But some researchers in the United Stated are offering an interesting scientific approach leading to explanation of this curious “excuse” women use to avoid having sex with their partners. The scientists have established that brains of the women with low libido tend to function in a completely different way compared to brains of women having normal sexual desires.

The research was conducted at the Wayne State University in Michigan. The results showed that in moments of passion and lust the blood flow to the brains of women having low libido isn’t the same like the blood flow of women not having this problem. The scientists suggest that these variations in the indicators of blood flow play key role for the levels of the libido with some women. Women with troubles feeling enough passion and desire to have sex do not receive enough blood to their brains and instead of just saying “No” to their partners, they prefer to use excuses such as severe headaches or being too tired.

This would explain why some women are unable to enjoy and feel satisfied of the intimacy with their partners and refuse any type of love play. Therefore the American researchers suggest that the test results are a very hard evidence proving the low libido is nothing but genuine psychic disorder.

First thing to do is to make a list!  A list of things you need to buy, who you have to buy for, what stores contain what and how much money you want to spend.

Use your computer and order online for gifts.  It is a fast and easy way to get gifts delivered right to your door.

If you must go out and do your shopping, pace your shopping out. Do a little bit of shopping once a week or every few days.  Start early and do a little bit at a time.  Don’t start shopping on the 20th of December!  Or better yet, buy gifts all year round when you see them (which is what I do, so I don’t have t rush around during the Christmas season).

Have a plan of attack.   Decide how much you can do in a day without being wiped out the next.  Plan the time of day to go out. If you don’t do well with crowds, early morning shopping may be the best because the stores are less busy.  If you can only go out at night, pick nights like Monday or Tuesday nights because for some reason, they seem to be less busy.

Shop with someone else.  They can drive you perhaps, help you if you get tired, or maybe they can carry your parcels for you.  Having a shopping buddy is a great idea and fun too!

Dress comfortably.  Wear comfortable shoes for walking and even layers if it is cold outside and warm in the mall.  You may not want to be carrying your heavy winter coat around if you get hot. 

Take some time out for a rest.  If you at a shopping mall, you can sit and people watch or go to the food court for a snack.  If you are travelling from big box store to big box store, suggest going for a coffee in between or just sit in the car for a few minutes.

Don’t be shy.  If you cannot find something you are looking for, ask someone who works there.  If you can, shop with a buggy.  It is better for carrying around your purchases in the store plus it leaves your hands free and gives you something to lean on.

Christmas should be a joyful time of year but it won’t be if you wiped out from shopping for it!

Since the recent recession many employers have “stream Lined” their workforce, making staff redundant will have been an option of keeping overheads down and may have been the only way of staying in business, however as the first signs of “green shoots” are starting to show (business is picking up) many employers are very reluctant to increase the work force again, for many employers lucky enough to keep their jobs the initial redundancies meant an increase in their work loads, however now that industries and businesses are picking up some workforces are being put under even more pressure resulting in excessive overtime,

The Working Time Regulations currently provide employees with the following basic rights and protections:

    * a limit of an average of 48 hours a week over a 17 week period which a worker can be required to work
    * a limit of an average of 8 hours work in 24 hours which night workers can work
    * a right to 11 hours rest a day
    * a right to a day off each week
    * a right to an in-work rest break if the working day is longer than 6 hours
    * a right to 28 days paid leave for full-time workers per year.

Click on the link below to go directly to the regulations:

The Working Time Regulations 1998

Organisations in Europe currently implement the opt-out clause to the 48 hour weekly limit, this allows companies to ask employees if they wish to agree to work more than 48 hours a week in a 4-month period. however employers cannot force employees to sign an opt-out, so remember employees cannot be dismissed for refusing to sign one.

