1. Take Regular Breaks

You may have an overwhelming to-do list and feel as though there is no time for relaxation, but studies show that taking a break can make you more productive at work. Make time every hour to stand up, stretch, and have a cup of tea. Giving your brain a chance to chill out every so often means that you’ll feel refreshed, and you’ll be able to retain more knowledge when you sit back down to study.

2. Watch your Procrastination

Ok, a five minute break every hour is a great thing to do for yourself, but what do you do when that 5 minute break turns into an hour?

People procrastinate for a range of reasons, but more often than not it is a reaction to the stress and anxiety of the task at hand. Perhaps you feel like you can never finish all work you’re supposed to do, or the topic you’re trying to learn right now is impossible to understand. These negative feelings about work can make anyone feel like switching off and pretending none of it is happening…

The best way to deal with this is to meet the problem head on. If you’re stuck on something you don’t understand, try looking up a tutorial on YouTube, or even study a different subject for a little while to mix things up. If you feel like you can’t finish all the work that needs doing, break down the to-do list into smaller, bite sized jobs and just focus on the important ones.

3. Be Realistic

If you write yourself a to-do list that is a mile long or beat yourself up about getting less than 99% on every test, you’ll soon find yourself falling apart.

Be kind to yourself and set realistic goals and time schedules. Think how great you’ll feel when you are actually able to tick off every item on a to-do list on a regular basis!

Studying and learning is hard work on its own, there’s no need to make life harder by setting unachievable goals.

4. Spend Time with Family and Friends

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, as the saying goes. If you’re about to start an entire year of hard work and study, you will definitely need to make time for the important people in your life.

Having people to chat to and have a laugh with is a great way to let off steam and help you keep everything in perspective as you push yourself through.

5. Exercise

Study can often mean a lot of sitting down at a desk, bent over your notes. This can cause muscle pain and discomfort. Also, lots of people find the stress can cause them to overeat or reach for sugary snacks.

The solution to these problems and more is to make sure you get out there and burn up some energy whenever you can. Incorporate a ten minute run into your daily routine, or hit the gym a few times a week if you need a physical outlet for stress and tension. Go for a walk in the evenings to clear your mind and settle yourself down before bed if you just need a mental break.

Countless studies show the benefits of exercise for our mental states, and when we’re studying we need all the help we can get.

Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff

Keep all these tips in mind and find your own way – everyone is different. Learning is a personal process, so get to know yourself and be kind to your body and your mind. Enjoy your 2015!

World renowned Tom Dixon has a passion for design – with flair to match. From humble beginnings this British artist has brought  design to the fore and into the everyday. Inspired by his surrounds and drawing on the human experience Dixon creates household items such as furniture and lighting that amaze with their beauty.

Early Life

Tom Dixon discovered his creative flair as a young man at Holland Park Comprehensive with their pottery and life drawing classes. His talents for creativity and business were nurtured during his two years as a professional musician during the 1980’s, and he was introduced to welding techniques during his time at a car body repair shop.

The year 2000 saw Dixon receive a medal for services to design at Buckingham Palace – an O.B.E.

In 2002 the Tom Dixon brand begins.

Based in London, in partnership with David Begg, the company begins with a line of extruded plastic products. The company has grown exponentially in the following years, with an established global reach and product lines ranging from interior design, lighting, designer lamps, apparel, gifts, and accessories.

Innovative Lighting Design

The range of lighting designs created by Tom Dixon is intended to inspire, invigorate, and transform the home from the everyday to the chic. With his focus on functionality as well as fashion, these items are practical as well as artistic.

Tom Dixon gets his inspiration from a variety of sources. His 2006 line of pendant lamps were designed with the sculptural simplicity of Northern India’s brass cooking pots and water vessels in mind, while his Etch Shade lights were inspired by the logic of pure mathematics. Other models have drawn on elements from the Audi A8, with the Etch Light Wed created to represent all the important design elements of the vehicle.

These designs are a beautiful addition to your home, bringing a touch of style and modern contemporary art to your spaces.

If your looking for Tom Dixon lighting head over to DesignerLightingMelbourne.com.au and check out the latest products on offer from Go Lights. Massive savings on offer. Special Discount Pricing for Trades and Bulk Orders.

In fact, last night’s sale of “Post-War & Contemporary Art” at Christie’s Auctions in New York realized a total of $852.9 million in sales and boasted over a dozen world records for a number of featured artists.

Art Setting New Records

Each of these artworks set new world records, making these items the highest selling piece for each artist.

Starting with Seth Price’s ‘Vintage Bomber’ at Lot #1, it sold for $785,000 which was 11 times its estimate set at $50,000 – $70,000.

