Worth Every Minute: Brain in Love

Yesterday was Valentine's Day, which isn't a really big deal to us since we're quite romantic most of the year. It is one of the only times a year, however, that I get flowers. I don't know why, but it just sort of worked out that way.
This year we decided that in the future we will celebrate this flower-day on February 15th or 16th to benefit from the post-Valentine discount.

So today I want to share some romance not inspired by Valentine's but by scientific research instead. The following link will lead to a TED talk on how our brain functions when we're in love and why romantic love is something to take very seriously!

Helen Fisher also shows why falling in love with someone who doesn't love you back only makes things worse, that animals do share the same feelings even if only for a second, and the difference between intimacy between women and men.

The video is 15 minutes, but worth every second! Interesting and entertaining. Enjoy!

Helen Fisher studies the brain in love

Worth Every Minute

My advice from the doctor last week was to drink more water, because she feared I might be dehydrated. Naturally, I'm not one to argue, but I am one to inform myself, and that's how I came across the following article that I thought was really interesting. It talks about the health benefits of drinking water, and how it can help you stay fit by burning fat and nurturing your muscles.

It's a short article, a 2-minute read at most. Hopefully it'll inspire you to drink more water too. If you want to get some tips on how to drink more water, you can read this post.

Read the article and get re-hydrated!

Health Benefits of Water - How 8 Glasses a Day Keeps Fat Away

Worth Every Minute: Productivity

I know many of you are looking for ways to become more productive. In the past, many of the posts have been about habits to become more productive, and today I want to share somebody else's take on the issue.

The post I want to share today is one about habits that are unproductive that we could let go of. It's interesting to take a look at these common activities and review them in the light of their effectiveness.

Even though the English in this post is not perfect, it's worth reading for the excellent advice it gives. For a long list, it's also pretty concise, so don't worry about having to spend too much time.
Let me know what you think! Or if there's anything else you would add to that list.

17 Unproductive Habits to Let Go by Timo Kiander on LifeOptimizer.org.

Have a little more time and want to see what else is worth reading/watching. Have a look at the other posts in the Worth Every Minute series.

Worth Every Minute: Alternative Gifts

It's that time of the year that shop owners rejoice in the splendor of holiday spending. In my family we usually manage to keep things quite limited, but I can't help giving into buying gifts for friends and family from time to time.

Luckily, both my hubby and I have been out of the Christmas atmosphere for two years now (Christmas is not a big holiday in China), and it's been easy to avoid buying things like decorations and typical holiday foods. It's made December a lot less expensive than it used to be.

But looking forward to spending more holidays with family, we'd like to find more ways to keep the gift-buying to a minimum because neither of us is a big fan of 'stuff'.

That's why I was so happy to come across a ZenHabits post on alternative holiday gifts. I immediately felt like sharing (even though it took me about a week to do so).

Interested? Get all the goodness here:

The No New Gifts Holiday Challenge by Leo Babauta on Zen Habits.

For more articles and videos worth watching, check out the whole series of Worth Every Minute here.

Worth Every Minute

In my limited reading last week, I came across an article on Re-Psych, a blog I read even if I don't have time for many of the others. It was so eye-opening for me, that I want to share it with all of you. Angeliki talks about little moments we often forget about.

I don't want to give too much away and just gently nudge you in the direction of the post. All you have to do is click the link.

Watch out for the spaces in between by Angeliki on Re-Psych

 For more articles and videos worth reading/watching, click here.

Worth Every Minute!

Every Wednesday, here on Minutes Worth Hours, I share something from around the web that I found truly inspiring or informative.
Today I went to share anothe article from SimpleProductivityBlog.com, one of my favorite blogs. This is an article about clutter and collections, that I know will ring true to some people in my life.

Moving from country to country has forced both me and my hubby to give up on the idea of collecting pretty much anything, although we both will have to face collections that we have at home when we return to our countries.

In this post, LJ Earnest talks about taking a good look at the different items in your collections and asking yourself whether 'being part of a collection' is really a good reason to keep anything.

You can read it for yourself!

Get Rid of Clutter by Weeding Out Collections by LJ Earnest on SimpleProductivityBlog.com

Go ahead and check out LJ's blog for more advice on productivity, simplicity and organization.

For more articles and videos worth every minute, check out the other posts in this series.

Worth Every Minute!