1.      The best, and most obvious way to keep yourself safe is to drink water. Keeping yourself hydrated will make you less susceptible to becoming weak in the sun and passing out. If you’re going out for the day, it’s best to bring a canteen of water with you to avoid dehydration. Some sports drinks contain electrolytes which is also beneficial, especially if you’re going to be participating in a lot of heavy activity. However, water is the healthiest and cheapest option to stay comfortably hydrated.

2.      Wear light and comfortable clothing. Wearing loose clothing during the warm weather will help your body breathe and give off heat naturally. To stay cool, you should avoid any extremely tight fitting clothes as they will often become damp from sweat and stick to you. You should also avoid wearing and clothing that is very heavy – you don’t want any extra burdens on your body.

3.      Wear a visor. If the sun is out and there isn’t much shade around, you can make your own personal shade by wearing a visor. Visors are great because they block your face from harmful rays of the sun and also keep your face cool. Baseball caps are also good for this purpose, but if you’re going to be doing any exercise such as running or playing basketball you may want to avoid these as they can cause your head to feel overheated.

4.      Bring a spray bottle or a small fan with you. These items are often sold during the summer at amusement parks but you can also get them at local drug stores and supermarkets. Bringing a spray bottle to spritz yourself with water from time to time will help keep you cool and a hand-held fan can also be used to keep you at a comfortable temperature.

5.      Probably the most important tip to stay safe in the heat is to pay good attention to your body! To avoid heat-related illnesses such as forms of exhaustion and heat stroke, you have to be aware of your body enough to notice if you are displaying any symptoms. If you feel any nausea, vomiting, or headaches you should take yourself out of the heat until you feel better and if the symptoms persist you should contact a doctor. Knowing the symptoms of these conditions in advance can help you keep yourself safe while enjoying the sun.

Hopefully, these tips will help keep you cool while you have fun in the sun and spend time with your friends and family. If you have concerns about heat-related illnesses you can find detailed information about them online and I highly recommend that you read about any health conflicts that you feel concerned about. Stay safe, and enjoy the weather!

In today’s modern world of busy hectic lifestyles, it is not unusual for a person to feel rundown and tired.  Our demanding schedules require that we remain constantly on the go, running from one event to another. Proper sleep of course is a great remedy for this.   Unfortunately, there are some of us who constantly feel rundown and fatigued, no matter how much sleep they get.  This state of constant fatigue can have adverse affects on a person’s health.  It can disturb a person’s immune system, making them more prone to diseases.

 Look For Causes  

Attempting to diagnosis the causes of chronic tiredness is a great first step in a persons attempt to overcome fatigue.  Before seeking expensive professional advice, it is best to make an attempt at self-diagnosis.  Keep in mind that any illnesses over the past few months could lead to this fatigue.  Even if you feel fully recovered from the symptoms of an illness, it is still possible that you are suffering from lingering effects that are leaving you in a state of constant tiredness. Introducing vitamin C into your daily diet can help reverse these effects, and lessen your chances of getting sick in the future. 

Cut Back Stress

High stress levels may also lead to a feeling of chronic fatigue. Unfortunately, stress can be brought on by many different events.  Marital problems, problems at work and even health problems are all difficulties that may lead to the feeling of being overstressed. A simple solution when confronting stress is to attempt meditation and relaxation techniques.  If that does not seem to be up your ally, than make how about exercise.  Exercise is a great way to deal with stress.  Of course, this does mean that you should begin weightlifting, or attempting some other type of stressful exercise.  Simply try going for a walk or may be a hike.  These activities are great stress reducers.

Get Regular Sleep

An active nightlife can also leave a person rundown.  If you are person who enjoys staying up late with friends, visiting bars and clubs, then this is probably a cause of your fatigue.  Fortunately, this has a simple solution.  Cutting back on late nights will greatly increase your chances of waking up refreshed and rejuvenated. 

Did you know that many of the causes of constant tiredness are brought upon by more serious medical conditions?  Therefore, it is always advisable to seek proper medical advice if your condition persist or worsens.  The sooner you detect a serious problem, the better off you will be. 

