Secret to Sleeping Better

Many of us have trouble sleeping and experience times during the day when our energy or mood lags. This can be more pronounced in the fall and winter when the days are shorter and darker.

The good news is that you don’t have to turn to medication to fix these problems. The way to restful sleep, increased energy and a better mood may be as easy as exposing yourself to the right amount of light at the right time of day. Here, how to do it…

HOW LIGHT AFFECTS US

Many of us spend most of our days indoors. Even if our homes or offices seem to get a lot of natural light through windows, a light meter held in the room would show that the amount of light indoors registers much lower than just outside the window. In the evening, when our inner clock needs to wind down, we are inundated by artificial light from lamps, computer monitors and television screens. In our bedrooms at night, a night-light, streetlights, bathroom light, etc., can disturb sleep timing and quality.

BRIGHT-LIGHT THERAPY

By changing the amount and patterns of your daily light exposure, remarkable changes in your mood, energy and sleep can occur within days.

What to do: Buy a fluorescent light box that provides 10,000 lux of illumination (lux measures the light level reaching your eyes from the source). That is the equivalent of the amount of light that you would get while walking on the beach on a clear morning about 40 minutes after sunrise. The lamp should have a screen that filters out ultraviolet (UV) rays, which can be harmful to the eyes and skin. It should give off only white light, not colored light, which has been hyped to be especially potent but is visually disturbing and no better than white. To be sure of a big enough field of illumination, the screen area should be about 200 square inches (for example, 12 inches x 16 inches) or larger.

A good brand that meets all of the requirements is the DL930 Day-Light Classic by UpLift Technologies. It costs about $150. Many insurance companies will fully or partially cover the cost of a light box if you provide a physician’s letter. Adjust the light box so that the light comes from above your line of sight and you feel comfortable and are not squinting. You should be positioned 12 to 13 inches from the screen. You can get the benefits of the light while talking on the phone, using your computer or enjoying breakfast. You sit facing forward, focused on the work surface, while the light shines down at your head from in front.

While side effects from light therapy are rare and relatively minor, they can occur. If you experience eyestrain, headache, queasiness or agitation after beginning light therapy, reduce the light dose by sitting farther away from the light box or shorten the duration of exposure.

SLEEP PROBLEMS

When do you prefer to go to sleep, and when do you like to wake up? Your answer indicates your chronotype, your individual inner clock. To determine your chronotype, take the chronotherapy quiz at www.CET.org. Click on “Therapeutic Resources & Tools,” then “Self-Assessment Tools” and then “Your Circadian Rhythm Type (Auto MEQ).”

The quiz will tell you the amount and timing of light therapy that will work best for you, but here are general recommendations….

You fall asleep too early. You find it hard to stay awake at night and typically wake up very early in the morning.

Prescription for light therapy: Use a bright-light therapy box for 15 to 30 minutes about an hour before you typically get sleepy.

Other helpful strategies for staying awake and pushing your sleep cycle forward…

Make lunch your major meal of the day, then eat only a light dinner.

Avoid napping, especially in the afternoon and evening. Instead, distract yourself from your fatigue by moving around and doing stretches.

Turn up room lights during the evening.

You fall asleep too late: You try to get to bed at a decent hour but can’t fall asleep. Then you have trouble waking up for work or school.

Prescription for light therapy: Use a light box for 15 to 30 minutes within 10 minutes after your natural wake-up time. If this time is later than your work schedule allows, begin light therapy on a long weekend. Then begin shifting your wake-up time and light-therapy schedule earlier—in 15-minute increments—as soon as you feel comfortable waking up at the new time.

More strategies for shifting your inner clock earlier include…

Finish dinner at least three hours before bedtime. Avoid alcohol after dinner.

Minimize napping, especially in the second half of the day. Try to get outdoors, keep moving and do some stretches instead.

Keep your bedroom dark until you wake up. Early morning light seeping in through the windows actually can worsen a late-sleep pattern.

You sleep fitfully. Prescription for light therapy: Take light therapy—or spend time in the sun—in the middle of the day. Enhancing midday light exposure often improves sleep quality at night.

Other strategies to help you sleep through the night include…

Do not drink alcohol after dinner.

Keep your bedroom dark.

If you tend to wake up at night to use the bathroom, install amber-colored night-lights in the bathroom and hallway instead of turning on bright lights, which can disrupt your sleep.

You are unable to fall back to sleep after waking in the middle of the night. There could be many causes for this type of sleep problem, such as anxiety, depression and physical illness, so it is best to consult a doctor. However, using light therapy in the evening to push sleep onset later (see “fall asleep too early”) may help some people sleep through the night.

