Tuesday, June 2, 2015

10 mindfulness habits that will make you more productive at work

mindfulness meditation

Beyond being an increasingly popular practice for top executives and celebrities, mindfulness meditation is scientifically proven to increase memory and awareness and reduce stress and negative thinking.
Even if you're not ready to make a commitment to a Transcendental Meditation group or your local yoga studio, there are some simple daily habits that can make you more productive and happier at work, say Learn Mindfulness founder Shamash Alidina andMindfulnet.org founder Juliet Adams.
They've gathered 10 easy practices from their book "Mindfulness at Work For Dummies" into the following presentation.

Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers
Wiley Publishers

Tribute to a vibrant young man who died at 33 (Ifeanyi Gregory Anene)


Ifeanyi Gregory Anene died on 19th of April 2015 at the very young age of 33. His friends are still mourning him. Below is a tribute from one of those friends who is a LIB reader. Read below...
I met Ifeanyi 15 years ago through a friend of mine he was dating although i knew him around my area but we never talked…but I loved him the minute I met him but he was with my friend so for years and years I kept that feeling, i guess he knew cos we had some occasional flirting nothing serious. Anyway they broke up but we still kept in touch during those years and we had some many memories. He started asking me out but I always knew he wasn’t for real u know but i loved him all the same but wanted something really serious which i knew he couldn’t provide so my tactics was to introduce him to other friends but still loved him. To cut the long story short 5 months ago he resurfaced into my life again and this time was serious about me, he even mentioned he was glad i didn’t agree during those times he was asking me out, we started talking but the feeling i had before i noticed it wasn’t there anymore i just wanted him as a friend, he begged and begged that we see but i kept posting him, anyway  i decided if i was to see him the best time was during lent...lol... as we are both catholics, he wouldn’t dare try anything…. i will forever appreciate that visit for the rest of my life, the soft kiss he gave me when i was about to leave, like a goodbye kiss..his hug..his words… i have never ever in my life experience such hurt, such pain, i have never cried so much in my life.  Sometimes i cry myself to sleep and wake up with a bad headache, i want to curse you out for been so careless but who am i to judge you...The day i received that message, my world stopped, i slept with my mum for days, your face haunted me, how alone u felt when it happened, sometimes i ask myself will this pain and memories ever go away and i know it won’t, i don’t think it will ever will go away but everyday it changes, the weight of it, at first it was unbearable now its kinda of bearable, am not in denial anymore, i can crawl out from under it now and carry it around like a brick in my pocket, sometimes i forget it for a while then i reach for it for some reason and remember there is it ‘’oh right, that’’ it awful but it ’s what i got instead of u. So i will carry this pain and memories around cos it will never go away but i will cope with it which is fine. 
So there you go Ifeanyi, i wanted the world to know a little bit about u and our memories, your sweet heart, u never lost contact with anyone, your advice, your swag. I will never forget you, you will live in my heart forever. I will forever pray for your soul. As you start your journey today i pray the LORD accepts your soul. I miss you my dear, sweet, handsome, annoyingly sarcastic,funny friend….

IFEANYICHUKWU GREGORY ANENE 04/06/1981 - 19/04/2015
IT’S BEEN A LOND DAY WITHOUT YOU MY FRIEND BUT I WILL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT WHEN I SEE YOU AGAIN…

Yours Truly 

Monday, June 1, 2015

20 fascinating facts that make you think twice

Old library
The world is a fascinating place, and it's full of weird and interesting facts that you might have never realized were true.
Luckily, the folks over at Reddit have a collection of true facts about life, and we've combed through them to find our favorites.
From a creature that can survive the harsh vacuum of space to the odd state sport of Maryland, you're bound to learn something that makes you think twice.
Note: A shorter version of this article was originally published by Kyle Russell.

Cleopatra lived closer in time to the Moon landing than to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

A mantis shrimp can swing its claw so fast it boils the water around it and creates a flash of light.

The Spanish national anthem has no words.

Honey does not spoil. You could feasibly eat 3000 year old honey.

Honey does not spoil. You could feasibly eat 3000 year old honey.
REUTERS/Vincent Kessler

Dead people can get goose bumps.

A small percentage of the static you see on "dead" tv stations is left over radiation from the Big Bang. You're seeing residual effects of the Universe's creation.

A small percentage of the static you see on "dead" tv stations is left over radiation from the Big Bang. You're seeing residual effects of the Universe's creation.
Shutterstock

The state sport of Maryland is jousting.

When we breathe through our nose, we always inhale more air from one nostril than with the other one — and this changes every 15 minutes.

If you were to remove all of the empty space from the atoms that make up every human on earth, the entire world population could fit into an apple.