Sturtevant’s Lichtenstein, Frighten Girl sold for $3,413,000, the estimate was only $600,000 – $800,000.

Martin Kippenberger’s Untitled went for a minor $22,565,000, the estimate was set at $15,000,000-20,000,000.

Arshile Gorky’s ‘Child’s Companions’ surpassed its estimate selling for $8,901,000 (estimate $4,000,000 – $7,000,000).

Peter Doig’s Pine House (Rooms for Rent) realizes $18,085,000 (estimate not public).

Ed Ruscha, Smash, also topped his world auction record when it sold for $30,405,000 (estimate: $15,000,000-20,000,000).

Cy Twombly’s Untitled realizes $69,605,000 (estimate set at $35,000,000 – $55,000,000).

Georg Baselitz’s Der Brückechor realized $7.4million. Estimate set at $5,000,000 – $7,000,000 .

Cindy Sherman’s ‘Untitled Film Stills’ sold for $6,773,000, another world auction record for her artwork (estimate set at $6,000,000 – $8,000,000).

By the half way mark Christie’s tweeted, “Half way through the Post-War & Contemporary evening sale and we’ve set 10 #worldauctionrecords. Stay tuned!”

Notable Sellers

Not a world record but still a decent price!

Andy Warhol’s Four Marlons was sold for $69,605,000, estimate not provided, but this was a feature piece.

After just 6 minutes of bidding Andy Warhol’s Triple Elvis sold for $81,925,000. No estimate offered for this one either!

Safe Investment

In a landscape where world economies are in turmoil, share prices and the real estate sector are on shaky ground, is artwork the only safe investment?

With so many world records being set you have to wonder if this is where all that hyped up superannuation fund money is being driven.

All prices quoted are in USD.

1.    Eat Breakfast
For some reason, heaps of people skip breakfast. If you’re like me and often wake up hungry, you’ll be astounded by the ability that so many have to get through the morning without a proper meal.
However, lots of people wake up feeling like the last thing they want to do is eat. Others rush out the door with no time for anything. Then there is a whole bunch of people who think that skipping breakfast is an easy way to cut back on calories, and therefore lose weight.

Well, these people are WRONG! There are literally hundreds of studies that show how important breakfast is. Eating properly in the mornings is key to losing weight and maintaining a healthy lifestyle, with studies linking breakfast to increased mental performance, lower risk heart disease and diabetes, and most importantly for us – keeping those kilos off.
Breakfast gets its name from it’s main purpose – to break the fast that your body goes into as you sleep during the night. During that fasting time, your metabolism acts differently to during the day, and needs to be properly ‘woken up’ to function properly while you’re awake.
Consider making breakfast the most calorie intensive meal of the day, stacking up on protein and low GI carbs.

2.    Go for walks
Everybody knows that we’re meant to exercise regularly to maintain a healthy lifestyle. Exercise burns calories, improves cardiovascular, skeletal, and mental health to name a few.
But isn’t it hard to find the time?? Well actually… it’s pretty easy. You only need about 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day – and you don’t need to do it all at once.
That means if you just get off the bus a stop early, park your car a bit further from home, or set a reminder to do a loop of the office every hour, you’re on the way to hitting the target. Add a 15 minute walk after dinner or during your lunchbreak and you’ll be on top of it.

3.    Work those muscles
Ok, so your exercise app tells you that you burn negligible calories during weight training. But working your muscles increases your body’s daily calorie requirements, because just HAVING muscles burns extra calories. So grow them a little bigger to increase their ability to burn calories!

You don’t need to get a personal trainer, or even join a gym. You can gain muscle by doing yoga, or doing easy at-home exercises a couple of times a week. You can actually gain muscle by going for a run, attending dance classes, or learning to do handstands. You only have to use them to grow them!

4.    Aim low, very low
If you care about losing weight, you’ll probably lose the long term battle against weight gain. Research shows that going on diets all the time is associated with as much as 10kg of extra weight gain over a decade. That means that if you have ever signed up for a fad diet, or you eat a different diet because a wedding or party or something is coming up YOU ARE GOING TO GAIN WEIGHT.

This happens because swinging between diets makes your body think that there’s no food around and it goes straight to starvation mode. So when you do eat, it does its best to store energy from food – whether you are currently on a diet or not. This means that when you are eating hardly anything, and when you are on a ‘blow out’ week, your body is in weight gain overdrive.
Your body loves it when you treat it consistently. That means you just need to organise yourself to have the same diet for every week of the year. The best way to plan a diet that you’re going to stick to 365 days a year is to make achievability your top goal.
So make up a diet that includes a big breakfast of something delicious, a lunch and dinner that is 50% vegetables, and snacks of raw vegetables, fruits, and yoghurt.  Never put junk food on your weekly shopping list, but always enjoy a slice of cake during special occasions.

