Posted by Editor | Comments Off on Sleep Like Sleeping Beauty
Sleep Like Sleeping Beauty
5 Tricks to Getting a Good Snooze at Night
Ever gone to bed promising yourself that you’ll sleep at 10 PM, only to stay up the whole night watching your favourite series? Well, if you find yourself doing this regularly, all the while complaining about feeling groggy the next day, then you’re not practising good sleep hygiene. Observing proper hygiene is crucial for getting a good night’s sleep, and here’s how you can do just that:
Sleep and Wake Up the Same Time Everyday
Waking up the same time every single day helps in stabilizing your circadian rhythm. This means you’ll also start feeling sleepy the same time every night, thereby normalizing your sleeping pattern. Health experts even advise to avoid extending your sleep, as it’ll only make you feel more tired later in the day. So turn off your snooze button, and just get up and start your day.
Adjust the Temperature in Your Bedroom
Adjusting your bedroom environment is part of proper sleep hygiene. One way of doing is to by lowering your room temperature, since a drop in body temperature help in inducing sleep. The ideal temperature is between 15 to 19 degrees centigrade. If it’s too cool for you, set your AC to a temperature that’d still prevent heat build-up at night.
Keep Your Bed Space Quiet and Dark
Along with lowering the temperature in your room, this is another way of adjusting your bedroom environment. External disturbances like bright lights and noise will just keep you up and about. Sleep specialists even say that people slept earlier during the time before electricity was discovered. So when it’s time for your hit the sack, ensure that you put the lights out and turn the radio or TV off.
Use Your Bed for Sleeping Purposes Only
Your bed should be a furniture piece that you’ll only use for sleeping – no other activities, such as reading or eating should done on it. If you wake in the middle of the night, get out of your bed and read. Just ensure that you only read a book, and just go back to bed when you’re feeling sleepy again.
Get Rid of the Blue Light
The blue light emanating from the screen of your phone is notorious for slowing melatonin production, which is essential for helping you sleep. To lessen its effect, wear eyeglasses that cancel out these blue glares. You can also put your phone on night shift mode, but the most ideal option is to just put your gadgets away.
Getting a good snooze at night won’t only make you look good in the morning, it’ll also help you focus more at work. So get the good shut-eye that you deserve by simply putting the aforementioned tips to work.
Read MorePosted by Editor | Comments Off on What to Look For When Buying a Fridge for the First Time
What to Look For When Buying a Fridge for the First Time
Refrigerators don’t look like a lot at first, and there’s a good chance you won’t be thinking about them until you finally make the move to your new home in Singapore – only to realize that you don’t have any way of storing essentials like milk, eggs, and meat.
Today, it’s really hard to imagine living without a refrigerator because it’s so useful in keeping food fresh for longer periods of time. And like most things, there’s an art to finding the right fridge to buy. Simply keep these five things in mind and you’ll be able to pick out the right one for your daily needs:
Size
Size is perhaps the most critical aspect you can look for when buying a fridge for your home. Even though most refrigerators are designed to fit between counter spaces, there’s a good chance it might either be too big or too small for your needs. You should also remember that your fridge needs fit through all kinds of halls and doorways, since you can’t place it in your kitchen if it happens to be too big to pass through.
Energy-efficiency
Like many electricity-intensive appliances used in most homes, like a washing machine or an air-conditioner, refrigerators can rack up a huge amount in your utility bill since you need it to keep running 24/7. This is why you need to choose a unit that’s energy-efficient – not just in cutting down carbon emissions, but also in saving you a lot of money in the long run.
Unit Type
There are a few types of unit types you need to consider when buying a fridge for the first time:
- Side-by-side – This popular type has adjacent doors for the freezer and fresh food compartments, but while they have a big storage capacity, they also have the drawback of needing more reaching and bending.
- Bottom – Bottom freezers allow you to take the most used items at eye level, which makes them more convenient to have.
- Top-freezer – The standard refrigerator type is cheap, and with more recent models, they can also be efficient in both space and energy, with its only drawback being that doesn’t offer as much space.
- French-door – This version saves space with narrower doors for both the upper fridge and two separate doors for the lower freezer, but the main drawback is that the freezer is located at the bottom compartment.
Extra features
Lastly, be sure to watch out for fridges with adjustable shelves, since you’ll never know if you’ll be storing tall items. You should also take a closer look at its temperature settings. Some units have separate temperature-controlled drawers other than the freezer, and you can use them as dedicated storage areas different types of meats.
Read MorePosted by Editor | Comments Off on How to Give Gifts Anyone Would Love to Receive
How to Give Gifts Anyone Would Love to Receive
Whether it’s Christmas, a birthday, an important occasion, or an anniversary, you’ve most likely seen what it’s like to be disappointed in receiving a gift, and you don’t want that to happen to the next person you give a present to.
So how do you make sure you give people amazing gifts every occasion? No need to fret – this guide is here to help you pick the best gift for the person or people on your list.
What Makes a Great Gift?
To know exactly what you should get for whoever is on your list, you have to know what makes a great gift in the first place.
A great gift is anything that meets the following criteria:
• It reflects the person’s interests. What does that person like? What’s that person’s hobby? Do a little bit of research. Pay close attention to their interests – they’ll always drop hints if not say it outright.
You might find that it’s easier to give gifts to someone you know well than a person you don’t. If you’re looking for a gift for the latter, the safest bet is always providing a way for that person to get what he/she wants, such as a gift card, or even cash.
