Sharpen your brain

Improve your memory
Learn by heart a "to do" list of ten or more jobs for the day that incorporates a route-it could be your stroll to work, say, or the walk to the gym- and try to mentally link each jon with one location: buying a newspaper at the shops, dropping off dry-cleaning in the high street, calling home outside th cafe, etc.Then ask yourself the following question:
-What task follows buying the newspaper?
-What job precedes phoning home?
-The second job on the list is?
-Where on the list is the dry-cleaner's?
The next day, come up with new list and increase the number of items to 20.

Boost your spatial awareness
Navigate you way round the house blindfold (best not done alone!) Then sit in a chair and mentally walk round your house, visualizing your every move. Or put 12 object on a tray memories their location, then get someone to move a few about. Guess which have moved.

Crunch more numbers
Do these exercise everyday: add up your shopping in the queue before you pay:devide up bills when they come in: estimate quantities of thing you pass, such as people in a group or trees in a garden. Keeping your mind nimble and always on the move with numerical teasers will improve your mathematical acuity.

Widen you word power
Go for as many of these as possible: watch and play along with countdown; learn a new word every day and use it often; make up anagrams of words; spend a day playing devil's advocate in every situation you come across. These will improve your understanding of the true meaning of words.

New ways to sleep so it counts

With recent research linking lack of sleep to health problem from hypertension to weight gain, there's more reason more ever to make over your sleep habit. But how? Here, expert offer some snooze tips you may not have heard before:

Let go out your worries.
Anxieties often seem magnified in the still of the night. Dealing with them can help you sleep. Just writing down worries, deadlines or to-dos before hitting the pillow can make them feel more manageable. Do whatever helps you relax.Ask your partner to give you massage. Or have sensual, not-too-athletic sex. Deep-breathing exercise, in which you focus on taking long, deep abdominal breaths, may help relieve pent-up tension (and the yawns).

Redo your bedroom
Make your bedroom more sleep-friendly. If noise from an adjacent room keeps you up, move your bed to another wall. Replace a sagging mattress and deflated pillows. And adjust the thermostat: The best sleeping temperature for most people is comfortably coll but not cold. Micheal Breus, PhD, author's 4-weeks Program to Better Sleep and Better Health, recommends 20 to 22 degree celcius.

Cut the light at nigh
Avoid bright light, which signals the brain to be alert, within two to three hours of bedtime or if you wake up during the night. Breus suggest aiming for no more than 45 to 60 watts of the light in the room when winding down before bedtime, and no more than 30 to 40 watts of indirect light when you're trying to sleep.

Follow the 20-minutes rule
If you can't fall asleep in about 20 minutes, whether at bedtime or after awakening in the night, go into another room and do something else until you get drowsy. Avoid thing required concentration such as video games, stimulation activities like cleaning. Try light reading or listening to music.

New ways to live longer.

The world's average life expectancy is about 67 years. But we may son increase that greatly. And we will not be frail and senile at age 150. "In addition to eliminating a lot of diseases of aging, we'll maintain function, vitality, cognition and all the other thing we value in terms of quality of life," says former National Institute on Aging researches George s. Roth, PhD, author of The Truth abouts Aging. Here, a few steps to take towards a longer, healthier life:

Eat a lot less
Slimming down can help prevent disease, and cutting way back on the amount you eat may even slow the aging process. When rodent eat a very low calorie diet, few get cancer, and they don't develop diabetis or obesity. In a study, people cut calories by 25 percent, they had less DNA damage than did those not in the diet.They also had lower fasting insulin levels and body temperature , both of which are linked longevity.

Make friend, get married, adopt dog
Social support, in the form of friend, family, neighbors and colleagues, can prevent the age-related spike in blood pressure that raises your risk of stroke and heart attack. Trying the knot is another anti-ager: Married can add about seven years to a man's life and three to a woman's. Pet can help reduce stress and lower blood pressure, and may even help heart attack survivors live longer.