Fortunately, not every cause of tiredness is very serious.  You may even be able to boost your energy levels by increasing your daily activity.  Activities such as jogging, hiking, and walking can have a positive impact on your overall mood and energy levels.  You may also even want to consider joining a gym, or starting a regimented work out routine.  Any activities, which get your blood flowing and heart rate up, will provide you with positive results.  

Too much sugar intake can also have a negative impact on your energy levels.  Sure, sugar can provide an immediate boost, but when dealing with sugar, a crash is inevitable.  The same thing happens when you smoke a cigarette or drink a cup of coffee.  Your body gets a tremendous rush of energy, but then begins to crash.  Unfortunately, so many foods these days contain sugars.  However, some of them are good.  Natural sugars are good for your body.  These are not the sugars you need to avoid.  Instead, avoid adding sugar to foods, or eating foods that are flavor enriched with sugar.  A great substitute is honey.  It is great tasting and natural. 

Here is even better news.  If you follow some of this advice, changing your diiet, as well as exercising, your will probably lose some weight.  So not only will you feel better, you will look better too. 

  

• Burnout is a defense characterized by disengagement.
• Stress is characterized by over-engagement.

• In burnout, the emotions become blunted.
• In stress, the emotions become over reactive.

• In burnout, the emotional damage is primary.
• In stress, the physical damage is primary.

• The exhaustion of burnout affects motivation and drive.
• The exhaustion of stress affects physical energy.

• Burnout produces demoralization.
• Stress produces disintegration.

• Burnout can best be understood as a loss of ideals and hope.
• Stress can best be understood as a loss of fuel and energy.

• The depression of burnout is caused by the grief engendered by the loss of ideals and hope.
• The depression of stress is produced by the body’s need to protect itself and conserve energy.

• Burnout produces paranoia, depersonalization, and detachment.
• Stress produces panic, phobias, and anxiety disorders.

• Burnout may never kill you but your long life may not seem worth living.
• Stress may kill you prematurely, and you may not have enough time to finish what you started.

This is what waking up is like every single morning. Waking up is painful. The same suggestion I’ve heard my entire life is to get to bed earlier. Okay. Fine. I get to bed earlier. Then what? I lay there awake. I count sheep, count breaths, practice conscious relaxation exercises, and whatever. I’m still awake. Just because I’m in bed doesn’t mean I’m going to be asleep. Then I wake up and the whole thing starts over again. Sometimes I go to great lengths to force myself into being a morning person. I set my alarm incredibly early so I’m tired that night. I can keep that up for a while, but I always fall back into the exact opposite pattern. What the hell is wrong with me?

Nothing. Nothing is wrong with me. It’s the way nature intended me to be. It’s our society to blame, not me. Why is our society so discriminatory against those with biological clocks such as mine? Why are natural nocturnes persecuted like this? Whose great idea was it to have the work day begin early in the morning and end in the afternoon? Is that some kind of idea they had in 1301? 1423? Why not start in the afternoon, end in the evening, and have all night as free time? I mean, really. Why the fuck not? How many morning persons do you know and how many non-morning persons do you know? Don’t we live in a democracy? Can’t we vote on this or something?

Not getting enough sleep is one of the major causes of fatigue. That’s a direct line from a radio advertisement. Well, no shit! Duh! That’s my first reaction. Then I got to thinking that maybe people really don’t realize that. That’s why we are so incredibly faithful to this tradition of beginning the day so goddamn early. The negative outcome is that it’s not good for the body to go without enough sleep. Almost everyone does though. Then we drink caffeine to wake ourselves up and then take sleeping pills to knock ourselves out. Those things aren’t good either. If we weren’t so hell-bent on this tradition of early birds and worms and that bullshit, we wouldn’t have a need for coffee or eight-thousand brands of canned energy drinks. We wouldn’t need melatonin caplets or valerian teas or overdoses of Nyquil.

