• ·     The Caffeine buzz was very noticeable, with a little irritability  but not too bad
• ·     Some jitters from my body not being used to so much caffeine
• ·     Only sleep issues I've faced was the first day I had a full strength brewed coffee, other than that I am careful not to drink coffee after about 1:00pm
• ·     The dehydration effects are still there, and it's very easy to forget to drink some water or something else to offset this problem
• ·     A very unusual effect noticed was in my Martial Arts training, the 2nd day after starting this experiment, I was not feeling the best, a little run down and tired, but at training that night everything I did was explosive and with tremendous power and razor sharp focus, I received several comments about my performance that night, even aspects of training which require a combination of strength and absolute muscle control I was able to perform extremely well. So the use of Caffeine as a performance enhancing drug is valid, but since then I've notice a reduction in it's effects on my training as my body adapts to consuming coffee once more.
• ·     Some dullness in my thinking has been noticed, tempting me to go have another coffee to help "perk" me up - I guess that's an effect of any stimulant as the body adapts to it.
• ·     Early on into this trial I was achieving a huge amount of work, with my mind working at top pace. But once again as I adapted to the caffeine this effect dropped off, to the point it started requiring a hit of coffee to bring me up to "normal" levels

By Michael Masterson

One of the great fallacies in the self-help industry is the notion that you can change your life with "positive thinking."

The purveyors of positivism, starting with Napoleon Hill and including the people who now promote The Secret, contend that we all have, at our conscious disposal, the means to transform ourselves into walking, breathing success machines.

Some self-help gurus sell positive thinking because they know it is one of the most lucrative products to put in the marketplace. Change one thought and you can change your life! What better promise can you make to an underachieving, wanna-be-rich-and-successful couch potato?

And purely from a profit point of view, they are right. Positive thinking products making quick-and-easy promises account for more than a billion dollars a year in direct-mail and Internet sales. And that's just for the companies I personally know. The total number is probably multiples of that.

I am not saying all proponents of positive thinking are hucksters. Many are honest men and women who believe in the concept because they use it successfully in their own lives. They are usually people who have always been accomplished, excelling in sports or academics or business almost from the start. Their repeated successes gave them confidence that they can do just about anything. And they readily tap into that underlying feeling of confidence whenever they face a new challenge. In their hearts, they know they can succeed. So when they take on anything new, they can't help but believe they will be successful.

But what about the rest of the world? The 80 percent of the population that got C's in school and sat on the bench during ball games and had little or no success in business? What messages are buried in their hearts? 
 

By Robert Ringer

Detachment is an incredibly powerful tool that I wish I had understood much earlier in life. There are many things from which you can detach yourself, and one of the most important is the habit of judging people, actions, and circumstances as being right or wrong, good or bad.

As Deepak Chopra says in The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, when you are constantly classifying, labeling, and evaluating, you "create a lot of turbulence in your internal dialogue." The more internal bickering that takes place, the less time and room (in your mind) for constructive thinking.

Worry, irrelevant thoughts, and fears only add to this internal bickering. All of these are abstracts from which you should make a conscious effort to detach yourself. Even more important is the necessity to detach yourself from needing the approval of others. When you are attached to peer approval, you tend to make bad decisions.

Then there is the pain and discomfort of your present situation. The more you struggle against the unpleasant circumstances of the moment, the more time and energy you waste. It's okay to want things to get better down the road, but don't waste time and energy wishing things were different than they are right now.

This is an excerpt from a recent article by Steve Pavlina, I found it really puts the individual vs the global community mind set into context, anyone on a personal development path will at some stage find themselves in a conflict where they must choose to look after themselves or consider the effect on others and it is always a difficult decision, sometimes we must look after ourselves first before we look after others (in many cases if we do this we can look after others better) but it often leaves us with a feeling of guilt, or questioning our motives, were we just catering to our ego and not really what was best for our personal development, this article helps throw a different light on this internal conflict many of us find ourselves in...

I've only include the start of the article, if you find the introduction interesting check out the entire article here The War on Ego

The War on Ego 

The War on Ego seems to be gaining popularity in some spiritual circles. Within this context the ego is basically your identification with your physical life and all its trappings, including your name, your personal history, your career, your relationships, and your current life situation. The ego is how most people choose to identify themselves.

