If You Never Failed, You Never Lived

A beautiful video that presents the facts of life – namely, if you want to live, you have to take risks. Risk taking is bound to make you fail. However, if you never failed, you never lived.

Watch the video.

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Instructions on How to Tie a Tie

A few years back, I had blogged on learning to tie a tie. The post contains YouTube videos demonstrating various knots. Now here is an info-graphic which clearly describes the steps involved in putting on a tie.

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How To Win Friends And Influence People

This is a synopsis of the Dale Carnegie‘s best selling book – “How to win friends and influence people“.

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How To Master Your Emotions

As human beings, we are all affected by emotions. I am sure every one of us have had to face emotions like anger, hurt, guilt, regret, sadness, dejection and so on. Many times, we are overwhelmed by these emotions thus making us less useful to us and people around us. Learning to master these emotions will help us to gain more control of the situations we face and thus sustain balance in our lives.

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5 Tips For Working The Night Shift

My friend who does night shift work tells me he initially found it hard to work at night. Of course the management did make it a point to provide night shift entertainment to its employees to keep them alert. However, nothing beats a sound sleep right ?

He went on to provide the following 5 tips which has helped him in doing night shift work without getting burned out.

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100 Skills Every Person Should Know

Learning new skills can be a chore or an enjoyable experience depending upon what type of skill you wish to acquire. However, if developing skills involve everyday tasks like changing ones car tire, how to keep yourself cool in a hot climate, finding potable water in a desert, or picking up a few essential first aid skills, they are not just enjoyable but a potential life saver as well.

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7 GTD Tips to Improve Productivity

In this age of  economic downturn, if you want to hold on to your job, you have to be productive. Productivity improvement is the new mantra in most offices  and your boss will be gauging you (as he will be gauged by his boss)  on how useful you are to the company.  To remain useful however, you need to be productive.

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Baking Soda – Uses and Benefits

Baking soda is a common ingredient in many food recipes. But baking soda can be used for many other things as well. For example, baking soda is an excellent disinfectant, it can be used in combination with other ingredients as a substitute for commercial tooth paste and so on.

Today, I happened to read an article in “The Hindu” newspaper espousing the health benefits of baking soda. Having piqued my curiosity, I decided to research on the various uses of baking soda and the following are my findings.

Baking soda as a deodorant

Sprinkling baking soda in armpits will help kill and prevent bacteria which cause body odour. Baking soda has to be sprinkled as soon as one finishes a bath. You should make sure your armpits are dry before baking soda is applied.
Why does baking soda work ?
Our sweat doesn’t cause body odour, it is the bacteria that grows under our arm pits that does. So after cleaning yourself, sprinkling baking soda will ensure the bacteria doesn’t thrive thus eliminating body odour.

Note: Do not use baking soda immediately after shaving your armpits. It will cause quite a rash and skin peeling, which might last for a week. If you have recently shaved your armpits, wait for a day before starting to apply baking soda.

[Reference : Life Less Plastic]

Baking soda for teeth – Toothpaste

Ingredients:

• 6 Teaspoons, Baking Soda
• 4 Teaspoons, Vegetable Glycerin
• 1/3 teaspoon, Salt
• 15 drops, Peppermint Extract

Directions:
Mix all together. Store in an airtight container.

[Source : Badhuman]

Baking soda as a cure to kidney disease

A new study has found that a daily dose of baking soda or sodium bicarbonate has been proven to slow the decline of kidney function in some patients with advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD). [Source: The Hindu Newspaper dated July 26, 2009]

Difference between Baking Soda and Baking Powder

Baking soda is not the same as baking powder. Baking soda is pure Sodium bicarbonate. Where as baking powder contains a combination of sodium carbonate, acidifying agent (cream of tartar) and a drying agent (usually starch). So don’t end up buying baking powder when you want baking soda and vice versa.

Pursuing the real secret of Happiness

What are the things that make you happy and what are those that make you unhappy? There are two kinds of happiness -

1. Natural happiness. Eg You are naturally happy when you get a promotion at your office in recognition of your dedication, loyalty and  hard work.
2. Synthesized happiness. Eg A disgraced politician saying he is so much better off physically, financially, mentally and in almost every way.

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Optimism – Pass it on

What is optimism ? It is the art of looking at the brighter side of life even when things go wrong. Watch the following video which demonstrates optimism through the eyes of a child….