Ruben's Blog

For this week's Learning Challenge, I read an article about sleeping. The article is entitled Data Reveals How Some College Students Sleep . The article was written with the interest of how sleeping conditions may affect learning. In essence, the study followed the sleeping habits of college students aged from 18-22 and tracked certain conditions. One things they found was students aren't that sleep deprived. The average student in this study clocked in 7 hours and 3 minutes of rest a night. I can honestly say that this was something that was confirmed for me. And if you've ever lived in a fraternity, you would have a really hard time believing it was shy of that number. Something that I learned from this study was that women go to bed and wake up earlier than men. Although, this makes a lot of sense. The two are probably correlated. Moreover, one thing that made me curious was the finding that tougher schools have the most sleep deprived students. For instance, Columbia in...

For this week's Learning by Heart, I read an article about how to recapture time. In 3 Steps to Recapture Time , the first important step was refuse to yield your first 15 minutes.  During this step it is important for an individual to take the first 15 minutes of every big task to develop a positive attitude that will make for the most efficient use of time once the project has been started. This is something that I would have never thought of before, but it makes a lot of sense. Sometimes, time canoe wasted by simply trying to stay focused. The next step is called recognize the pruning season . I have actually never heard about his approach, so I was very excited to learn. It is described as taking a few days to identify clutter and resistance to success. This helps to eliminate most unexpected bumps in the road. The next step is one that I was actually familiar with from several other articles and life coaching. It is to practice the art of no . This rule is founded upon making ...

I looked over a chart about how long one should nap. It was aptly named “How Long to Nap.” Essentially, it went over the different types of napping with respect to time and the expected results. 10-20 minutes is what is called a power nap. This type of napping is best for a quick boost of alertness and energy. I think this only works in short burst however. I have learned this from experience. Some studies suggest that a 30-minute nap can cause something called sleep inertia or something more commonly known as grogginess. I took this opportunity to learn more from a Wikipedia link.   A 60-minute nap, is best for memorization, especially facts, faces and names. The 90-minute sleeping session is the best sleeping type to obtain REM. I knew this from previous classes that I have taken and I have also read a lot of articles for this class about sleep. This type of sleep much be achieved for any kind of dreaming to occur. This leads to better emotional status and ...

This week I have decided to read an article about empathy for my learning by heart challenge. This is by far my favorite challenge. I love reading and learning new stuff. Getting extra credit for doing something that I think is intriguing is a blast! Anyway, this article lists 10 Reasons To Stop Judging People , hence the title.  After a lot of studying with Exam Krackers for psychology portion of the MCAT, I away a great deal of information concerning the ideas with this article. Thus, this article confirmed my knowledge that one reason to stop judging people is because we are more ALIKE than we are different. We're all human and most of us have very similar desires, simply wanting to be accepted and be happy. One thing that the article lists that I was new to me was to look for basic goodness. This is obviously very simple so its not completely foreign. However, I think its a nice daily mantra to have. I think that it could help to make the individual more joyous, along  tho...

I read an article entitled: 11 Ways Unsuccessful People Mismanage Their Time . This article describes how in many way a certain list of bad habits contribute to people's lack of success. I thought this article was very insightful and I learned to stay away from the many pitfalls that could make me unsuccessful. One thing that I knew was that procrastinating was the enemy to success in every measure! That's college 101 and pretty any other goal you may have. One thing that I learned was that people who don't utilize their weekends could be setting themselves up for failure. I thought was interesting, but it makes sense. Juggling too much can make event he easiest work haphazard. Lastly, one thing that made me curious was "not having rituals" could be a bad habit. Thus, I went to investigate this and was led down a wikipedia wormhole! But it was all in the interest of learning. Simply put, just form good habits!                     ...

Article:  Want to be Happier? Science Says Do These 11 Things Everyday This is article is essentially about 11 simple things that you can do everyday to promote feeling the best that you can. Although theses 11 activities may seem intuitive, I feel like most people forget to make the most of these things. These things included, smiling, getting enough sleep, spending time with friends and family etc. One thing from this article that I knew was that smiling can improve your mood since I have studied the facial feedback hypothesis. However, I didn't know that there ha been studies to suggest that spending time with friends and family can improve your overall happiness. Another example of something that can make you happier was planning a trip. This spiked my curiosity. Thus, I followed the linked listed and learned a lot more How Vacation Affect Your Happiness .                                   ...