You probably know how it goes. You’ve just had lunch and you’re back at your desk. 3pm rolls around and home time is still some way off. Then the yawns start and all you can think about is curling up under your desk for a sleep.
Category: General Blog
How much sleep do you *really* need?
In 2002, he compared death rates among more than 1 million American adults who, as part of a study on cancer prevention, reported their average nightly amount of sleep. To many his results were surprising, but they’ve since been corroborated by similar studies in Europe and East Asia.
How to Make Profound and Lasting Change
Is there an area of your life you’ve tried changing, made some progress but somehow ended up in the same spot you started in? ThinkSimpleNow offers a simple psychological approach and a great exercise for making life changes stick.
The Science Behind Why You Can’t Recall Your Neighbor’s Name
It’s estimated that, on average, people have a tip-of-the-tongue moment at least once a week. Researchers have located the specific brain areas that are activated during such moments, and even captured images of the mind when we are struggling to find these forgotten words.
Alliance for a New Humanity
The world is coming together to make tremendous changes and help mankind overcome severe obstacles facing them .One of the powerful Alliances is ANH . UN and ANH have joined hands to train 100 million young people in new leaderships skills within the next few years.
Alliance for a New Humanity
Our mission is to connect people, who, through personal and social transformation, aim to build a just, peaceful, and sustainable world, reflecting the unity of all humanity.
CONNECT
We are people from all regions of the world and all walks of life who are joined by a common vision; to strengthen and sustain an actively compassionate humanity. Our movement is open to anyone who believes that creating a better world is possible – a world where all beings are valued equally, where the Earth is revered and protected and where the awesome potential of humanity can unite to bring about true peace and harmony.
Are you inspired by this vision? We call upon all people who are tired of passively waiting for things to change – to join us and Be The Change!
COMMUNICATE
We live in a time of great insecurity where humanity is faced with many grave threats. From climate change to political instability, from species extinction to poverty and warfare, it seems humanity is in great crisis. But crisis means not only danger, but also opportunity. Humanity is at a crossroads; our future depends on how we deal with four trends, each enmeshed and interconnected with the others: do we choose war or nonviolence, poverty or equity, environmental degradation or sustainability, discrimination or human rights? The choice is ours.
These problems are all interrelated, but so are the solutions!
INSPIRE
We envision a future illuminated by the truth of unity, a future where any boundary can be taken down because it only has to first come down in our hearts. This vision is a cause for celebration because many millions of people are following it already; soon this alliance of people working for a new humanity will guide a great evolutionary leap for all and provide the basis for sustainable solutions to humanity's greatest threats.
SUPPORT
Our pledge to you is that we will help to support all those initiatives worldwide that are really making a difference. Through our website, our newsletter and our Human Forums, we will provide the space for real change to happen, for people to come together to make a difference, and to share their passion about creating a better world.
Visit their site at : http://www.anhglobal.org and register
You may also visit my site to read principles of enriched thinking and watch a brief video: http://www.madure.org/enrichedthinking
The Ultimate Guide to Motivation – How to Achieve Any Goal
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
Top 10 Tips For Handling Redundancies
The “credit crunch” is being felt across the country. In the City of London workers are facing unprecedented lay-offs as banks and other employers react to the slow-down by making redundancies in swathes.
Redundancies are a way of life in the City. As one employer is firing, it is not uncommon to find another one hiring, so people can often move from job to job. However, unlike past lay-off situations, few organisations are recruiting at the moment and so employees are more willing to fight for their jobs. They are equally determined to fight for compensation if they are unsuccessful.
Employers need to take care to manage the dismissal process correctly to protect against the inevitable legal claims to come. Here are some tips for getting it right.
1. Document ‘fair’ reason
In any dismissal, the employer must show there was a “fair” reason for it – redundancy is, of course, a fair reason. Make sure that you have evidence to prove to a tribunal that a redundancy situation really did exist, and that the employee in question’s job really disappeared as a result.
2. Justify selection criteria
One of the key battlegrounds in any redundancy situation is selection. Make sure your selection criteria are capable of being objectively justified. Reasons such as being a “good team player” and “popular with clients” are too subjective to stand up in a tribunal as they are often based simply on the personal views of line managers.
