Mental Muscle Makers

This would be the second of the three series of posts of mine which focus on Mental Health. The first one being a survey/questionnaire kinda thing here.

For this post, I'll share with you this part of the seminar on building Mental Muscle, things that would enhance our mental health and to stay healthily, mentally :-)

1) Have a good opinion of self

- you need to have a positive opinion of yourself. You need to have the self-confidence to live each day as it is. It's like, people always complain that I have loads of acne on my face, but hey, that shows that I'm still young right? :p

2) Learn to kill fears

- kill all your fears, be it fear of growing old, fear of height or just fear bout anything. Learn to overcome your fear by means of positive energies, encouragement or even activities :-)

3) Create heaven

- nothing about religions here. Heaven here means your personal place or feeling of Zen. Your own heaven that it. What places, food, activities, music or movies that make you feel calm and relaxed. That's your heaven. And embrace it whenever you can :-)

4) Don't let life short-change you

- life is forever changing. Humans are forever changing. Don't let it bind you into the past or let it control who you are. Remember, we are in control of our life, and through these changes, we grow to be stronger and more mature. Accept the changes in life, knowing that some of them are inevitable.

5) Sense of humour

- need I say more? hahaha life without laughter and jokes isn't life at all!! Come on!!! Flex that humour bone of yours and you'll soon find that life is not that dull and gloomy :-) After all, laughing for 20 minutes a day could lengthen your life :-)

6) Grow up, not old :-)

- who cares bout age? It's just a number :-p We grow up, not old. Growing is just a normal process of life and we should make full use of the time we have to strive for the best that we could :-)

7) A good relationship

- not necessary a love relationship. Any healthy relationship, be it with your wife/husband, family or friends could enhance your mental health and keep it in-check :-) It's not that hard to develop a happy relationship in my opinion. Just need to flex that smile of yours and have a common topic of conversations...that's all :-)

Cheers to a stronger Mental Muscle :-)

The day I lost part of my childhood...

Woke up as usual today early in the morning and went to Uni. Reached there right before the clock struck 7am (no news on radio before 7am). But I got a shock when a few friends SMS-ed me that Michael Jackson had passed away. They knew that I am a die-hard fan of his and well.... real bad news early in the morning, just a day after I got one of the good news in my life.

For the whole day, my spirit was quite down actually. Greatly saddened by the news. Grew up listening to his songs and watching his MVs and I felt like part of my childhood had died with him. Am gonna miss this great legend and his contributions towards the entertainment industry (not so much for his various physical enhancements).

Although the final years of his life was plagued by various legal, health and financial problems, he had done lots to promote world peace and also for the environment. Songs like "Heal The World" and "Man In The Mirror" had touched the hearts of many people around the world, including mine.

So for today, I mourn for one of the greatest entertainers of all times, a true legend and all-around performer. The King of Pop - Michael Jackson. May you rest in peace, MJ.

For my lost childhood

A Psychological Test

This will be the first part of a series of posts about mental health by me. Don't be alarmed!! I'm not down with depression nor am I suffering from any psychological disorder. It just so happens that I attended a talk some time back on 'Mental Health' and the speaker was throwing these quizzes and questions to us participants while we were starving, waiting for him to finish so that we could enjoy the free dinner :-p

Good presentation and insight by the speaker nevertheless :-)


The first part of the seminar was about the following Psychological Test:

1) Are you happy?
- a general very easy to ask type of question and yet a very hard to answer question too.

2) Do you have a zest for living?
- do you feel that each day in life is special in its own way and that there's something to learn everyday? Or are you just sitting in front of your PC/laptop 24/7/365 working on projects or Facebook-ing? :-p

3) Are you socially adjusted?
- do you have friends? Very simple! People around you who are willing to talk to you, share your happiness and sadness and are good listeners. Or do you have trouble mixing with and talking to people?

4) Do you have unity and balance?
- the balance in life! The balance between work and play, work and sleep...even your diet!

5) Can you live with each problem in your life as it arises?
- are you able to cope with the new challenges that come your way or will you confine yourself to your own state of mind, puffing or drinking away and slacking into a state of depression? And is the glass half full or half empyty?

6) Do you have insight?
- can you foresee some of the things that are bound to happen? Do you understand the people around you? Your friends, family or even yourself? Do you understand the problem that comes your way?

7) Do you have a confidential relationship with some other person?
- not necessary a romantic friend.. but rather a friend whom you can really talk to. A good listener. Someone who can provide you with rational and insightful points of view.

8) Do you have a sense of the ridiculous?
- have fun!! In Cantonese we call it the 'Fai'-ness. Have a good laugh from time to time. When was the last time you had a good laugh?

9) Are you engaged in satisfying work?
- do you enjoy your working life? And work here doesn't necessary mean something that enables you to pay the bills at the end of the month. It could be some charity work that you are doing. It could be your hobbies. And the big question is "Do you have a hobby?"

10) Do you know how to worry effectively?
- worrying is OK but over-worrying can lead to mental breakdown and subsequently, depression. Are you just worried for the sake of worrying or are you thinking prudently in the process?

So how many of those questions have you said "Yes" to? Well, Im proud to say that I could answer "Yes" to most of them, especially on the one asking about being ridiculous :-p

Basically, if you answer "Yes" to most of the questions up there, your psychological self is still healthy, and I hope that all of us will get to enjoy that :-)


To a healthier and happier life.... Cheers

Mark

Cool Apple AppWall

We all know that the annual WWDC organised by Apple was held on Monday and that there were several updates to the products that they are offering, mainly the MacBook Pro and of course the iPhone 3GS with the latest OS 3.0. But what really caught my eyes was this AppWall that were on display on about 20 Apple Cinema HD Displays powered by 20 Mac Pro's running on the latest Mac OSX Snow Leopard.

What it's showing are about 20,000 apps available on the AppStore and each time an app is downloaded off iTunes or via the iPhone/iPod Touch, the respective app will create a ripple kinda effect on the AppWall. And the best part is that this happened about after only 5mins of delay, which to me is considered realtime. To me, this created an almost same cool effect as the Matrix codes that Morpheus and gang were looking at in that famous movie.

Cheers