Get moving
You may live longer, but if you're sick or disable, it won't be much fun. Luckily, exercise can help you attain a better quality of life as you age. You don't need to run or jog.Just walking at brisk pace translates into major health benefits. Aim for 30m minutes a day.

Reach for red.
Revesveratrol, an ingredient in red wine, seems to have powerful anti aging effect. Research suggest that it offers the same life-lengthening benefits as calorie restriction-without the hunger pangs.

Sleepy driver may as well be drunk (part 2)

Signs that you're too tired to drive:
-Yawning
-Poor concentration
-Tired or sore eyhes
-Restlessness
-Drowsiness
-Slow reactions
-Boredom and irritability
-Missing road signs
-Making fewer and larger steering corrections
-Finding it hard to stay in the lane

Tips to stay alert at wheel
-Make sure that you've had adequate sleep before you set off
-Plan to drive during day, not during normal sleeping hours
-Have a rest break at least once every two hours, more often if you find yourself getting sleepy
-If you do begin feel sleepy or notice any of the telltale signs we've listed, stop and nap for up to 40 minutes.
-Use caffine judiciously: keep it for when tiredness sets in but dont rely on it.
-Eat sensibly during the journey and avoid large meals.
-Where possible, share the driving load
-Avoid consuming alcohol immediately before and during your journey.

Sleepy driver may as well be drunk

Sleepy driver may as well be drunk, and possibly even more so, because they oftan dont realise that they are impaired. Driving for eight hours straight more than double your risk of crashing- making you as dangerous as a driver with a blood alcohol count of 0.05%.

The human body is programmed for two sleepy periods. The primary one is between midnight and 6am. The other is early to mid-afternoon. Most people will attribute this afternoon sleepiness to what or how much they ate for lunch.

"You start to lose attention because you're bored," says Professor Narelle Haworth, a specialist in prevention and rehabilation at Autralia Queensland University of Technology.

Fatigue can affect anyone on the road, but some are a higher risk for fatigue crashes: people who work long hours (working 60 hours a week increases you risk by 40 percent), shift worker (the human body never fully adjust to shift work), young people ( particulay vulnerable to the effect of their circadian rhythms), males (althought both ganders are equally sleep-deprived, males are responsible for approximately three out of four fall-asleep crashes), people with sleep disorder.

Loud music might help for awhile to avoid dowsy, but not for long. Loud music may also distract you from the road. Coffee (caffeine is only a short-term solutio and will less effect the more often you use it. Plenty of fresh air through the window may give give you boost and help for a while, as might turning the air-cond on to cold, But if you are tired, sleep is the only solution.

Think hypnosis is all hocus-focus

"Self-hypnosis is form of deep relaxation that helps you focus, solve problem and relieve anxiety about presentations and deadlines."

Here's how to try it:
Step 1: Close your eyes, and breathe slowly and deeply.
Step 2: State a secific goal such as "I'll feel confident about presenting my market analysis."
Step 3: Eyes still closed count from one to 100 then back to one.
Step 4: Repetitive staements will focus your mind on achieving your goal. When you open your eyes, you'll feel refreshed and ready to work.

Study tips for kids and parents.

Here tips from Oxford Learning to get your kids through school and dreaded exams.

KIDS;

1. Listen and hear.-Pay attention in class. Jot notes on the main ideas. Make a note and ask someone to explain it to you if you don't understand something

2. Ace your homework.-Use a planner to enter homework as soon as it's assigned. Pick to do homework and study.

3. Study effectively-Divide material into units and assign each unit a day. Give yourself a three-day break before the test. Study in short bursts- 15 minutes at a time - take a five minute breater to exercise and refocus.

Use Oxford's SQRCRC method to study:

Survey introductions, heading and summaries for main idea.

Question: What do I hope to learn by reading this?"

Read for details.

Cover the work

Recite what you've just read

Check how well you have done.

PARENTS;

1. Help your child prepare a study schedule, and review it together every morning.

2. Create a special work enviroment that courages best effort and makes it easier for your child to get into study mode.

3. Get involved. Your interest show them that school is important