3. Don’t discriminate
Ensure that redundancy selection criteria are non-discriminatory – in other words, they don’t make it harder for any particular groups of employees to score highly. For example, if attendance is a criterion, make sure you exclude maternity-related absence.
4. Consult employees
A fair procedure is all about consultation. Make sure you build in sufficient opportunities to consult employees in one-to-one meetings so that you can explore reasons for their selection and the possibilities for avoiding dismissals properly.
5. Build a flexible timetable
A sensible timetable is an important part of a redundancy process – but make sure you build in enough flexibility to allow employees to come back for more meetings where there are issues to discuss, or where extra information is needed. These are bound to make the process longer. Failure to allow enough time can lead to allegations that the process was a sham, and that decisions had been made in advance.
6. Gather ideas
Discuss selection not only with the employees selected for redundancy but also with their colleagues who have survived that particular round. These employees may have ideas of their own that could help reduce the need for dismissals. For example, someone not selected for redundancy may wish to take voluntary redundancy or opt for a job share – this could save someone else’s job.
7. Adhere to procedures
A fundamental part of any dismissal is adherence to the statutory dispute resolution procedures. These require employers to invite employees to a meeting to discuss the proposed redundancy, allowing them to bring a colleague or trade union representative in with them. Employers must listen to employees’ concerns, tell them the outcome of the meeting in writing, and allow them to appeal. If the employees do appeal, they must be invited to a new meeting with a manager not involved in the hearing. Again, employees have the right to be accompanied, and employers must confirm the outcome in writing. Failure to do so will make the dismissal automatically unfair.
8. Look at employment options
Employers are obliged to consider the availability of suitable alternative work. You should provide full details of any vacancies so that employees can evaluate the opportunity properly.
9. Air any grievances early
For many higher-paid workers the prospect of an unfair dismissal claim is not going to appeal since compensation is capped at ÂŁ63,000. To claim worthwhile compensation, these employees need to include a claim for which compensation is uncapped, such as discrimination. Make sure that as part of the consultation process, all employees are given a chance to air their grievances before being selected for redundancy. If an employee does raise one of these issues, ensure you investigate fully before making the dismissal.
10. Check contracts
Likewise, there may be disputes over unpaid bonuses or future loss of bonus or stock options. Check employees’ contracts, and bonus and stock option scheme rules, to see if the termination plans and timing trigger financial entitlements. Keep a grip on the timetable to make sure, for example, that employment doesn’t continue longer than originally intended so that the employee is inadvertently still employed on the date a bonus is due.
From CIPD sources
Inspiration !!
Norman Rockwell was one of the most prolific and well-known of American artists. During his 47-year career as a painter and illustrator, he depicted people and situations from everyday life. By his death in 1978, his work was familiar to millions of people, and remains iconic today.
Some of Rockwell's most recognized works include his cover art for the Saturday Evening Post, the Four Freedoms series (Freedom from Want, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Worship and Freedom from Fear), A Problem We All Live With, showing school integration during the 1960s, and Triple Self-Portrait, which is featured on The Foundation for a Better Life's "Inspiration" billboard.
Rockwell was born in 1894 and died in 1978. The Great Depression, World War II, The Civil Rights movement, the Space Age – Rockwell lived, and painted, through most of the turbulent 20th century. Even during the most frightening and uncertain moments of that century, Rockwell's work never turned grim or despairing, retaining a fascination with the human drama he saw unfolding around him.
Rockwell's work conveyed a belief in the goodness of humanity. One example is Triple Self-Portrait, where we see the artist (in his 60s at the time of painting) from the back, reflected in a mirror, and in the larger-than-life portrait on the easel. In the mirror we see a man with an aging face, a grizzled moustache, and thick glasses – but he is painting himself as a young, handsome man, ready to take on the world. The viewer gets the sense that this depiction isn't a false one, but that the artist is looking in the mirror and seeing his own best self.
In the same way, Rockwell saw the best in those around him. The Four Freedoms, painted during World War II, made it evident that Rockwell also strove to showcase what he saw as the best of American values and ideals. In the midst of a grim conflict, these illustrations were a reminder of what kind of world Americans were working for through their sacrifice and hardship. Deeply concerned with civil rights, equality, and the war on poverty, Rockwell incorporated these themes into his later work. Even his paintings that deal with troubling subjects show a resistance to despair and pessimism.