I remember seeing them everywhere … but now, I don’t see them. As a child I had absolutely no idea what they were, it was just a random floating “thingie” you made a wish on.

So what were those Floating Thingie’s?

We were chatting about this at the office recently, little floating puffs that you caught and made a wish on … but none of us knew what the floating thingie’s were.

It turns out, at least in this neck of the woods (Sydney area) that the floating thingies were in fact plant seeds. More specifically thistle seeds.

Now reflecting on this the childhood memory is equally awakened to the fact that thistles hurt!

So while my childhood wonder was awakened by a floating puff, the seed I beheld and blew on its merry way was in fact a thistle seed!

I don’t know if there has been a significant eradication program employed? But I no longer see thistle seeds floating through the air? It seems as if thistles are a thing of the past … and capturing floating dream makers seems to be a forgotten tradition.

Where Did I see that Thistle?

I was reminded that the thistle is actually the national emblem of Scotland and, possibly, even more importantly was the flower given to William Wallace in Braveheart!

So are they still out there? Surely!

But are they still the floating dream makers that were representative of my childhood?

Do children still chase them and make a wish, then blowing them on their merry way?

Well I hope so.

Perhaps you’re a little skeptical about the need for such a large amount, day in, day out. Read on to find out what the science is really saying about our water consumption.

The 8 Glasses a Day Myth

This is the most common myth about water. There’s actually no scientific studies on record to back this claim up!

The mantra appears to have come from a misunderstanding. Scientists are basically in agreement that men need about 2.6 litres of fluids a day, while women need about 2.1 litres – and this basically adds up to 8 glasses.

However, the total fluid intake includes all the fluid you consume – i.e. in every meal, snack, or drink of any kind. Fluid intake from solid foods makes up about 20% of the total amount if you’re eating a healthy diet.

Interestingly, your body actually produces around 250mL of water all by itself during digestion. Add that to your fluids from solids, and you’ve already had about 700mL!

Hey presto! At this point, women have 1.4L and men have 1.8L left to consume in a given day.

Water is the only thing that counts

This is also definitley a myth. You should count every drink you have all day long. That means your tea, coffee, and even your beer!

The idea that caffeinated drinks shouldn’t be counted comes from the fact that caffeine is a dihuretic. However, the experts say that the water consumed with the caffeine is more than enough to ensure you can just count it as one more cup of regular fluid.

Alcohol on the other hand does make you a bit dehydrated. But if you’re sticking to a drink with a higher water content such as beer, you can be a little more relaxed – as long as you’re not getting totally sloshed.

So… how many cups of water??
Well it depends on you. A woman might have about 5 cups a day and get along just fine, while a man might still need about 7!

Luckily, if you count your coffee, your tea, your juice, and your beer, you’ll only need about 2 or 3 glasses of water. Just get in the habbit of having a glass when you wake up in the morning, and just before dinnertime, and you’ll be hitting your target.

If that’s all too mathematical for you, just drink when you’re thirsty…

Then, other times, the Internet provides the platform for great artistry, a portal to talent that would otherwise have been just a local phenomena.

Body Painting Techniques

Meet the artistic delights of Guido Daniele, born in 1950 in Soverato, Italy but now based in Milan. With decades of artistic creativity under his belt, Guido more recently turned his attention to body painting techniques.

By the turn of the century, Guido Daniele developed a stunning new technique known as “Handimals”.

Truly the lizard you see before you is a work of art, from forearm to hands.

The patience, the attention to detail, the fact the canvas is so short lived, all stun me with their creativity and artistic design.

Guido refers to himself as a makeup artist and body painter, but these designs deserve much more recognition than just the application (even skilfully) of makeup.

This interactive art, is just part of Guido’s repertoire. Beyond Handimals, full body paint, he has also created some stunning street murals and the focus of many major events.

If you’d like to see more of Guido’s work you can visit his website or checkout his Facebook page.

Handimals Body Art

Just a few more hand paintings that stood out … check out his site for 100’s more.

But these demonstrate some of the incredible diversity that a pair of hands can do.

Truly Guido Daniele has taken shadow puppets to a completely new level!

Handimals Snake

Handimals Fish

Handimals Butterfly

Handimals Bird

I’m not sure why I’m surprised about this latest fad but it literally has taken the world by storm!

From young children to adults tiny pieces of rubber of varying colours are being woven together creating artistic tapestries adorned as bracelets, necklaces, even key rings.

In fact a quick search I uncovered more uses of loom bands than I’d could have ever conceived … this would make a great family feud question!

Name the top 10 uses of loom bands.

