Tag Archives: Life

Much Ado About Sleeping 

Posted on by
Reply



I’ve been experiencing something quite strange over the past few months. When I am tired, but can’t sleep, even with the air conditioning switched on, I feel hot. This does not happen when I am tired and sleepy though! Then I feel nice and cold and when I pull up a blanket, it’s nice, warm and toasty – just the right temperature to sleep in! 


I tried googling this, but can’t get any site which addresses this problem. Any thoughts?


I’ve always been a bad sleeper – I can take upto 30 minutes from the time I switch off the lights to actually getting some zzz. It doesn’t help that I can’t sleep without some reading done – physical or ebook. So all this can easily add a couple of hours from the time I get into bed to the time I actually sleep. I’ve pretty much tried everything, meditation, counting sheep, trying to get into the zone etc., but the only thing for me to really fall asleep is to get super tired! Some days even that doesn’t work and inspite of being tired, I am wide awake…



Scientists say that an adult requires between 7.5 to 9 hours a day. I fall somewhere in the middle – my ideal is 8 hours, but I can function well on 7.5 hours. However, I rarely sleep that much every night, except maybe over the weekend! I use a sleep tracking app (actually two, since I am OCD like that 😝) on my phone and have realised that I actually need slightly more 50% of my total sleep in deep plus REM sleep.

Sleep deprivation occurs when there is not enough of deep sleep. This is the time the body repairs itself and builds up energy for the day ahead. It plays a major role in maintaining your health, stimulating growth and development, repairing muscles and tissues, and boosting your immune system. In order to wake up energized and refreshed, getting quality deep sleep is essential.



For those who don’t know, REM or Rapid Eye Movement Sleep is one of the five stages of sleep that most people experience nightly. It is characterized by quick, random movements of the eyes and paralysis of the muscles. This stage of sleep is also sometimes known as paradoxical sleep and this is when most people are able to have especially vivid dreams. Every night we sleep, we move between wakefulness, REM and non REM sleep. Each cycle typically lasts about 90 minutes each and repeats as much as four to six times each night.

During REM sleep, your brain consolidates and processes the information you’ve learned during the day, forms neural connections that strengthen memory, and replenishes its supply of neurotransmitters, including feel-good chemicals like serotonin and dopamine that boost your mood during the day. Sleeping an extra 30 minutes to an hour in the morning, when REM sleep stages are longer will get you more mind and mood-boosting REM sleep, try sleeping an. Improving your overall sleep will also increase your REM sleep. If you aren’t getting enough deep sleep, your body will try to make that up first, at the expense of REM sleep.

Most adults, atleast those that I know of often have huge sleep debts and we think by sleeping in over the weekends (waking up late, taking naps during the day) will allow us to pay a part of that debt. However, it’s not that easy. This will help only temporarily and you may feel great on Monday after a weekend spent sleeping away, but as the day goes on, you’ll only feel more tired. Ways to get off a sleep debt include trying to sleep atleast 7.5 hours each night, sleeping an extra hour each morning and paying off the debt over a period of time, keeping a sleep diary to record sleep and drastically taking a sleep vacation to pay off a long-term debt. Lastly, schedule sleep in your calendar and banish anything from your bedroom which hinders sleep (Easier said than done, I know! Been there, done that 😳)



There are tons of resources available online for sleep. Googling “sleep” gave me 798,000,000 results and googling “how to sleep better” gave me 632,000,000 results!


If you also are sleep deprived like me, go ahead and look these up, but remember, don’t do this before you are about to sleep. You’ll be up all night otherwise!


Happy zzzz

2015 Week 10 Updates

Posted on by
Reply



It was an eventful week for us, the biggest thing that happened was the fact that the my laptop at home crashed for no discernible reason. This happened while BB was having an online lesson. The worst part was the photos in the laptop, which I had not gotten around to transferring to an external drive. 

I googled and found data recovery centres and now my laptop is with them. I am really hoping that the photos get recovered. Lesson learnt is that now I am exploring cloud storage. My research shows Dropbox and Google Drive to be the best.
I will come back with my final choice. But if anyone has any suggestions or choices, please do drop a note. 

Festivals of India: Karadiya Noombu

Posted on by
Reply



Savitri following Satyavan to the forest (Image from Wikipedia)

Women in Tamil Nadu will celebrate Karadaiya Noombu or Savitri Vartham on Sunday early morning. One of the more obscure festivals celebrated in Tamil Nadu, this can be compared to the more popular and ubiquitous Karwa Chauth that women in North India celebrate. In both, women fast for the well-being and long-life of their husbands. Here, women and girls will tie a yellow thread (noombu) at the exact moment when the Tamil month of Maasi ends and the the month of Panguni starts. In Karadaiya Noombu, girls also tie the yellow thread, although they won’t fast, unlike Karva Chauth.