The woolly mammoth was still around when the pyramids were being built.

There are more possible iterations of a game of chess than there are atoms in the known universe.

If you somehow found a way to extract all of the gold from the bubbling core of our lovely little planet, you would be able to cover all of the land in a layer of gold up to your knees.

If you somehow found a way to extract all of the gold from the bubbling core of our lovely little planet, you would be able to cover all of the land in a layer of gold up to your knees.
REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
A truck dumps five cent coins in the centre of the Federal Square during a an event organised by the Committee for the initiative "CHF 2,500 monthly for everyone" (Grundeinkommen) in Bern October 4, 2013.

It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood.

It would take 1,200,000 mosquitoes, each sucking once, to completely drain the average human of blood.
Flickr / John Tann
Source: Reddit/Bat245

Written language was invented independently by the Egyptians, Sumerians, Chinese, and Mayans.

To know when to mate, a male giraffe will continuously headbutt the female in the bladder until she urinates. The male then tastes the pee and that helps it determine whether the female is ovulating.

It can take a photon 40,000 years to travel from the core of the sun to the surface, but only 8 minutes to travel the rest of the way to earth.

Water bears, or Tardigrades, are typically 0.5 mm in length and can survive virtually anything. Even the vacuum of space.

Basically anything that melts can be made into glass. You just have to cool off a molten material before its molecules have time to realign into what they were before being melted.

The critically endangered Kakapo bird has a strong, pleasant, musty odour which allows predators to easily locate it. Hence, it is critically endangered.

In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew for the first time. 66 years later, man landed on the Moon in 1969.

In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew for the first time. 66 years later, man landed on the Moon in 1969.

Old Granny Grace Jones performs topless in tribal body paint

 

The spectacular one and only Jamaican-born singer, who is known for her eccentric costumes as much as her voice performed last night  Sunday May 31st at Carriageworks in Sydney - her first of three concerts as part of the Vivid Sydney festival. She went on stage topless in tribal body paint and also wore a gold mask over her face, which also featured a black feathered head piece. See the photos after the cut...



50 Cent just gave a perfect explanation for why people shouldn't buy Jay Z's Tidal

Rapper 50 Cent is the latest musician to speak out against Jay Z's $9.99-per-month artist-owned music-streaming service, Tidal.
During an interview with the Los Angeles radio station REAL 92.3, the rapper was asked his thoughts on the service.
"They probably could've did something more exciting if they reached out, because the people you saw there don't even own the rights to their music," he said. "So they can't say it's gonna come out of Tidal. It has to go everywhere."
Essentially, 50 Cent is saying people don't need to pay upward of $9.99 a month for music that will be available elsewhere, including rival streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify. In other words, he says, "Why would you actually buy Tidal to get something that would be everywhere else?"
In March, Jay Z debuted Tidal with a star-studded presentation that included Usher, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Madonna, Kanye West, Daft Punk, Arcade Fire, Beyoncé, and many others.
jay z tidalJamie McCarthy/Getty Images for Roc Nation
"Usher was there and Madonna and all these people. That's a little bit more of a, when you say, 'It was business,' it's more of a corporate play," 50 Cent said. "When the record is playing on the air, they say, 'Oh, all right. Let's get this guy.'
"The companies have contracts, and companies are gonna do everything to get the maximum performance out of the music," he added. "They're not going to just put it through Tidal as a service."
Jay Z bought Tidal in January for a reported $56 million with the intention of creating the world's first streaming platform owned by musicians. The service pays established musicians for use of their music.
Subscribers can also receive some exclusive content, such as Beyoncé's recent track that coincided with her and Jay Z's wedding anniversary.
50 Cent Jay ZScott Gries/Getty Images50 Cent and Jay Z in 2007.
But 50 Cent isn't the first artist to question Tidal.
Death Cab for Cutie singer Ben Gibbard told The Daily Beast in April: "I think they totally blew it by bringing out a bunch of millionaires and billionaires and propping them up onstage and then having them all complain about not being paid. That's why this thing is going to fail miserably."
Mumford and Sons front man Marcus Mumford added: "We want people to listen to our music in their most comfortable way, and if they're not up for paying for it, I don't really care."
Singer Lily Allen, too, tweeted: "I love Jay Z so much, but TIDAL is so expensive compared to other perfectly good streaming services ... He's taken the biggest artists & made them exclusive to TIDAL (am i right in thinking this ?), people are going to swarm back to pirate sites in droves sending traffic to torrent sites. Up and coming (not yet millionaires) artists are going to suffer as a result … my concern is that Tidal may set emerging artists back."

