this. I even offered to help him by saying her, his feelings. But he stopped me quoting the same reason "Friendship"

Later she got married to some US Return and is now blessed with a kid. Later, he got his marriage fixed and went to Pune to invite her to the marriage. It was at that time she asked him "Dint you ever think there is a lady who has been in love with you for so long???" He cannot control his tears on hearing this from her. But what can he do? Now he lives like a dead man. It will certainly take time for him to come out of this situation.

Is it her fault on not expressing herself to him at the right time? I would say A Big No. As by nature, women are shy and don't express themselves (may be a few).If at all she expresses, then people say she is some kinda girl and such stuff. So she just curbs all her feelings within her. She cant just come out and say to you "I Love You"

But where does the all guts of a guy go to? He boasts "I can handle 3 people in a fight”,” I can handle a 25 member project” and blah,blah. But when coming to expressing his real love to a person whom he really likes all his guts go buried into the soil.

So what is the impact? 2 good friends can't get united in life though both had similar thoughts towards each of them. Is it a loss just to the guy?? No, the lady has suffered the biggest loss of her lifetime. Every lady or the other will have someone or the other whom they have missed in their life one way or the other not being able to express themselves. The guy can share his old life to his wife by saying "I too had my first love and still cant forget her" But can a lady say this so openly to her husband? You know what will happen if she says so.

• Next one is a girl avoiding her friend (or her friend avoiding her ) and his friendship ,once the bridegroom search for her starts.

I know 2 people who are very close friends (just friends).These 2 had an agreement that he will select her partner and she his'. This guy once asked to her if he could be the one who will be serving as "Manapenn thozhan" to her in her marriage. And she happily agreed to it. (Not knowing what is in store for her (him too)) Now stopping here. How will this work out?

As both of them are best/close/good friends it is ok with both of them. But will other people accept him as "Manapenn Thozhan"(One who performs some religious rites for the bride during Hindu marriage ceremony) ?? Will the bridegroom be happy if it happens? Wont he think/ask if he is so close to the bride so can be her Manapen Thozhan, what else can be? So they force the girl to avoid him. What can she do? Will she Stand by her friend's side and say "No, he will be there with me?” No Way. But her heart says “He should be there" but how can her lips say?

But my friend, being indeed a good understanding friend of her, understood the problems and went as just a outsider to the marriage and came back.

What does his experience say??
However close you can be to a girl or a guy, once their life starts you must just move away from them (just by distance and not by heart).Instead ,many boast themselves "I am her best friend. I will do everything for her and blah blah" You can still show how much you care for her and her friendship when she is in trouble or when she is happy share their happiness and such stuff."

His heart knows the truth and her heart too. But still he lands himself in trouble thinking sad things always and etc.etc..

This is just once incident. There are other instances where the same things as above occur but the fact that the guy would not be aware of the things. So he thinks that the girl has intentionally avoiding him and blah.blah. He even tries suicide but fail and then become a Devadas as if his love has left him, though it was actually the friend who left him.(Not by heart)


One thing about the guys is that they value friendship more than their love. Not just words but true 100%. Friends mean indeed friends. There is a saying "It is not enough if you have 100 people in your side. It is enough even if you have 1 friend, who is ready to give even his life for you"

I dont stand by the saying that girls and boys can continue their friendship even after their married life.It works well in words but in reality? Reality bites people.

Once a person considers another guy or a girl as a friend, he should even be ready to do whatever he can for him and this is what real friends do and not the friends with intention in their mind do.

So please friends, if a good friend of you avoids you, please don't mistake her. It is her situation that makes her to do so.

And don't ever think that only girls are responsible for breakups and she is the one responsible for you making yourself and your life miserable.

I do know few people who have stood by the stand that they are only friends even when their parents were agreeing to get them married to each other. As I say all this ,I don’t mean to say 2 good friends can be united in marriage too. That can happen of course, if both of them on the same wavelength and both have it in their mind.

When I have seen miserable people narrated above in my life, me too have seen beautiful friendship started to blossom as a great love. But having marriage in mind and start building a friendship? Too bad.


These are not just for the people I know who have been affected, but for all those who are punishing themselves and in turn punishing those who need them to the most.

