how to be chic: 30 chic days, day 10: memory habits

                   

An at-home day, cleaning, after I had made myself look nice, of course! Early morning yoga. A guest, a sleep, then off to teach an evening class, followed by dinner with the students, who are also dear friends, which is always lovely to do. Of course.

I realised today one of the reasons why french people eat food in season. I had some papaya for breakfast. It would have been imported, and therefore, irradiated, nuked. What was I thinking? Memories of papaya for breakfast in Bali a few years ago had overshadowed good sense. It was horrible. I had a mandarin for afternoon tea, with cheese & crackers, that was delicious.

My focus on today was doing and recording some yoga routines on paper, and catching up with people via messenger. Like any other job, there is always extra work to be done "behind the scenes", even for a yoga teacher. But I love it, all of it. I do believe that it is tres chic to be doing what you love.

Tomorrow I am up before the birds, and off to teach again, in the dark. I have a routine of getting everything together for the next day, including anything I need to do, which I write in my diary, and I do it before bed. It saves time as well as reduces stress. I have done this for years, except when I know that I have a day of not working, & can sleep in. For an extra 30 minutes.

How to have a better memory

When I was quite young, I read that Einstein never remembered his phone number. He wrote it down, instead, as he felt that he had other more important things that he preferred to remember. I took this important bit of information on board, and aim to write most things down. In my case, in my diary, or my book of yoga routines, rather than having to remember everything. 

Paul McKenna, NLP practitioner and hypnotist, says that one of the ways to be smarter, is to always put things in the same place, which I was happy to read, as I have always done this. Mainly, I confess, so that I don't get crabby because of not being able to find things!

Apparently, and I learnt this tonight, there are four steps to remembering where we have put things. Unfortunately my friend could only remember two of them: when you put something down, reach across your body, for example reach over your body towards the left, with your right hand, then mentally "take a picture" of where you have put the object.

How to be more awake

Another way is to make our brain more alert, and this is an easy way to do it: 

• inhale through your nose
• then exhale forcefully out of your mouth which you have made into a hard "bird's beak", going "shoo! shoo! shoo!" (that's what it sounds like) 3-6 times for one inhale
• do this a few times, but never, ever, in the evening, as it really wakes up the brain & makes sleep impossible. 

In waking up the brain, it does make memory better.

These are just little ways to make life easier.