Think about it. Work could start at around one in the afternoon and end at seven. Then there’s plenty of free time until going to bed as late as four in the morning and still getting eight hours with a full hour to get ready in the morning. That sounds incredible to me. What would be the problem? Some may argue that eventually that would be too early and someone like me would start bitching about it. Well, so what? Bump it up again. What does it matter? Before we conquered and spread our culture of plastic bags and Cheeze Wiz, the Natives woke up when they were well-rested and went to sleep when they were tired. What a concept! Why can’t we do that? Well, we need some kind of plan, or things never get done, of course. That’s exactly our problem. We’re obsessed with deadlines and getting things done. Why can’t things wait? There’s always tomorrow. For instance, I didn’t graduate college in four years. So? What does it truly matter? It still happened.

We have too many deadlines: Graduate high school, graduate college, get married, have kids, work, work, work, work, work, retire, sit around thinking of the old days, and die. Why is that? That sucks! I’m obviously an advocate of education, but why do we need to get married and then have kids? Why do we have to do both? Why do we have to do either? Do we really have to live up to some kind of expectation just for the sake of an expectation? We have to work to provide others services they need and in exchange we get paid so we can make purchases. Everyone has a unique skill or talent. Everyone has some kind of ability or trade they are good at. In exchange for money or other services, we use them to please others. That’s a very functional system. It works fine. Why the deadlines though? If we truly choose to pursue careers and interests we love, do we need to be motivated by the fear of punishment for failure to meet a deadline? Can’t we trust ourselves to do it eventually? Are we really that lazy?

We are that lazy, because we’ve made ouselves that lazy. We’ve made ourselves lazy with the invention of deadlines. Being somewhere at a specific time each morning is one of these deadlines. You might like to twist this around and say I’m the lazy one for wanting to sleep, but in actuality, adequate sleep would improve performance, functionality, and even brain activity. More sleep would mean smarter, harder-working people who aren’t on drugs all day.

The following practices are guaranteed to slow down the pace at which you function all day, everyday and speed up your zest for life.

1. Wake up right.

   It’s simple really – get up early enough to enjoy some quiet time. In fact, before your feet hit the floor, give thanks for your safe passage through the night (and that’s a lot to be thankful for these days).

   Commit the new day to God in prayer. Ask Him to help you to see His hand in all circumstances that will present themselves during the day, to keep your eyes open to the blessings He will send your way and opportunities to be helpful and compassionate to others.

2. Have a dream.

   Having a dream or even a few daily or weekly personal goals adds interest to your life. Write them out and keep them where you can see them every day. Review them regularly to see what progress you have made. Celebrate your successes and beef up your efforts, where necessary.

   Don’t throw away your old lists. Tick off everything you have accomplished, transfer the outstanding tasks to a new list and file the old one. On those days when feelings of frustration and discouragement attack, pull out the old lists and thank God for each success. Few things rev up your motivation to keep going like a list with items ticked off.

3. Keep learning.

   The greater your desire to know about the things that fascinate you, the more passionate you become about your life and your dreams. Curiosity also helps you stay open-minded and flexible. Become an insatiable reader of the books and magazines that target your interests. Connect with like-minded people and increase the joy of learning.

4. Adopt a healthy lifestyle.

   • Eat healthy meals.

     Enliven your meals with a variety of fruits and vegetables – the more colorful the better. You’re an adult now. The days for whining about which vegetables you don’t like are long gone. Suck it up and get with the “eat healthy” program. Set aside ample time to enjoy your meals. Eat slowly and savor the flavors in every mouthful.

   • Exercise.

     You’ve heard about all the benefits and it is time to stop making excuses. Start with stretching for 10 – 15 minutes a day and slowly graduate to a more structured routine.

   • Get enough sleep.

     Keep a regular sleep regimen. Engage in a light, non-stressful activity before sliding under the cover. End your day with something that relaxes you and helps you to slip easily into sleep.

