Tracking progress

Life is a journey. In the past one year I have been in the habit of tracking my journey. I got this inspiration from a friend who kept a simple google form to monitor his working, reading, recreational and sleeping activities. I also started doing the same and filled the google page on every single day. The outcome was amazing!

Especially filling the form helped me know how much of my 24 hour quota I was spending in different activities. It helped me go to bed on time and rise up on time.  I started becoming conscious of the exact duties I was supposed to do in a given day. Moreover, it helped me correct my mistakes committed previously. It is said that the highest perfection of life is attained  when one knows that she/he has a finite time to spend in her/his life. This is exactly what my progress tracker was doing

What questions I asked?

1. Wake up Time
2. Time to Bed
3. Sleep duration (including afternoon nap)
4. Reading (this included a set of journals related to my research)
5. Experimentation time (this included the amount of time spend in simulation/ hardware experiments)
6. Play/Recreation time
7. Self-Reflection and meditation time

We cannot plan everything in life. But certainly we can keep track of it or organize it. Recommend everyone to track your progress.

Practices for a Mindful Living

As usual I am reminded of a well known quote, which I have stuck on my laptop. "Early to bed and early to rise, keeps man healthy, wealthy and wise."

The quote always reminds me to improve on my sleep quality and maintain a sound mind in the morning. As a practitioner of yoga and meditation, I have experienced the benefits of sleeping early and rising early. As with the popular debate on whether it is good to sleep for 6 hrs or 7 hrs or more, I have a simple answer. What determines your daily performance is ultimately the sleep quality - how relaxed your body and mind becomes as you take rest. Although not a medical student, I realize that there is a inherent body clock which synchronizes with the circadian clock (Sun's timings). All bodily enzyme secretions are initiated when it is best rested. Another fact is the 'Blue-screen syndrome'. In the present times, people are so obsessed with their gadgets that the effect of these perpetrates into their sleep and hence increases the time to reach the deep sleep state. This factor significantly increases the REM (stands for Rapid Eye Movement) sleep and hence disturbs your night sleep.

What factor affect your sleep?

Although an exhaustive list is not possible, here are a few important causes that impact the sleep. The first important factor is your diet. Avoiding a heavy meal in the night has proven  to produce a nice sleep at night. Keeping away from hot beverages (tea/coffee) approximately 8-10 hrs before bed will  improve the sleep quality.