ENERGY AND MOOD

You can use bright-light therapy at any time during the day to increase your energy and alertness. Some people can quickly recharge with a brief session of light therapy (as little as 10 minutes) when they first feel an energy slump.

Caution: See a doctor if you are chronically lethargic—this can be a sign of depression, a medical sleep disorder (such as apnea) or other illness.

If you’re feeling sad or mildly depressed, the light-therapy regimen is the same as the prescription for falling asleep too late.

Caution: It can be difficult for an individual to know the difference between mild depression and moderate or severe depression. If you are suffering from moderate or severe depression, a physician will need to monitor your progress with light therapy and consider other treatment options. To help determine where you fall on the depression spectrum, go to www.CET.org.

Source: Michael Terman, PhD, director of the Center for Light Treatment and Biological Rhythms at Columbia University Medical Center, New York City. He is founder and president of the Center for Environmental Therapeutics (CET), New York City. A leading authority on the circadian clock and the role that light plays in regulating it, Dr.Terman is author of Chronotherapy: Resetting Your Inner Clock to Boost Mood, Alertness, and Quality Sleep (Avery).

How the CIA Spots Lies and You Can, Too

Everybody lies to some degree. Sometimes they are mild fibs, but other times they can be harmful deceptions. The trick for the listener is to figure out when someone is lying. This can be helpful when you are interviewing a potential new employee or asking your boss for a raise…confronting a spouse over suspected infidelity or a child over possible drug use…negotiating with a car dealer…or consulting with a financial adviser.

Folk wisdom says that poor eye contact suggests dishonesty. Some psychologists recommend watching for “microexpressions”—very brief changes in facial expression. But studies suggest that these and many other commonly cited indicators are either incorrect, unreliable or extremely difficult to spot.

The CIA has developed a more reliable system for spotting lies. It involves monitoring people’s words and actions for more than two dozen different possible signs of deception. When a cluster of two or more of these signs appears in a single response, it may suggest a lie. You can ask follow-up questions on the topic and see if they, too, elicit clusters of deceptive behaviors (see “Questions That Uncover Lies” below).

The CIA may not have detected that its own director, David Petraeus, was concealing an affair that led to his resignation, but in general, it is very successful at ferreting out the truth.
Possible signs of deception…

VERBAL SIGNS 

“Convincing” statements. These do not directly answer the question posed but instead attempt to influence the questioner’s perception of the person being questioned.

Example: An employee who is asked about an inflated expense report responds, “I’m an honest person,” or “I would never jeopardize my job by doing something like that.”

Unusually long pauses. It takes more time to think up a plausible lie than to tell the truth. Consider a pause to be a sign of deception if it is especially long for the nature of the question.

Relying on religion. When people use God to establish their honesty, it sometimes means that they’re lying. Examples: “I swear on a stack of Bibles…” or “As God is my witness…”

Nondenial denials. This can suggest dishonesty when people assert, “I would never do such a thing” (or words to that effect), yet they fail to deny the specific allegation…or when they bury denials deep in long-winded responses…or they offer responses that sound like denials but upon close consideration are not.

Example: A Senator was asked if he had used a profanity on the Senate floor. Rather than say “No,” he said, “That’s not the kind of language I ordinarily use.”

Repeating the question or commenting on it before answering. Dishonest people sometimes do this to stall for time while they think through a lie. Example: “I’m glad you asked me that.”

Attack mode. This could involve questioning the questioner’s competence or fairness. Example: “Who are you to question me?”

Inconsistent statements. Liars who have trouble keeping track of their lies might provide contradictory answers.

Unnecessarily detailed answers. The speaker might be trying to hide a lie among a flood of truths…or narrow the scope of the response so that it’s deceptive but not technically dishonest.

Example: A CEO who was asked about quarterly sales responded, “Our domestic sales are up higher than we expected.” He specified domestic sales—a level of detail not requested—to avoid saying that overall sales were way down.

Sudden onset of politeness. Note when the level of politeness increases in response to a particular question.

Example: An employee answers various questions without saying “sir” and then responds, “No, sir,” to “Did you take money from the register?”

Inappropriate level of concern. When people downplay the importance of serious misdeeds, it may be because they’re the ones who committed them.

Complaining about the interviewing process. Example: “How long is this going to take?”

Appearing to misunderstand straightforward questions. People sometimes do this intentionally because they don’t want to answer the question.

Referring back to earlier responses. Liars may stress that they have already answered similar questions in a similar fashion. Example: “As I told you yesterday…”

Adding qualifiers. Qualifiers include words intended to stress the speaker’s credibility, such as “frankly,” or “truthfully”…and words that suggest that the answer provided might not be 100% complete, such as “basically” or “for the most part.”