   • See your doctor.

     Too busy is no excuse for not managing your health. Stop complaining. Call your doctor and make the appointment for those crucial periodic medical tests.

5. Limit your activities.

   Whittle the list down to a more manageable number. All your activities do not have to relate to your goals. Include at least one that takes you out of your comfort zone and adds an interesting dimension to your life. In any case, don’t fill your spare moments with commitments that other people thrust upon you. Learn to say, “No.”

6. Practice self-care.

   Feelings of overwhelm usually filter into and adversely affect every area of your life. Set up a routine that allows you some time to unwind and nourish your body as well as your soul. Sometimes nothing helps you unwind better than a few moments of solitude. Choose a special spot in your home that will afford you some uninterrupted time for reading, thinking or some other quiet, body-soothing, soul-enhancing activity.

7. De-clutter.

   Much of the clutter in our lives is a result of things we don’t need or don’t have time to use. Each item of course, takes up space that could be used for something that adds real value to our lives. Toughen up and rid your home and your life of the needless clutter and organize what remains. Make room only for what will make you happy, relieve stress, enhance and simplify your life.

8. Connect with friends.

   Friends amplify our joys and help to weaken the effect of our unhappy experiences. They are the flavorful ingredients that spice up our lives and add the warm supporting comfort that makes the worst tragedies bearable. But friendships, like plants, whither and die without care. Make time for the friends that bring meaning to your life.

Any change can be difficult, and reshuffling your existing routine to make room for new practices may seem like a major life adjustment. Even if it is hard at first, don’t give up. A small change can have a big impact. Start with one, and then add another. Persistence will pay off when you begin to feel and see the benefits.

Even if you don’t believe in a spiritual power behind your attention, it is a powerful tool at your command.

Attention bankruptcy

By paying attention to something, you are giving your energy to it. Just as sitting upright in a desk chair burns a few calories at a time, you are spending your physical and emotional energy with whatever you choose to watch, read, listen to or care about.

You know the feeling: stress drains you of minor amounts of energy for every moment you give to it.

Some things we choose to give our attention to: if you are chatting with a friend about her new boyfriend, you are listening to her words and watching her body language. You would be leaning toward her, and raising your eyebrows and smiling a bit while you nod in encouragement to reflect her joy back to her. You might be waiting for her to take a breath so you can say something about the spinach between her teeth.

The benefit of this kind of attention is that it is an equal exchange. Your friend will return this attention to you while you are telling her about your new boss.

Some things we choose to worry about: when you’re watching a troubling news segment on television it’s likely your eyebrows are knitted together, you’ve tensed your abdomen or jaw. You may even have to call someone to discuss this latest development. You might lay awake in bed that night thinking about this problem, giving it your sleep and even your weariness the following day.

The truth of the matter is that the government has levied a tax on your mind. Every time you turn your tired thoughts to the news about what our government has or has not done, will or will not do, does or does not stand for – you are giving it your energy. Do you really want to “pay” energy to the War in Iraq? Do you really want to “pay” for the 2008 Election?

Those distant people or events may not “receive” your energy and attention payments, but you certainly expend them. Why do you think the phrase is “pay attention”?

The good news is that you don’t have to pay this tax. The IRS will never audit you. They get their energy paychecks whether you participate in the system or not. You can choose to save your attentive energy for something more worthy: children playing, a sunset, your favorite song, a good book.

You are what you watch

Looking at a heaping salad bar you know what you should choose to eat. You know that high fat, high-carb dressing is no tastier than light vinaigrette. You might make your selections based on comparative nutrients, your cravings at the moment, or perhaps simply out of habit.

The same selection is presented to us each and every day in the smorgasbord of mass-media. We choose what we take into our bodies. The problem is that most of the mass-media buffet is not healthy. There is not equal representation among the mental and emotional food groups. There is no Recommended Daily Allowance for bad news.

