February 28th, 2024 | #3
Hello Friends,
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom where I share the many cool and interesting things that I come across in my pursuit of bettering myself everyday. Here are the things that I have discovered this week. I hope this provides a little bit of entertainment and enlightenment into your life.
Docuseries That I Loved:
“Chimp Empire” Netflix Docuseries. I was instantly hooked! The producers and camera crew did an incredible job shooting this show. Taking place in the heart of the Ngogo rainforest is the largest chimpanzee community ever recorded. Over a year of shooting went into this project and the team captured some scenes that have never been documented before. The territorial wars between groups of chimps were particularly captivating and really baffled me that the camera crew stood right in the middle of that. There were many times where I thought the film was CGI but it is all real. We share almost 99% of our DNA with chimpanzees and it was interesting seeing humanity in their way of life.
New App I’m Trying:
“Atoms” app by James Clear. James Clear has been working on this app for over a year and has just released it to the public. He is the author of the bestselling book Atomic Habits. This app is an extension of that book and can help you track and build healthy habits. I’ve been following James after reading his book a few years ago. He puts out some great content and his weekly newsletter was one of the inspirations for me to start my own.
I’m enjoying this app so far, the interface is very friendly and easy to use. There are a lot of features that I’m going to be trying out, like the reflections on your habits and all of the content James has integrated into the app that dives deeper into his expertise in building habits. Some habits that I’m trying to build and keep track of are: meditating, journaling, exposing myself to cold water, and reading 10 pages a day of a self-help book.
My Favorite Bedtime Gadgets:
I am a sleep princess! I understand that one of the most important things you can do to live a healthy and happy life is to consistently sleep well at night. I’ve spent a lot of time researching ways to improve my sleep hygiene. I will go into further detail about my nighttime routine and supplements another time. Here I want to highlight the tools and gadgets I use before and while I sleep.
Decompressing my spine: I have found that I am able to fall asleep faster and more comfortably after decompression. All day you are experiencing gravity pulling you down, and compressing your spine. A few minutes before bed I like to hang from a bar while putting additional weight like a dumbbell in between my legs to get a greater decompression. I can literally feel my spine lengthen and will usually hear a popping sound which is followed by a sigh of relief from me. Then I take the decompression further by rolling my back out on a foam roller. The type of pull up bar and foam roller doesn’t matter.
Sleeping in the dark: Having a dark room is essential to getting a good night of sleep. My room is very dark and no visible light is present. If I am unable to sleep in a dark room I have a sleep mask that I will put on.
The Sleep mask that I use
Minimizing sound disturbances: My favorite thing to fall asleep to is the sound of a thunderstorm. I find it very peaceful and keeps my mind from wandering while I’m trying to fall asleep. Sometimes, however, we may find ourselves in bed with our partner and they may be a loud snorer or in my case, recently sick and up all night coughing and blowing her nose. No problem, I just shut her out with my favorite reusable earplugs and sleep peacefully, nothing will disrupt my beauty sleep! I also found these useful when I was living in an apartment complex in a college town where there were loud parties on most nights (yes, you can find me sleeping while people are partying).
Earplugs I use
My Piano Playlist:
“The Best Piano & Strings” my Spotify playlist. Anyone who is close to me will know that I am a big fan of Neoclassical piano. My dad first got me into piano as he would play George Winston most mornings as I was growing up. I then started finding my favorite artists and have gone to a few concerts (Ludovico Einaudi, Jean-Mitchel Blais, and Hania Rani). Whenever I am reading, studying, waking up, or going to bed I usually have this playlist playing in the background. If you don’t have Spotify and can’t access my playlist and you’re interested in hearing some of my favorite piano songs then here are my suggested artists:
The artists that I went to their concert
Poppy Ackroyd
RIOPY
Sofiane Pamart
Tony Anderson
Quote That Struck Me:
“Stop learning, die young. Keep learning, stay young.” - James Clear.