Bruce Jenner comes out as a woman on the cover of Vanity Fair: 'Call me Caitlyn'

Bruce Jenner, now known as "Caitlyn," comes out as a woman on the upcoming cover of Vanity Fair.
Annie Leibovitz shot the first pictures of Caitlyn, which were taken in Jenner's Malibu home.
Pulitzer Prize-winning contributing editor and author of "Friday Night Lights" Buzz Bissinger interviewed Jenner for the cover story, in which Jenner reveals the path to becoming Caitlyn.
"If I was lying on my deathbed and I had kept this secret and never ever did anything about it, I would be lying there saying, 'You just blew your entire life,'" Jenner says of why she finally decided to make her transition public.
Check out the cover below:
Bruce Jenner Vanity FairAnnie Leibovitz/Vanity Fair
In a behind-the-scenes video from the Vanity Fair cover shoot, Jenner says, "Bruce always had to tell a lie, he was always living a lie, every day he had a secret from morning until night. Caitlyn doesn't have any secrets. As soon as the Vanity Fair cover comes out, I'm free.

Caitlyn Jenner received a verified Twitter account, amassing over 150,000 followers within the first 40 minutes.
She tweeted for the first time moments after the cover was released:

So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive:
Jenner TweetsTwitter.com

In April, Bruce Jenner sat down with Diane Sawyer to reveal to the world that he would be transitioning into a woman "sometime in the spring."
Bruce JennerABC News

Caitlyn's children have been very supportive of their father's transition in the past.
So far, only Khloe, Kim, and Kendall have shared the cover news via social media:

According to E! Online, Kim Kardashian told "Access Hollywood" last month that she had "just recently met her [Caitlyn]" and that it was an "amazing" experience. "She looked beautiful."
"She was dressed up: beautiful makeup, beautiful hair," Kim said, calling Caitlyn "very, very beautiful." Seeing Caitlyn as a woman "felt really natural," she added.
"Everyone in the family has such a different emotion," Kim added. "We all get back to acceptance and everyone supports him, but it's OK to have every emotion. There is this sense of death that people around feel, and he understands that, but he's not going anywhere. Sometimes [Kendall] and [Kylie] get emotional over that and feel like their dad's gone, but they understand that they've gained someone else that is the same person, although a little bit different."
"It's just a new chapter," says Kim.
In addition to the Kardashian clan, many have expressed their reactions to the cover on Twitter:

16yr old Nigerian footballer slumps and dies on football pitch in Ireland


Shetemi Ayetigbo, a 16 year old Nigerian midfielder who plays for Belvedere Football Club in Dublin, Ireland slumped and died while playing in a league match at the St Kevin’s Boys Football grounds yesterday May 31st.

An eyewitness while narrating what happened to Mirror UK, said Shetemi suddenly slumped and died while playing with his mates.


"There was no incident, any attack. The young lad was playing, and he just dropped on the pitch. It was around 25 to 30 minutes into the game. A number of people rushed to his side straight away to give him first aid, as there was a defibrillator at the grounds. An ambulance came, and paramedics tried to treat him there. But he couldn’t be saved. They then took his body to the hospital. The match was cancelled. Everyone was in shock. The young players, staff, and supporters had never witnessed anything like that on a football pitch. There were a good few people watching the match because it was the last game of the season.”.
His football club, Belvedere Football Club released a statement in which they confirmed the death of Shetemi who was fondly called Shay by his fellow teammates.
“Belvedere Football Club is mourning the death of one of our U16 players who tragically collapsed while playing for the club [yesterday]. While all of our members are in deep shock, our thoughts and prayers are with his family at this tragic time. We ask that the privacy of the family be respected as the club supports them in grieving their boy.” 
Meanwhile his friends have taken to his facebook page, expressing their sadness over his demise One of his friends, Gabriel Okuribido wrote “RIP Shetemi. Know you like two years now, you were sick at football. Hope you have a great send off, I’ll definitely be going. Miss you bro.”

Another one Andrew Finni wrote: “Imagine a man died playing the sport he loved and he was our age. That actually shows you can lose your life at anytime, value your life, family and friends while they’re still here cause we’re not going to be here forever. It doesn’t give you an excuse to go out and do every drug you can get and head to all the sessions you hear of, means nothing on your deathbed because if a healthy athlete died, doesn’t mean you can’t lose your life either.”

PDP Youth leader in Benue assasinated this morning


The PDP youth leader of Ushongo LGA in Benue state, Prince Ternenge Gbuuga, was assassinated at his residence in Lessel, Ushongo Local Government Area of the state in the early hours of today June 1st. According to Benue.com.ng, unknown gunmen stormed his residence and shot him dead. They shared a photo of his corpse. See it after the cut... *it's graphic*.


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