It is an accepted fact that mass-media engines have to stick with news that sells. They thrive on headlines. If they can’t find something big and splashy, they will make something mundane seem sensational.

In order to “hook” audience members, the media must evoke an emotion in their readers, listeners or viewers. Emotions like fear or anger will captivate large numbers of people. Especially those who are habituated by years of picking up fear and anger like croutons on the salad bar.

Happy stories make so little money that “good news” is rarely even considered to be real “news” anymore. That’s because happy people aren’t the target audience. (It is generally assumed we have better things to do with our time.)

YOU are the Target Audience

Once you’ve noticed the media you are faced with each day, notice what you do with it. Do you frown or smile? Do you tense up or relax? Do you feel compelled to buy something? Eat or drink something?

Have you ever noticed what “target audience” categories you fall into? Do you see the same previews every time you see a film in the theater? Do you see the same car commercial every time you turn on the television? These previews are expensive – they haven’t been broadcast willy-nilly to precede every film this summer. Those car commercials are targeted to a viewer who will watch a particular program during a specified time frame. You.

Pay attention to the advertising you end up seeing regularly. Notice what it says about who you are – what parts of your life it appeals to.

Advertisers prey on our fears. Ads targeted at the teen / young adult market are about trend setting and fitting in, being pretty enough and cool enough. Those aimed at parents are about child safety and long-term planning. Ads aimed at the elderly are about health, personal safety and life insurance!

Do you fit in with your “target audience group”? Are you properly pigeonholed?

McNews

Are you ready to try a media-free attention diet?

Believe it or not, there are enough information sources surrounding you in daily life that even if you never watch the news or read a single newspaper article, you will still know the gist of what’s going on. What will amaze you is how little the headlines change over time, and what passes for “news” on a daily basis.

Like most diets, the long term benefits will be more effective as a lifestyle change, rather than a temporary purge.

Also similar to nutritional dieting, the first step is awareness. Like the Food Log that a dieter is asked to keep and simply watch mindfully what they are eating every moment of the day for a week, you will need to know where and how you take in your mass media information.

Where do you get your news? Where do you seek entertainment? Do you read the newspaper every morning? What about television? Films? What sites do you read online? Who emails you the latest juicy tidbits of gossip?

Like the omnipresence of McDonald’s restaurants – Big Macs that splatter all over the world – notice the inundation.

Notice how much the world clambers for your attention.

When I get up and get ready to go to work in the morning, I choose not to turn on the television.

The first news I read is the headline on the local paper in the newsstand at the commuter train station. The Watchtower I politely decline each morning. Animated digital news & advertisement tickers on the train platform. On the train itself, there are closed-captioned television screens with taped local news and commercials. Billboards out the windows, on-train advertisement placards for fast-food and cars for sale: “Low-credit, No-Credit, OK!”

There is the music blaring from headsets of other commuters. Not to mention the various covers of books, magazines, and newspaper headlines in the hands of everyone around me. There, are of course, more news tickers, newspapers and ads at the station near my office. Branding on buildings, banners, and the sides of trucks on my short walk. News, trivia and advertisements scroll on a Captivate Network LCD screen in the elevator of the office building.

I unwillingly receive this in one hour, even before I’ve turned on my PC, checked my email, or gone online.

Life outside the box

You will notice a resistance to your media diet from friends and loved ones. Like an alcoholic sometimes has to make new friends to stay on the wagon, you might have to talk to different individuals.

Some people feel very insecure about the idea that you aren’t watching television. I find that my media diet triggered a defensive response in many people. At first, they were confused asking me questions like “What do you do?!” or “Where do you point your furniture?”

When I respond that I write, read, listen to music, practice yoga, surf the net, garden, walk my dog, experiment in the kitchen, clean the house, paint, sew, or get a little extra sleep… They wonder if perhaps they should be joining me on this unconventional quest for peace and quiet. When they decide that they cannot possibly give up their time with the mass-media, my friends started trying to give me television sets. Literally. It became a point to make all of them feel better to know when I finally accepted one.