The War on Ego emphasizes that you don’t have to identify yourself with your ego. You can instead choose to identify yourself as a spiritual being having a temporary human experience. You could also move beyond that and identify yourself with pure oneness or consciousness, devoid of any particular individuality. With a little practice, states such as these can be experienced during meditation, but they can also arise spontaneously.

Because the egoless state of being can feel so elevated and joyful, some people choose to point fingers at the ego as the cause of all human suffering. They argue that the world would be a much better place if we could simply let go of ego identification and identify ourselves as pure God or Source energy instead… or perhaps relinquish individual identity altogether.

Although War on Ego has a positive intention behind it, in practice it’s rather misguided.

Click here to read this full article at Steve Pavlina's Site

"The Way to Wellness" It's time to start a Healthy life: your 7 days program

How many times have you gone to sleep at night, swearing you'll go to the gym in the morning, and then changing your mind just eight hours later because when you get up, you don't feel like exercising?

While this can happen to the best of us, it doesn't mean you should drop the ball altogether when it comes to staying fit. What people need to realize is that staying active and eating right are critical for long-term health and wellness -- and that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. The more you know about how your body responds to your lifestyle choices, the better you can customize a nutrition and exercise plan that is right for you. When you eat well, increase your level of physical activity, and exercise at the proper intensity, you are informing your body that you want to burn a substantial amount of fuel. This translates to burning fat more efficiently for energy.
In other words, proper eating habits plus exercise equals fast metabolism, which, in turn gives you more energy throughout the day and allows you to do more physical work with less effort.

The true purpose of exercise is to send a repetitive message to the body asking for improvement in metabolism, strength, aerobic capacity and overall fitness and health. Each time you exercise, your body responds by upgrading its capabilities to burn fat throughout the day and night, Exercise doesn't have to be intense to work for you, but it does need to be consistent.

I recommend engaging in regular cardiovascular exercise four times per week for 20 to 30 minutes per session, and resistance training four times per week for 20 to 25 minutes per session. This balanced approach provides a one-two punch, incorporating aerobic exercise to burn fat and deliver more oxygen, and resistance training to increase lean body mass and burn more calories around the block.

Here's a sample exercise program that may work for you:

* Warm Up -- seven to eight minutes of light aerobic activity intended to increase blood flow and lubricate and warm-up your tendons and joints.

* Resistance Training -- Train all major muscle groups. One to two sets of each exercise. Rest 45 seconds between sets.

How many times have you caught yourself saying that there could be no other solution to a problem – and that that problem leads to a dead end? How many times have you felt stumped knowing that the problem laying before you is one you cannot solve. No leads.  No options.  No solutions. 

Did it feel like you had exhausted all possible options and yet are still before the mountain – large, unconquerable, and impregnable? When encountering such enormous problems, you may feel like you're hammering against a steel mountain. The pressure of having to solve such a problem may be overwhelming.

But rejoice! There might be some hope yet!

With some creative problem-solving techniques you may be able to look at your problem in a different light. And that light might just be the end of the tunnel that leads to possible solutions.

First of all, in the light of creative problem-solving, you must be open-minded to the fact that there may be more than just one solution to the problem. And, you must be open to the fact that there may be solutions to problems you thought were unsolvable.

Now, with this optimistic mindset, we can try to be a little bit more creative in solving our problems.

Number one; maybe the reason we cannot solve our problems is that we have not really taken a hard look at what the problem is. Here, trying to understanding the problem and having a concrete understanding of its workings is integral solving the problem. If you know how it works, what the problem is, then you have a better foundation towards solving the problem.

Not trying to make the simple statement of what problem is. Try to identify the participating entities and what their relationships with one another are. Take note of the things you stand to gain any stand to lose from the current problem. Now you have a simple statement of what the problem is.

Number two; try to take note of all of the constraints and assumptions you have the words of problem. Sometimes it is these assumptions that obstruct our view of possible solutions. You have to identify which assumptions are valid, in which assumptions need to be addressed.

Number three; try to solve the problem by parts. Solve it going from general view towards the more detailed parts of the problem. This is called the top-down approach. Write down the question, and then come up with a one-sentence solution to that from them. The solution should be a general statement of what will solve the problem. From here you can develop the solution further, and increase its complexity little by little.