Critics have dubbed Rockwell's work as sentimental, overly sweet, and idealized. This may be because his work seemed to say that the ordinary people he was painting were extraordinary at the core. If what Rockwell painted was idealized, he also believed that we, individually and collectively, have the potential to reach that ideal.
"I showed the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed," Rockwell said. He later received the Presidential Medal of Freedom for "vivid and affectionate portraits of our country." Norman Rockwell saw the best in us – and so he has given us occasion to see the good in ourselves and each other, and that even an honest look in the mirror can be cause for hope.
50 Habits of "Naturally Thin" People
Eat like a kid. You don’t have to give up that quick lunch if you order smaller portions: Instead of a Quarter Pounder with Cheese and large fries, opt for the cheeseburger Happy Meal. You can even play with the toy. Saves 390 calories.
10 Craziest Facts About The Human Body
You need sleep as much as you need food. Many people neglect the importance of having enough sleep without knowing that humans can actually survive longer without food than without sleep.
Ambition !!
Liz Murray grew up in the Bronx, New York City. Addicted to drugs, her parents sometimes sold household items in order to get their fix. As a child, Liz hated school because when she did go, she was teased: there was no one to make sure that she showered or got up on time. As Liz grew older, her parents lost their apartment, and her father ended up in shelters. For a time Liz was placed in a group home. Her mother, who suffered from AIDS, became increasingly ill and was hospitalized. Rather than submit to the dehumanization and sadness that had characterized her experience in foster care, Liz chose to fend for herself. Liz slept on friends' couches or floors at odd hours, camped outside or rode the subway all night.
After her mother's death, Liz, then 16, felt that event as "a slap in the face" that caused her to question where her life was going. With an eighth-grade education, Liz decided that, as she said, "Life rewards action. I was going to go out there and… have action in my life every day instead of this stagnant behavior that I had been partaking in for so long."
Liz was admitted an alternative high school, the Humanities Preparatory Academy, where she doubled her course-load and completed high school in only two years. One of the top ten students in the school, Liz went on a school-sponsored trip to Boston and walked through Harvard Yard. "It's not as though I had some sort of epiphany at the moment … It was just more that I got jealous of how these students had so much opportunities, and I'd felt that I'd had very little. And so then I thought, `Well, what's the difference between me and anyone here?' And I filled in all the gaps."
Her grades qualified Liz for the New York Times College Scholarship, and she applied for and was admitted to Harvard. But far from resting on those considerable laurels, Liz continued to break new ground. A member of the Washington Speakers' Bureau, Liz has found she has "a knack for" sharing her story and insights with audiences across the country. Her story was adapted for film by Lifetime Television in the 2003 film "Homeless to Harvard: the Liz Murray Story." Liz is also an avid writer whose memoirs, "Breaking Night," were published in 2005. Liz returned to New York City to care for her ill father, and is currently pursuing a master's degree in psychology and sociology at Columbia University.
20 Common Cooking Ingredients that Also Work as Medications
The use of herbal treatments for everything from sore throats to cancer has become more and more common with every passing year. We all know about the herbal supplements like St. John’s Wort that can help you with chronic health problems, but did you know that many common edible herbs can provide impressive health benefits?
Retrain Your Brain; Become a Creature of New Habits
It seems antithetical to talk about habits in the same context as creativity and innovation. But brain researchers have discovered that when we consciously develop new habits, we create parallel synaptic paths, and even entirely new brain cells, that can jump our trains of thought onto new, innovative tracks.
5 Tips to Help You Live a Well-Balanced Life
With the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives, we often find ourselves yearning for a quieter, more balanced life. If your life has come to resemble an endless race to the finish line, take a look at the suggestions below to bring a greater sense of peace, calm, and even simplicity back into your life.
16 Tips For Getting Good Sleep
There’s a lot of advice out there about getting good sleep — it’s VERY important. We quickly adjust to being sleep-deprived, and don’t notice that we aren’t functioning at a normal level, but lack of sleep really affects us. If you’re feeling blue or listless, try going to sleep thirty minutes earlier for a week. It can really help.
Faculty of Law and Philosophy 