ending 2014 with love

Dear All, 2014 has been a very special year to me in many ways and when I reflected on the past 364 days, here are some of them ka:

1.Change -- so many changes after having retired from my 11-year Fulbright Thailand job ka, many new activities both fun and serious. I finally keep a blog to stay in touch with my previous egroup friends. I stay home more often to enjoy time with my family too.

If I were in the job, it would be time for me to write a personal email message to each of my team members, sharing with them my comments on their past performances. Khun Chatchai, who passed away the year before, was the one so anxious to get it and would literally check his email very often! 

2. Memorable Moments -- still feel extremely appreciative of the 'secret party' my former team members, alumni and partners organized! It will energize me to do more in my current capacity for our education circle ka!

3. Choices -- a few things are around for semi-retirees to pick and choose, making me realize there are so many opportunities available for me to enjoy a slower pace. The need out there in our education circle is really high, calling for help on quality systems and internationalization, etc....not so much on cross-cultural communication, though!

Life in 2014 has taught me to love working and retirement this year has led me to continue my passion in education, though much more slowly to appreciate other delights of life too.

I feel blessed for this year's change and I'm sure next  year will see more beautiful changes ka.

Sending my wishes for you all to be very blessed in life in 2015 ka.

Porntip

Sleep

I've been thinking about the 'sleep' issue and believe it or not, it was one of the minor reasons why I thought of retiring a bit earlier too. 

I had been getting up at around 5 am. for weekdays for decades to allow me to have more quiet time working at the office starting around 6. During my younger years, it didn't matter as much but life has changed once older and older ka:((!

It wasn't a serious problem though I have some difficulty getting to sleep. What struck me the very first time was when I read a signature of an American lady to learn that she didn't sleep much at all. I then heard from quite a few people and realized that insomnia seems to be a bigger issue than I thought.

Time has an article on it and on LinkedIn recently too. What have I learned?

Normally, it should be around 7 hours....Khun Dhanin, CP said that he had to make sure he had 7 hours of sleep, if not possible...at least 6 hours. A recent survey of Inc. 500 CEOs found that half of them are sleeping less than 6 hours a night (Travis Bradberry, Coauthor Emotional Intelligence 2.0). I think the younger generations even sleep less and could think of compensating it on weekends or on their long leave from work! 

Well! It depends so much on the quality of our sleep and our own physical system. For myself, I know I have several sleep interruptions from going to the bathroom, or from waking up to find it difficult to go back to sleep, or simply from thinking of tons of things.

Time pointed out that even when we try to sleep longer hours on weekends, it can't be compensated.

This makes me think of an ajarn who puts it this way ka, 'Sleeping is similar to eating. After being starved, you could just eat as much.’…. while the body has already suffered from lack of enough nutritious food.

I've caused my own brain cells to die without producing many I would need from the lack of quality sleep. Travis Bradberry wrote, “Sleep deprivation is linked to a variety of serious health problems, including heart attack, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and obesity…… has negative health effects that come from the havoc it wreaks on your immune system…” It makes us look older tooL!.

Travis Bradberry gave 10 tips on his article, “Sleep Deprivation Is Killing You and Your Career”, Dec 1, 2014 and let me share them with you ka….in case they could be helpful for you or others in this same boat ka.

The 10 tips are: Stay Away from Sleeping Pills, Stop Drinking Caffeine (at Least after Lunch), Avoid Blue Light at Night (for positive interactions with brain ka!), Wake Up at t he Same Time Every Day, No Binge Sleeping (In) on the Weekend, Learn How Much Sleep You Really Need, Stop Working, Eliminate Interruptions, Learn to Meditate, and When All Else Fails: Take Naps.

I copied from this article to remind myself and hope it helps you too ka.

Hope your work week won’t be too tough and that you’ll have a great sleep tonight and more to follow ka.