Top 10 Loom Band Ideas

1. Bracelets … yeah, pretty common – but there are so many designs!
2. Necklaces … ok still not really very mind blowing.
3. Earrings … still jewellery I know
4. Pencil grip … pretty cool though
5. Hair tie … ok back to accessories
6. Key ring … really a glorified bracelet I guess
7. Panda charm … but they’re so cute!
8. Feature characters … like Rapunzel or the minions
9. Loom Band Sandals … stretching it by calling them sandals, but who would know!
10. Ab Exerciser … this one’s for the parents – picking up all the flaming little rubber bands off the floor!

Loom Band Resources

I am truly stunned at the amount of sites dedicated to loom bands, from design to ideas, how to videos to Pinterest boards.

This is only a quick collection of sites that I came across that may get you started, or progressing in your loom band addiction – or obsession.

• Rainbow Loom Official Site: The original site, complete with scam warnings about counterfeit loom bands.
• Loom Bands Changing the World: Taking up the fight against child cancer, check out this site and the difference kids are making with their loom band purchases.
• Rainbow Loom Instructions: Regular updates with new designs, ideas and more. A treasure trove of how to videos showing step by step guides.
• Loom Band Pinterest Board: 635 pins and growing! I can only imagine how many rubber bands are clogging up that vacuum cleaner.

Finally, an Australian TV commercial – loom has gone multi media.

If you haven’t heard of loom bands … well, I can only imagine you are living as a hermit. Maybe this blog has opened your eyes!

There are so many uses, and it’s so simple, creative and, for once, off the computer or hand held device!

WARNING: The use of loom bands is strangely addictive and very quickly can become an obsession!

The inaugural tweet of any new account has always been a focus, so in true ingenuity CIA used this opportunity to take a good dig at itself.

Almost an X-Files feel to it really … or Men In Black.

I’m not sure who’s been placed in charge of social media at the CIA, but I’m sure it’s an interesting post.

They’ve also recently created (or claimed) their own Facebook Page: Central Intelligence Agency.

I’m not sure if they are using metrics to assess their ROI on social media presence, but as of mid June Twitter is outstripping Facebook 10 to 1!

In the first eight hours, CIA’s Twitter account already had over 250,000 followers and now over 627,000. While Facebook has only just surpassed 50,000.

Is there a conspiracy to all this?

A more recent Twitter post is honouring former CIA head, George W. Bush, publishing his now unclassified badge photo taken during his days as CIA Directory (30 January 1976 – 20 January 1977).

They also uploaded same image to Facebook, citing that George W is the only man to have served as head of the CIA and president of the United States.

CIA World Fact Book

I’m sure many are aware, that this isn’t the first foray for the CIA online. For years they have published a detailed world fact book.

This is a wonderful resource for all types of information about the countries around the world.

Each country provides images of maps, flags, scenic photos plus a treasure trove of political, economic, cultural data.

Where Will It All Lead?

I’m fascinated to see where it all leads. Whether the CIA will put up with the trolls on Facebook, the rants and raves … or will the antagonists slowly have their Facebook accounts removed?

Regardless, a big welcome to the CIA on social media circles and we look forward to the insights into the unclassified section of the social media managers.

Sun cream products sold in Australia are some of the most regulated in the world, but even these will let you down if you don’t know how to use them properly.

Experts say that most consumers apply sun cream incorrectly: we don’t put on enough, and we don’t do it regularly enough.

An adult should use at least 35ml to cover his or her body. That’s the equivalent of a shot of vodka!

You’ll need to reapply every 2 hours to get the full benefit, and more often is you are sweating or swimming.

If you don’t keep this up, you won’t be getting the full SPF factor. So if you bought SPF 50 then put half the amount on, you’ll be getting only half the SPF 50 protection.

Oh well, you might say, half of SPF 50 would still be SPF 25 right?

Wrong!

SPF 15 blocks 93% of the suns rays, for 15 times longer than your natural skin protection can. SPF 30 blocks 95%, and SPF 50 blocks 97%.

A lot of the damage done to your skin can actually happen when you’re wearing sunscreen and thinking you’re protected, but haven’t applied properly. If you’re feeling smug because you’re everyday moisturizer has SPF 15  in it, it might be time to reconsider, unless you’re reapplying every 2 hours!

So don’t skimp on applying, and make sure your product has UVA and UVB protection.

Is that all?

Since even the strongest of sun cream can’t give you 100% protection, even when put on properly, you really need a multi pronged strategy. That means covering up with clothes, hats, and hiding out in the shade.

In fact, you really should think of sun cream as just a little helping hand to block the last of the rays that hit you between the gaps of your clothes, and bounced off the ground to hit you from underneath that stylish wide brimmed hat – just as you run for cover in the shade!