NONVERBAL SIGNS

People’s faces and bodies can provide hints that they’re lying…

Hiding the mouth or eyes behind a hand and/or closing the eyes for an extended period during the response. The speaker might be trying to cover a lie or avoid seeing the response that a lie triggers.

Hand-to-face activity. Lying can trigger the brain’s fight-or-flight response. Blood rushes out of the face when this occurs, leaving it feeling itchy or cold.

Examples: Repeated rubbing or scratching of the face…licking the lips…pulling the ears.

Nervous movements. Watch for movement in the hands, feet and legs in reaction to a question.

Clearing the throat or swallowing. These can signal anxiety about a lie—but only if they occur before the verbal response, not after.

Grooming. Liars sometimes dissipate anxiety by straightening their clothing, hair or items in their vicinity. Examples: Adjusting a tie…smoothing a skirt…aligning pens on a desk.

INTERPRETING THE EVIDENCE

 

Watch and listen for the signs of deception listed above within the first five seconds after asking a question. If one appears, continue monitoring for additional signs during the remainder of the response. Remember, it takes a cluster of two or more to suggest dishonesty—even honest people exhibit one or another of these signs from time to time.

Note: A cluster consists of two or more different signs of deception. If the same sign is repeated several times during a response, it does not count as a cluster on its own. The exception is “convincing” statements, which are such powerful deception indicators that two of them alone constitute a cluster.

It’s difficult to listen and look for dozens of different signs of deception at the same time. Practice by watching people respond to difficult questions on TV investigative news programs.

QUESTIONS THAT UNCOVER LIES

 

To uncover lies, ask short, straightforward questions. Even honest people can seem to send signs of deception when they struggle to answer complex questions. Remain friendly and calm even if you think you’re being lied to. Becoming angry will only raise the liar’s defenses, making it more difficult to spot additional signs of deception.

Types of questions to ask…

Presumptive questions. These contain assumptions you cannot yet prove.

Example: You want to know if your teenager was at a raucous party the previous night. Rather than ask, “Were you there?” ask, “What happened at the party last night?”—which presumes that the teen was there and catches him/her off guard.

Bait questions. These present hypothetical situations and often begin, “Is there any reason that…”

Example: Jewelry went missing from your bedroom while workmen were working elsewhere in your home. Rather than ask each workman if he did it, ask each, “Is there any reason someone might have seen you going into the master bedroom this morning?” If you previously asked this person where he was at the time of the theft, he might now change his story and supply a reason why he could have been seen near your bedroom.

Questions preceded by prologue traps. Preface key questions with mini-monologues that offer responders a way to minimize, rationalize or pass the blame for misdeeds. These prologues sometimes convince them that it’s safe to admit to “minor” transgressions.

Examples: Cash is missing from your purse. Before asking a family member if he/she took it, say, “I realize the mistake might have been mine. I never explained that you should ask first when you need to borrow money from me.”

“What else?” When someone admits to a misdeed or lie, keep asking, “What else?” until it seems no more details are being withheld.

Source: Michael Floyd, JD, a former officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the US Army Military Police. He is a founder of QVerity, a behavioral analysis and screening provider for corporations, and Advanced Polygraph Services. Based in Napa, California, he is coauthor, along with two other former CIA officers, of Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception (St. Martin’s). www.QVerity.com

Cara-Cara Mengesan Pembohongan

Assalamualaikum..

Pernahkan korang semua berbohong???

Aku rase semua orang pernah berbohong..termasuklah aku...

Baru-baru nie aku ade tengok citer Lie To Me2.

Mengisahkan tentang seorang lie human detector..

Sungguh mengagumkan!!!

Jadi aku tambahkan ilmu aku sikit tentang ilmu mengesan pembohongan,pelebongan dan penipuan..

Hope enjoy it..

Tanda-tanda Deception: Bahasa Penipuan Badan ;

• Ekspresi fizikal akan terhad dan kaku, dengan lengan sedikit dan gerakan tangan yang memakan banyak ruang.

• Seseorang yang berbohong kepada anda akan mengelakkan membuat kenalan mata.

• Tangan menyentuh muka, tekak dan mulut. Menyentuh atau menggaru hidung atau di belakang telinga mereka. Tidak mungkin untuk menyentuh dada dengan tangan terbuka.

Emosi

• Masa dan tempoh gerakan emosional dan emosi adalah mati dengan kelajuan biasa. Kelakuan emosi tidak kena, dan kemudian berhenti tiba-tiba.

