Saturday, April 23, 2005

Registration this short?

I have been reading few blogs for sometime now. When the number of blogs in your watch-list goes up, it is sure that you need a RSS Aggregator to watch, otherwise it becomes tedious to go to each blog and check daily whether there are any updates.

Bloglines is an online service which helps you to aggregate all the feeds that you like to watch. It helps you to organize and subscribe to list of feeds that you are interested in. So when you login you will be provided with the list of updates on each feed. This has really cut-down a lot of pain in following up the blogs.

An interesting thing I noted is that registration for bloglines is so simple, short and neat. It doesn't ask you all the head scratching questions. It just asks your email id and password. Nothing else. Rest all the info can be filled as you wish and no mandates.

Cure for Migraine

Couple of weeks back I had a spiteful attack of migraine and it drived me in search for a permanent cure for it. It is almost a decade that I am suffering from migraine. Also it is not the first time that I am searching for a cure. I had undergone many through checkups, consultations and medications. But none lasted long and did put a full-stop to migraine.

After much delibrations, this time I am taking up homeopathic medication which seems to be promising. Thanks to Arun for all the efforts in finding the homeopathic clinic. Btw he is also suffering from migraine for the past two years.

The homeopathic clinic is a voulantary organisation founded in 1987 and functioning very successfully until this moment. "Health for all" is the caption for this voluntary effort . It is located in DRDO township with a serene, peaceful atmosphere.

The consultation was really challenging as they try to understand what type of person you are? Lot of questions are asked based on which medicines are prescribed. So the onus is on the patient to give apt answers for the questions, so that they could judge you right. Better do a self-introspection before going to the consultation. When myself and Arun got consulted for migraine, totally different medicines are prescribed to us.

Medication based on character and behaviour seems to be core concepts of homeopathy. This is the first time I am taking up this type of medication. The real advantage of these kind of medications are that they are very much natural and zero side-effects. But the drawback is that it will take longer time to cure. The first course of my medication lasts for 50 days and three times a day, I need to take the pills (not exactly).

Monday, April 18, 2005

Brain Opener

With my maternal uncle hospitalised for a brain disorder, I spent few hours of this weekend in the hospital. It proved to be a brain opener for me. I had a little chat with my brother-in-law, who is doctor with MD (Gen). The inquistive questioning in me came to help and I really learned a lot from it.

The human brain is divided into two hemispheres (halves). The Left vs Right and each halves specializing in certain activities. Check out the comparison chart over here.

With the disorder in left part of the brain, my uncle has lost control over the right part of his body. His speech and languages tends to get affected. But still he would be able to retain his mother-tongue. Nature is really amazing.

More links about Left vs Right brain
http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/articles/dominance/index.htm
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0857/is_n2_v10/ai_12206759

Monday, April 11, 2005

Fitness Freak

I have been doing physical exercises for the past 6 months regularly. The whole intention is to regain my fitness that I enjoyed while in school. The work out schedule is to jog for 20 minutes after warming up with the regular general exercises. I compliment the schedule with the standard abs exercise at the end.

While starting, it was really difficult to cope up. I use to feel tired at the end of the schedule. Nowadays I have got used to it. The work up time is during evenings on the weekdays and take off during weekends. This kind of physical activity has really payed me rich dividends.
  1. I have regained my fitness back (now I could jog 3.5kms in 21 mins)
  2. I have lost some extra weight that I had developed around the lower abdomen
I really figured out that my stamina level had really gone up, when our team went for an outing last Friday (8th April). We went to Eagleton resort off the mysore road. The whole intention of this outing is to play for the whole day and get ourselves exhausted.

Though the initial 2 hrs of cricket in sunny and humid out-field drained our energy a lot, I did not feel completely exhausted and had enough energy left to play badminton for another hour and half or so. After a refreshing lunch, I did play badminton for another hour and did swimming for another hour and half.

Even after this extensive work out, I did not end up in body aches. I could get back to shape within the weekend.

If I am looking like a fitness freak nowadays, for this I owe a lot to gautam, my friend, who really makes me to go to gym daily.

Wednesday, April 06, 2005

Good Sleep - Errata

In the previous post on this topic, the facts that I wrote is a common mis-conception. After going through the article on Sleep, the following are the facts that I learned...

"Sleep isn't just a form of rest! Sleep plays a critical physiological function, and is indispensable for your intellectual development! Those who do not respect their sleep are not likely to live to their full mental potential!"

"During sleep, the brain works as hard as during SAT or GRE exams"

These facts really shatters the common misconception that every individual has on Sleep.

p.s: The article has lot of references to other contradictory research articles. The facts stated in the article is not scientifically proved. So take this article and its facts on face value.

Monday, April 04, 2005

Get-together

It really happened after a long time. Though invites had been sent to all the friends in bangalore, only eleven of us did turn up for the get-together on Sunday. We met in jayanagar Nadhini for dinner and did catch up with updates from everyone. It was back to good old college days with all the famous gossips and lot of heads rolling.

Hope that we do continue to do such get-together more often.

Good Sleep

I consider, Sleep as a boon that animal kingdom has been blessed with. Sleep helps us to recover from physical tiredness and get mental peace. But the fast pace of ultra-modern life has made us to turn down our daily share of sleep.

A friend of mine passed me this article on sleep.

http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm

It is the source of this rant. Go read...