I love TED. I know I mentioned it before (see this post), but I go back to it so often that it has become a trusted and loyal friend, and I'm hoping it can be the same for you.

Today I want to share a TED video that I watched the other day and found very informative.

It's a talk by Philip Zimbardo about how boys are developing in our culture. As most of the teachers among you probably know, boys now consistently perform worse than girls on a whole range of tasks. But Zimbardo shows that this isn't only an academic but also a social issue.

Enjoy these 5 minutes of interesting and entertaining information!

TED Video The Demise of Guys by Philip Zimbardo

Worth Every Minute!

I've read so many great blog posts lately, that I find it difficult to choose one to share. But there was one that I just knew I had to share.
Perseverance hasn't always been the easiest for me, and I still need to be reminded of how important it is to just keep going at it from time to time. Chances are that if you try long enough, you'll eventually get the result you're looking for. You're increasing the odds with every attempt.

Today's article talks about just that. It gives you the reasons you need to keep working at your goals. For those of you who are working toward a goal that seems to be impossible to reach, this could be a great help!

So without further ado:

How to Succeed: Keep At It Until You Get Lucky by Donald Latumahina on Lifeoptimizer.com

Let me know if you enjoyed it as much as I did!

For more worthwhile reads, check out the other posts of Worth Every Minute.

Worth Every Minute!

It's that middle of the week again, so time for another article that I'd like to share. If you're looking for more articles to read, you can find the whole collection of Worth Every Minute here.

Today, the article I want to share is one about making friends. In our situation, as English teachers in China, the turn-over rate of other foreigners who come and go is quite high. We are faced with friends leaving every June and meeting new people the next September. So knowing how to make new friends is not a luxury.

Even if you already have great friends (like I do), making new ones can be something that opens your horizons and lets you entertain different points of view. I have learned a lot from befriending Chinese, Koreans, Americans and other nationalities here. It's been eye-opening and very rewarding.

So without further ado, here are some tips on how to make friends:

8 Tips for Making Friends by Gretchen Rubin on The Happiness Project

Let me know if you have tried any of these tips and how they worked for you! I can already tell you that nr. 7 has been a great way for me to meet new people.

Worth Every Minute!

I love libraries! Whenever I do the 'Describe your favorite place'-exercise with my students, I give the library as an example. I love the smell of old books; the sound of pages being turned; the neat, endless rows of book cases.

And yet, I have to admit, I haven't set foot in a library in China yet. Why? I just haven't seen the point, really. I don't read Chinese. Period. Unfortunately, my love for books only goes as far as I can actually comprehend them to a degree.

But not for the writer of the following article. She talks about the other reasons why visiting a library can be wonderful. It's not only a great place to get books (usually free and very environmental!), it's a place where you can get 10 more great advantages.

Read for yourself!

10 Ways to Use the Library by Tiffany Larson on SimpleOrganic.net

For more articles that are worth every minute, check out the full series here.

Worth Every Minute

I've been trying to incorporate more calcium into my diet, and one of the ways I've done this is by sipping the occasional glass of milk. I drink one with breakfast, and one before going to bed. It comforts my stomach when it's upset and it's just nice as an in between snack.

I was looking up some information about the benefits of drinking milk (and the drawbacks) when I came across this site that I'd love to share with you. It has lots of great tips on how to incorporate drinking more milk into your life, and on the benefits of drinking it.

So go ahead, read, think, get a glass of the good stuff!

The Health Benefits of Drinking Milk by Michele Borboa

PS. Avoid taking calcium with iron-rich foods because they sort of cancel each other out. Vitamin C and D help with the absorption of calcium.

Worth Every Minute

I've been looking forward to Wednesday just to get a chance to share this article with you. I read it a couple of days ago, and couldn't wait to feature it on Worth Every Minute.

The article gives 8 examples of words that are used in a certain way, and how to look out for them. Each of these words carries a negative effect or a hidden suggestion with it.
Mostly they're about becoming more certain of what you say, such as when changing I wish to I will or I deserve. 

The 8 words the writer discusses are: try, wish, I am, if, should, I can't, desperate and luck.

Enjoy the article in your own time:

Watch Your Words: 8 Ways to Choose Your Words More Carefully
by Caz Makepeace on lifeoptimizer.org

Worth Every Minute

I like zenhabits.net. Sometimes it's a bit over the top, but I often find very valuable and worthwhile thoughts on there. Plenty of the things I do in my daily life, stem from zen habits in one way or another.