• Waktu tidak aktif antara gerak tubuh emosi / ekspresi dan kata-kata. Contoh: Seseorang mengatakan "Saya menyukainya!" ketika menerima hadiah, dan kemudian tersenyum setelah membuat kenyataan itu, berbanding pada masa yang sama kenyataan tersebut dibuat.

• Isyarat / ekspresi tidak sesuai dengan kenyataan verbal, misalnya mengerutkan kening ketika mengatakan "I love you."

Itu serba sedikit je.

Thank You...

Warna Aura

Assalamualaikum..

Hari ini, saya nak berkongsi berkaitan
warna aura dan personaliti yang dimiliki seseorang.

Kajian menunjukan personaliti seseorang saling berkait dengan warna aura yang dimilikinya.

Kenalilah warna aura diri..

Merah

Mereka yang mempunyai aura berwarna merah adalah seorang yang aktif, produktif, selalu memandang masa hadapan dan pelbagai lagi sifat. Namun, pada masa sama mereka ini membuatkan orang lain di sekeliling mereka sukar untuk menjalinkan kerjasama dengan mereka kerana sifat ego dan suka bertengkar.

Bagaimanapun, mereka boleh menjadi seorang pemimpin yang efektif kerana mempunyai fokus yang jelas untuk mencapai matlamat. Mereka ini melambangkan api yang digunakan dalam teori awal mengenai alam. Cahaya mereka terus menyala dan menjadi obor kekuatan untuk menghasilkan produktiviti yang maksimum.

Saranan bagi mereka ini, perlulah meningkatkan hubungan dengan orang lain secara emosional dan sosial. Selain itu berusaha untuk memuji usaha orang lain yang melakukan terbaik untuk mereka, kurangkan bersikap kritikal kerana boleh menciptakan rasa takut kepada individu lain.

Terima pandangan orang lain dan hindarkan diri daripada menyalahkan orang lain apabila terjadi sesuatu kegagalan.

Jingga

Mereka yang sukakan kesenangan duniawi, sukakan tentangan, suka berkhayal, suka membantu orang lain dan pelbagai lagi sifat.

Secara umumnya, mereka yang mempunyai aura berwarna jingga yang sangat ego dan terlalu mementingkan diri sendiri. Mereka ini hidup dalam dunianya sendiri tanpa menghiraukan keadaan orang lain di sekelilingnya. Ada kalanya mereka ini tidak menyukai kehidupan untuk berkeluarga. Namun, kebaikan mempunyai aura berwarna jingga, mereka ini panjang akal dan kreatif.

Saranan bagi mereka ini agar sentiasa menyedari bahawa kesederhanaan dalam hidup amatlah penting. Dengan mengamalkan kesederhanaan, mereka mampu hidup dalam semua lapisan masyarakat dan mula menjalinkan hubungan dengan orang sekeliling agar kehidupan senang pada kemudian hari.

Kuning

Mereka yang mempunyai aura berwarna kuning suka menyenangkan orang lain, sukakan humor dan membuat orang ketawa, suka mengambil risiko dan pelbagai lagi sifat.

Meskipun mereka ini pandai menghidupkan suasana di kalangan orang yang tidak dikenalinya, mereka juga pada masa yang sama berkecenderungan untuk berasa malu. Mereka adalah seorang yang suka memberontak, mudah sedih, selalu tertekan dan tidak bahagia.

Selain itu, mereka senang terjerumus ke dalam sesuatu perkara yang tidak elok. Bagaimanapun, mereka ini mempunyai kekuatan yang tidak terbatas, tidak boleh duduk diam dan gemar untuk bersukan.

Saranan untuk mereka yang mempunyai aura berwarna kuning agar sentiasa berhati-hati dan tidak terjerumus ke dalam perkara yang tidak elok.

Hijau

Mereka ini mempunyai pemikiran yang cepat, cemerlang dan pandai. Tidak suka diperintah, suka bersaing dan mempunyai personaliti serta penampilan yang menarik. Bagaimanapun, secara umumnya mereka terlalu agresif dan tidak boleh menerima pandangan orang lain di sekeliling mereka.

Mereka mempunyai sifat keras kepala, bongkak dan mengutamakan kesempurnaan serta tidak sabar untuk mendapatkan sesuatu. Mereka juga sukar untuk mengalah dan mengakui kesilapan mereka. Mereka ini mempunyai keperibadian yang kuat, cenderung untuk membuat keputusan sendiri.

Saranan bagi mereka ini agar mencari sahabat yang dapat menghargai kelebihan mereka kerana mereka selalunya cepat bosan dengan sahabat yang tidak mempunyai cita-cita dan tidak berusaha untuk memajukan diri sendiri.

Terima kasih..