Savitri begging Lord Yama not to tak e away her husband’s life (Image from Wikipedia)

A special offering to God called Noombu Adai is prepared to offer to the Lord and then eaten by the women fasting/praying.



Savitri fighting for Satyavan’s life (Image from Wikipedia)

It is believed that on this day, aeons ago, in mythology, the princess Savitri sweet-talked the Lord Yama and got her husband Satyavan back from the dead. The story of Satyavan and Savitri was first found in the Mahabharata and is actually a very sweet story. Read more here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savitri_and_Satyavan)

The fast for Karadaiya Noombu is observed from sunrise on the transition day when the Sun God, Lord Surya transitions from Kumbha (Capricorn) raashi to Meena (Pieces) raashi. 


I am really curious to know if other cultures have something similar….

Chinese New Year

Posted on by
1

Gong Xi Fa Cai, Xin Nian Quai Le

With these words, the Chinese diaspora across the world welcomed the Year of the Sheep yesterday. This is also called the Spring Festival in China and is traditionally celebrated for 15 days. The Chinese New Year is also called the Lunar New Year.

The Lunar New Year is a time to honour both deities and ancestors and is celebrated not only in China, but also in countries with significant  Chinese populations like Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines etc.

Regional differences ensure differing customs across the diaspora, but cleaning the homes thoroughly before the new year, buying new clothes for everyone in the family, putting up auspicious sayings and calligraphy in the home, giving away ‘luck-money’ in the form of angpows or red packets and having a reunion dinner on the eve of the new year are common across different dialect groups.

According to tales and legends, the beginning of the Chinese New Year started with a mythical beast called the Nian. Nian would come on the first day of New Year to eat livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One day a villager decided to get revenge of the Nian. A god visited him and told him to put red paper on his house and to place firecrackers. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. When the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, Nian never came to the village again. The Nian was eventually captured by Hongjun Laozu, an ancient Taoist monk. The Nian became Hongjun Laozu’s mount. (source Wikipedia)

The first two days of the Chinese New Year is a public holiday in many countries, including Singapore and when it comes at the beginning or end of a work week, like this year, it means a long weekend!

Many workplaces will have a special Chinese New Year lunch and lio-hei or yusheng for their employees. Lo Hei or the Prosperity toss is something which is pretty unique to Singapore and Malaysia and maybe other parts of ASEAN. The lo hei usually has fish served with white radish, carrots, capsicum, turnips, red pickled ginger, sun-dried oranges, daun limau nipis (key lime leaves), Chinese parsley, chilli, jellyfish, chopped peanuts, toasted sesame seeds, Chinese shrimp crackers (or fried dried shrimp), five spice powder and other ingredients, laced with a sauce using plum sauce, rice vinegar, kumquat paste and sesame oil, for a total of 27 ingredients. While putting each ingredient, auspicious couplets are said, each with a special meaning, to increase your prosperity in the coming year. Then everyone in the table grabs a pair of chopsticks and toss the ingredients in the air, repeating the auspicious wishes while doing so, the reasoning being, the higher you toss, the better your luck for the year. Some people believe that if the ingredients fall on your head, you will be very lucky that year!

My workplace had a lo-hei earlier this week, but I was held up and by the time I reached the place for lunch, the lo-hei was over…

Festivals of India: Maha Shivaratri

Posted on by
Reply

This year, I have decided to blog about all the major Hindu festivals as well as those of other faiths which are celebrated in Singapore. This will serve mainly as a repository of knowledge for GG & BB, when I am not around…

So yesterday, Hindus across the world celebrated Maha Shivratri. This is an annual festival which is celebrated in honor of one of the triumvirate of the Hindu pantheon of Gods – Lord Shiva. This day, celebrated as the convergence of Shiva and Shakti (male and female) is the day Lord Shiva married the Goddess Parvati. It is also said this is the day when Lord Shiva performed the Tandava dance, a dance which is the source of the cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.

Devotees celebrate this festival principally by fasting all day and offering bael leaves to the Lord as well as staying up the whole night in prayer and contemplation. It is said that the planetary positions in the Northern Hemisphere on this day act as a potent catalyst to help a person raise their spiritual energy. The benefits of powerful ancient Sanskrit mantras such as Maha Mrityunjaya Mantra increase greatly on this night.

This Wikipedia link has some nice stories on this day which is a nice read.

The holiest of the Shiva temples in India are called the Jyotirlingas. There are 12 such temples, spread across the country. More information is here

Personally, though Lord Shiva is the kuladevta (or family deity) of S’s family, we don’t really do anything special on this day. There are no special prayers or dishes we make to commemorate this day.