Saturday, September 3, 2011

Luxuries Of The Modern Life

Modern life is filled with state-of-art technology appliances that contribute to making our lives more relaxing and enjoyable as well as reducing our workload. HD and 3D television sets, highly mobile fast laptops, smart phones, cars, kitchen appliances and a whole lot more.

Take for example floor cleaning. During yesteryear's, grandma used to kneel and scrub the floor with a brush, using up a lot of time and energy. Fast forward to now, you have the canister vacuums and carpet cleaning machines which can do much faster and cleaner too. Robotic vacuums can even do the job for you with minimum supervision while you relax over a cup of coffee. Fantastic isn't it? Can you even imagined yourself kneeling and scrubbing the floor with a small brush?

With the advent of the Internet, the pace of life has gone even faster. The world wide web give us a sense of seamless boundaries. Information is just a click away. How much faster can you get? Just think of the slow mail.

However as with all things in life, there are always pros and cons, open to abuse. Internet addiction, Internet games addiction and Internet gambling addiction has become serious enough to warrant the setting up of 'boot camps' for such 'addicts', to cure them of their addiction. China is one such country where you can find such camps.

If we can make use of all these modern technology inventions to benefit us only, and not abuse their uses, then the world would indeed be a much better and happier place. Is it just wistful thinking I wonder.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Shop Wisely To Avoid Debt

Everyone loves shopping. Just look at the crowd at the shopping complexes during mega sales. Some even find it therapeutic, some catch up with friends while shopping while you have those that use shopping to socialise. Some even take it as their weekly exercise regime!

The not so glamorous side of shopping is that you might find yourself heavily in debt - credit card debt to be exact. Let me share with you the 4 spending habits that you must practised to avoid the debt trap.

Habit no.1 - Put down on paper your budget and not just in your memory. Having a budget helps to prioritise your spending habits. Never spend more than what you earn every month. Best is calculate how much spending power you have left after deducting all your necessities such as car and housing loan. Then spend within your means. If you suddenly come across a beautiful dress on sale, but you have used up your budget for the month, then you have to force yourself to walk away.

Habit no.2 - Do not ever try to spend money which you think you are going to earn soon. Spending 'future money' is a sure path to debt. Paying for things in installments is just like spending 'future money'. If you have a few such installments to pay every month, this can create debt if you fail in your repayment. Avoiding using the next month paycheck for this month's purchases.

Habit no.3 - Everyone uses credit cards to pay for most purchases these days. in fact most own a few cards. The trouble starts if you do not keep track of what you buy and just keep on signing for what you assume are just small purchases. These small purchases can turn out to be one huge purchase way above your spending limit at the end of the month. Keep a file on your daily or weekly purchase so as to keep your spending power in check.
 
Habit no.4 - Never ever consider using debt to pay off debt. This means that someone who is in debt tries to use a credit card to pay off this debt, but ends up in debt to the credit card company. This is just moving the debts around and you end up with more debt. But if you can transfer your debts from a higher interest card to a lower interest one, then you can slowly reduce your debt, provided you do not use the card for other purchases other than paying off the original debt.

A moment of weakness can lead to a lifetime of regret. Overspending month after month can be one of them.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Sing Your Stress Away

Everyone has to deal with stress in one way or another. There are so many books written on the subject, with as many ways to de-stress. You must have heard or even done some of them, such as meditation, exercise, massages, aromatherapy, think positive, music and lots more. But have you ever tried singing as a way to relieve stress?

How does singing help us de-stress? By way of the meaningful words of the song, maybe a relaxing or uplifting melody together with the vibrations of the sound that travels through the body as you sing.

According to the sound therapists, our out-of-balance body that is physically as well as emotionally drained, can be brought back to balance with the use of the correct sounds and frequencies. Somehow, our central nervous system and brain is affected by certain frequencies and sounds. A good example is chanting, which has the ability to calm our mind and soul, by slowly down our respiration and heart rate.

So when you feel sad, sing an upbeat song or one which bring back memories of happy moments. Do it the way the kids do, sing without caring whether you have a nice voice.

Humming is also relaxing. Why, it can even be just a single note and you end up just as if you are meditating.

According to the experts, groaning loudly, right from your stomach, to your chest and out through your nose and mouth as you exhale, is a great way to get rid of tensions in your body.

The most well known is chanting, such as chanting a positive word or phrase. This helps to get rid of negative feelings, in other words, our stress.

Sometimes, just a simple breathing exercise is enough to slow and calm us down. Just breath deeply and slowly, focusing on each breath as you go along.

Or if you can't even be motivated to move yourself to do anything, then at least listen to specialist tapes that have recorded sounds that soothe and relax your mind and body.

So the next time you are caught in a traffic jam, open out your lungs and sing or hum to your heart's content.