Daily Positivity

         Sure it is difficult to stay positive on a daily basis. How are some people eternally happy when everything is so mundane, right? My parents always joke about being whiny and complaining all the time. Also, there is a house joke about the difference in demeanor between elementary, middle, and high schoolers. We had an amazing opportunity to view these differences through our home. Our street overlooked a common school bus stop. So my parents used to observe that there was silence when high schoolers arrived (including me). Deep silence. Just the sound of the bus. My parents were puzzled as to why the high schoolers walked as if they were the sole people responsible for the burden of this great world. Our backs were bent and our eyes were glued to the phone screens. There were many people who got down at my street stop, but I knew only two of them. Tragedy indeed. No interpersonal connection. Just walking with a lot of stress and the burden of the backpa...

             I hope you enjoyed the morning segment of “the art of living well” series and are curious to know how to improvise your evening routines. Evening routines can be tricky. Depending on how tired you are, you might instantly call it a night. Or maybe you can sit and meditate. One more option, you can be on your computer studying or working before ending your day. As you probably know from my morning segment, it all depends on your situation.  But regardless of what your current situation is, you still might believe that evening is the best time of the day. A time to rejuvenate, rest and relax. A time to reconnect with your family. Now I am not saying to go light some candles, take a blanket and cook a mindful meal to “rejuvenate.” Well, the choice is yours, you can crash on the couch and stare at the television screen for the rest of the evening if that is how you roll. Or maybe, you can just chat away the evening with your family. Every...

  I have observed that the first thing that college students do is go on their phones. From personal experience, I go on my phone first thing in the morning. I check the time and calendar to see if there is anything important coming up in the day. Others may check their phone to talk with their friends and family when away from their homes or simply check social media. Many popular morning routine preachers, tell us to refrain from checking social media because it doesn’t give your brain to form thoughts itself. Instead, social media dictates what you should think first thing in the morning. Is it true? Yes, to some extent. But what if you woke up in a bad mood and seeing a good morning message on social media inspired you to be happy? And what if you woke up in a good mood but saw someone’s vacation pictures on social media? That quickly puts you in a “self-pitying zone” because you believe here you are trying to work hard and this person is vacationing. Seem unfair, right? So are...

        There are numerous tabloids that tell you how to live well. Wake up at 5 am in the morning, eat fruits and vegetables, meditate, exercise, hydrate, spend less time on the screen, go to bed early in the night, phew! For starters, this may seem impractical. Sure it is, given the busy lives we got. I read many books on the morning routine and cannot help but wonder how these people get time to wake up peacefully, burn a candle, meditate for 30 min, run on a treadmill for 60 min, drink a green smoothie, eat breakfast and plan out their day! What! It will be the afternoon when I finally finish these tasks. Then how is this morning routine even possible? When such routines come across, I just tag them as impractical and impossible for me. Because in reality, I wake up 10 minutes earlier than my lecture start time so I practically run to the class in my pajamas. Well, this is embarrassing but considering every student in an 8 am class can understand this complete fa...

          During the cold months of winter, we tend to hear a lot about staying warm and cozy. Especially now, a new concept of hygge, the Danish way to happiness is discussed. Many suggest that the best way to describe Hygge in English is “cozy”. Is this the right way to describe Hygge?

   Recently, I published a blog about tea and its health benefits on my sister blog page: Biochemistry for life. That blog inspired me to pen some of my thoughts about the morning brew experience on my daily positivity blog. 

          If you are a university student like me, then you can relate to the ever frustrating end-of-semester final exam season. During the final exam season, there is always that eerie atmosphere where everyone realizes that the semester and the fun times are over. It is actually the time to get serious and study! If you are not a university student yet, then this blog will be a little sneak peek into the future. Or if you have already graduated from university and do not have to face the emotional roller coaster of the end-of-semester final exams, then congratulations the bad days are behind you and now it is all sunshine and bird chirps.  Now finals season starts with looking at your current grades and then calculating how much you need to achieve your personal target. This target can be getting that A+ or simply passing the course. It also depends upon the type of class. If it is a GPA booster class called “Science fiction films in the 1980s” then th...

         Although I am not a freshman in college, who has just experienced her first semester, instead I am a sophomore who has experienced her first in-person college classes this term. Due to the ongoing pandemic, I was unable to experience the typical freshman year in university packed with the excitement of finally being an adult and getting to experience university. Instead, my freshman year was basically a bunch of zoom classes. The class of 2020 that graduated high school can relate to what I am referring to. But finally, my university decided to conduct in-person classes in my sophomore year. So technically this was my freshman year term 1. What a term it was! There were some unusualities like wearing masks to classes and residence halls, maintaining social distance, and constantly sanitizing your hands till they get super dry. But it did not mean that I had less fun. In this blog, I am going to share my experience of my first in-person university life a...