You can think that he or she is your highest priority in your life, but also just give a consideration to your parents for whom only you are the world.

Thank You.

............."

Success

• If you want to be successful, it's just this simple: Know what you're doing. Love what you're doing. And believe in what you're doing. -- Will Rogers
• Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. - Henry Ford
• The hardest challenge is to be yourself in a world where everyone is trying to make you be somebody else. -- E. E. Cummings

Principle 7

Eagles prepare for training. When about to lay eggs, the female and male eagle identify a place very high on a cliff where no predators can reach; the male flies to earth and picks thorns and lays them on the crevice of the cliff, then flies to earth again to collect twigs which he lays in the intended nest. He flies back to earth picks thorns and lays them on top of the twigs. He flies back to earth and picks soft grass to cover the thorns, and then flies back to pick rugs to put on the grass. When this first layering is complete the male eagle runs back to earth and picks more thorns, lays them on the nest; runs back to get grass and rugs and lays them on top of the thorns, then plucks his feathers to complete the nest.

The thorns on the outside of the nest protect it from possible intruders. Both male and female eagles participate in raising the eagle family. She lays the eggs and protects them; he builds the nest and hunts. During the time of training the young ones to fly, the mother eagle throws the eaglets out of the nest and because they are scared, they jump into the nest again. Next, she throws them out and then takes off the soft layers of the nest, leaving the thorns bare. When the scared eaglets jump into the nest again, they are pricked by thorns. Shrieking and bleeding they jump out again this time wondering why the mother and father who love them so much are torturing them. Next, mother eagle pushes them off the cliff into the air. As they shriek in fear, father eagle flies out and picks them up on his back before they fall, and brings them back to the cliff. This goes on for sometime until they start flapping their wings. They get excited at this newfound knowledge that they can fly and not fall at such a fast rate. The father and mother eagle supports them with their wings.

The preparation of the nest teaches us to prepare for changes; The preparation for the family teaches us that active participation of both partners leads to success; The being pricked by the thorns tells us that sometimes being too comfortable where we are may result into our not experiencing life, not progressing and not learning at all. The thorns of life come to teach us that we need to grow, get out of the nest and love on. We may not know it but the seemingly comfortable and safe haven may have thorns; The people who love us do not let us languish in sloth but push us hard to grow and prosper. Even in their seemingly bad actions they have good intentions for us.

Principle 5

The Eagle tests before it trusts. When a female eagle meets a male and they want to mate, she flies down to earth with the male pursuing her and she picks a twig. She flies back into the air with the male pursuing her. Once she has reached a height high enough for her, she lets the twig fall to the ground and watches it as it falls. The male chases after the twig. The faster it falls, the faster he chases until he reaches it and has to catch it before it falls to the ground, then bring it back to the female eagle. The female eagle grabs the twig and flies to a much higher altitude pursued by the male until she perceives it high enough, and then drops the twig for the male to chase. This goes on for hours, with the height increasing until the female eagle is assured that the male eagle has mastered the art of picking the twig which shows commitment, then and only then, will she allow him to mate with her!

Whether in private life or in business, one should test commitment of people intended for partnership.


Principle 6

When the Eagle grows old, his feathers become weak and cannot take him as fast as he should. When he feels weak and about to die, he retires to a place far away in the rocks. While there, he plucks out every feather on his body until he is completely bare. He stays in this hiding place until he has grown new feathers, then he can come out.

We occasionally need to shed off old habits & items that burden us and add no value to our lives.

Principle 4

The Eagle is the only bird that loves the storm. When clouds gather, the eagles get excited. The eagle uses the wings of the storm to rise and is pushed up higher. Once it finds the wing of the storm, the eagle stops flapping and uses the pressure of the raging storm to soar the clouds and glide. This gives the eagle an opportunity to rest its wings. In the meantime all the other birds hide in the leaves and branches of the trees.

We can use the storms of our lives (obstacles, trouble, etc) to rise to greater heights. Achievers relish challenges and use them profitably.

There are no shortcuts to any place worth going ! (Cont..)

Principle 3

Eagles do not eat dead things. He feeds on fresh prey. Vultures eat dead animals but not eagles.

Steer clear of outdated and old information. Do your research well always.