It is commonly accepted social etiquette to have something interesting to talk about in casual conversation. If you’re reading great books, then you don’t need this. If you’re renting quality films that you really want to see (or borrowing them from the library?) again, you’ve got plenty there. But if you really need current events to be able to chat about, I highly recommend a fun site called Happy News.

The media-free diet

One of the more insidious sources of “information” I’ve encountered has been the informal kind.

The news at the water-cooler is actually the most helpful. I tend to hear most of my breaking news from concerned coworkers who know I don’t watch the news. In fact, we always benefit from our friends giving us their attention.

They don’t bother to ask my opinion about the latest election candidates. Instead, they make sure I’ve heard about the e-coli in my spinach salad, or the recall on cat food. I end up getting the need-to-know data, rather than all that other stuff.

Before you grow too concerned about side-effects of your media diet, you don’t really need to rely on them for the information. I’d have found out the instant I went to the grocery store and couldn’t find a bag of baby spinach leaves to buy. Nor do you need to trust them as a reliable source. Often, after receiving a tip from someone about anything that really concerns me, I will go online and look up more information from a few sources.

Email is the hardest informal news source to weed through. Memos, company announcements, gossip, and chain letters.

The best thing I have ever done for my peace of mind is this: In Outlook, under the Tools menu, select “Options”. Then click on the button for “Email options” then on the button “Advanced Email Options”. In the section entitled “When new items arrive in my inbox” UNCHECK EVERY SINGLE BOX. This means my PC will no longer beep or blink when a new email is received. A dozen new messages can pile up before I have a moment to check them. I’ve never fallen behind in my work. Productivity is enhanced because my stress levels have decreased as my time management abilities have skyrocketed.

As far as personal email is concerned, I have a few preferences.

First, I never buy in to those “send this warning to everyone you know” notes. Even if I’ve had the time to look it up on Snopes and it really is true. If it isn’t true, I reply to the sender with a link to the article debunking it. I like to request that they fact-check these things before sending them out. Repeat offenders usually get a warning that in the future, such discrediting emails will be sent via “Reply All” and would they please remove me from their distribution list.

I usually read the “feel-good” ones and the jokes, but very seldom pass them along. There are two kinds of senders from whom you receive emails from. There are friends who always have an interesting personal note, an invitation to a party, or a fascinating detail that made them think of you. Then there are the people who only send messages to large groups of people at a time, usually with the telltale acronym FW still in the subject line. I prefer to not have my email address be synonymous with SPAM in my friends’ minds.

At the office, we give our energy and attention to our work. If it’s something that challenges, interests or excites you, it’s likely that your energy is recycled right back into your mind – you remain enthusiastic and engaged in your work. If it’s something that is not quite as fascinating, you are likely to feel your energy draining out of you as you give it your attention.

If you are feeding your mind to your work, doesn’t that make it doubly important to love what you do?

After a hard day of paying attention for pay at the office, the one place where we have the most control over what we choose to attend is at home. Do you open all of the mail you receive? Pay bills? Watch television? Listen to the radio? Go online? Flip through a magazine? Is there something on playing just for “background noise” around you?

If you turn all of these things off, what would you hear? Birds singing? Maybe the squeals of neighborhood kids playing tag? Or a dog barking to be let inside? Perhaps it’s the sounds of traffic – cars, trains or airplanes. Can you hear your neighbor’s TV turned up too loudly?

Or is it quiet? Can you hear your breath? What about your heartbeat?

The real question is this – can you leave it all turned off? For one night? Like people who can’t have ice cream in the refrigerator without hurrying to eat it, some people simply can’t have access to all of the media available in daily life and not give it their attention.

I defragged my PC because it’s what I wanted to do with my head.