• It has a personal touch. The magic of gift-giving is that it’s personalized from you rather than specifically for the person you’re giving the gift to.
In other words, it’s including a bit of yourself, whether it’s a piece of art, a knitted scarf, or even a hand-written note.
• It’s what that person needs or is looking for. It’s often said that the best gift you can get a person is the exact thing that that person needs at the moment or has been meaning to get for a while.
Don’t Forget the Packaging!
Once you finally got the gift you think that person would appreciate the most, it’s time to think about what you should place the gift in.
The packaging is just as important as the gift itself, so be sure to place or wrap it in something that the recipient actually wants to open. It also has to be enough to actually cover the gift and keep the person guessing.
While it does have to be well-thought out, you don’t have to wrack your head trying to think of the perfect gift to give a person. You don’t need to break your wallet if you can’t afford it, either – gifts aren’t all about the price tag, but about the thought and care put into them.
At the end of the day, the whole point of giving gifts is about the latter two, and as long as the person acknowledges this, it’s good enough.
Read MorePosted by Editor | Comments Off on How to Care for, Use, and Store Your Leather Bag
How to Care for, Use, and Store Your Leather Bag
History buffs might have heard of the 5,500-year-old leather shoe found by archaeologists in Armenia, and while it’s not a leather bag, it’s an incredible testament to the durability of leather. But even if it’s a tough material that can last for thousands of years, the environment in which the leather shoe was preserved had to be dry and cool to keep it intact.
The same conditions are also needed for leather bags that are sold today. Remember that it’s made from animal skin that is prone to cracking, drying, staining, and warping, so, you must care for it the right way.
Polish or Condition
Before cleaning, polishing, or conditioning your leather bag, you should know what type of material you’re dealing with. You can check with the store for the type of skin used; whether it’s vegetable-tanned, chrome-tanned, full-grain, top-grain, exotic, and patent leather.
Polishing means coating the leather with a protective finish to make it durable. But be careful when doing this because it can change the color of the material, so test the product first on an inconspicuous corner. The conditioner on the other hand, is like a moisturizer for the leather, to keep the material from drying, wrinkling, and flaking. Use only a product made for leather once a month, and with a dab of conditioner on a clean, soft cloth, rub on the surface in circular motions. Leave the conditioner by air-drying for 10 minutes, then wipe off the excess.
Waterproofing Leather
Generally, you should avoid taking your bag with you in bad weather, because even if there are products that will protect the leather from moisture, it can never be fully waterproofed. If it does get wet, just let it dry naturally and don’t use heating materials to avoid warping the leather.
Avoid freezing temperatures as well, because it can make the material brittle. You can use beeswax creams in non-dyed leather to protect it from water, or a spray protectant that is made for such a purpose. Remember to test the product first on an inconspicuous part of the bag.
Cleaning and Storage
Your hands should always be clean when handling the leather bag because they could absorb the oil from your skin. But since this isn’t possible all the time, you could clean the surface with slightly damp cotton cloth. You could also spray a leather cleaner on the cloth, then wipe it on the leather in circular motions. If you see any stains, these should be removed immediately using crushed white walk that is sat overnight and dusted off the next day.
Before storing your leather bag, use a leather conditioner to keep it soft (except on patent purses) then let it air-dry before wrapping it in a dust bag or fabric bag. For suede bags, clean only using a suede brush instead of a damp cloth. Don’t forget to air your leather bags once every two weeks to prevent mold growth.
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5-Step Guide to Keep an Organized Wallet
Keeping your wallet organized isn’t a habit that should only be adopted by executives and those in high-paying positions. Having an organized wallet won’t only keep things neat, it can actually also help you save some money by optimizing your credit rewards and limiting your expenditures. So before you start feeling lazy in organizing your wallet, here is a five-step guide that will help you cut the clutter now.
- Utilize Your Bill Holder. Folding your bills and just sticking it in the change area, card slots or any other pockets in your wallet is the number one cause of a disorganized wallet. Horizontal bill pockets doesn’t exist for nothing, so make it habit to insert your bills in its proper holder for an easy bill access and exchange.
- Perform a Card Check. Other than bills, another thing that might be clogging your wallet are your cards. So, as you organize your wallet, take out each card and sort them between those that you need every day (valid ID, driver’s license, debit or ATM card, credit card, and health insurance card) and those that you don’t (discount cards, library cards, membership cards and business cards).
- Sort Your Paper Scraps. The main culprit behind a messy and unorganized wallet are paper scraps, namely coupons and receipts. While it’s inevitable to keep receipts in your wallet, it’s also important to get rid of the ones that you won’t be needing weekly. Throw away the receipts of yesterday’s lunch or coffee, and only keep those that have warranties in a separate envelope. Coupons, phone numbers, addresses and reminders should also be thrown away if you won’t be needing them again.
- Cut Your Loose Change. Not only does loose change clutter your wallet, it also weighs it down. If your wallet has a built-in pocket for change, use it instead of carelessly dumping your coins in the bill holder. If your wallet doesn’t have that section, then place all your loose change in a separate purse to avoid unnecessary coin spills the next time you pull out some bills.
- Downsize Your Wallet. One good way to prevent you from filling your wallet with unnecessary papers and coupons is by downsizing it. This way, you’ll become more conscious about keeping your wallet organized and choosing between the things that should and shouldn’t be inside your wallet.
Now that you’re done organizing your wallet, you can now easily grab your bills to buy your favourite latte without holding up the line just like you did when your wallet is still overstuffed with scraps.