Today is Wednesday, so I want to share another article with you. This one is about making decisions. We make a ton of decisions in our daily life, and some of them can really pose problems. We can take an awful long time deciding on things that don't really matter in the end at all, like what to have for dinner. I've written about deciding before in the post Make a Decision!

What Leo Babauta does in this article, is give you some ideas to make decision making easier. He explains that we are obsessed with making the 'right' decision, but that often we can't because we don't have all the information it takes to make that right decision.
As a way to help us decides, he asks you to listen to your intuition and view every decision as a chance to gain more information, to learn something. I hope you get something out of this one too:

Effortless Decision-Making by Leo Babauta

Let me know what you think!

Worth Every Minute

Wednesday is the time for me to share some of the great stuff out there on the web. You can find the whole series of Worth Every Minute here.

It's summer time, and for many of us (including me) that means the reading rate goes up. I have a lot of family and friends whose idea of a relaxing time is reading a book in a park somewhere. It's how my sister and I spent half our time in Beijing last week.

I love reading, and I always want to read more. That is, I want to have already read more. There are so many books I want to experience, and so little time I have to read them. Summers are great for reading, but also for drinking cocktails, playing frisbee and having BBQ's. I can increase the time spent on reading, but I'd like to do the other stuff too. Are you the same?

One of the things that can help, is trying to increase your reading speed. Don't worry, you don't have to race through your books like a maniac, but a few little tricks can set you on the way to reading faster and reading more.

You can get some great tips in the following article from Lifehack.org:

7 Speed Reading Tricks by a Former Book-Hater by Karol Krol

Have fun reading!
Let me know what books you guys are into, I'd love to exchange ideas.

I recently finished The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry and thought it was pretty great. Difficult to put down.
Also read Elizabeth Gilbert's Commited and learned a lot about marriage. Very insightful!
Both books make excellent holiday reading!

PS. Today is my hubby's 25th Birthday ... so Happy Birthday honey!

Worth Every Minute

Every Wednesday, I share quality information of another great blogger out there on the web.
You can find the complete set of articles here.

This week, the article is about productivity, or rather lack thereof, and one of its reasons. It may be a counter-intuitive one to you, but Jonathan Fields shows that spending every minute keeping up to date with every on-line conversation may be killing your productivity and creativity instead of increasing it.

Creative Kryptonite and the Death of Productivity by Jonathan Fields.

This may be the reason people can get such a boost from going to places where they are completely disconnected from the social media, and have no opportunity to 'stay in touch' 24/7.

Worth Every Minute: Travel Edition

Every Wednesday, you can read the awesomeness of another author on the web through the Worth Every Minute series on MWH. As we are traveling around China while this gets posted, the article of today is also travel related.


Living in China is great, but it won't make you rich. Living in China, luckily, is very cheap, but traveling in China isn't. That means that we have to make do with little money. Also, we love to save wherever we can.


The article for today offers 50 tips on how to do just that: save money when traveling.


Enjoy!

50 Budget Travel Tips and Save Money on Vacations from Moneying.com

Any more advice on how to save money while traveling? I'm always interested to find out new and nifty ways of saving a buck or two.

Worth Every Minute

It's Wednesday today, which means that I share with you something I found inspiring to read myself.
Today, I've selected for you a ZenHabits post of a while ago. In it, Leo Babauta talks about the lessons he has learned during his life so far.

They are 38 little gems of wisdom. Some are quite self-evident, some are new and inspiring, some I just disagree with. But I'm convinced there's something worthwhile for all of you in there. If you can prove me wrong, please do!

So, without further ado, the link to the post:

ZenHabits's 38 Life Lessons I Have Learned in 38 Years by Leo Babauta.

Let me know if you have enjoyed this post as much as I have!

Worth Every Minute

Every Wednesday, I search for the best advice or inspirational information available on the web, to share with you, my readers. They can be blog posts, articles or videos, that have inspired me in some way or another. The whole series can be found here.

The first in my series, is a blog post by Scott Young that takes an interesting view on figuring out what you want to do with your life. It's a question I struggled to answer myself for a very long time. I feel I now know what I want to do, but I'm aware my choices might change later in the future. My hubby still struggles with this question, so this is for all of you who do.

What do you want to do with your life, by Scott Young.

I hope you enjoy the article, and feel free to share your opinions in the comments here or on Scott's blog.