Coffee Aroma

Coffee

and

Chocolate

Are you feeling sluggish around the office? Take a whiff or two of scents derived from products you already rely on to get you through the day: Coffee and Chocolate. The scents of coffee and chocolate have a significant effect on enhancing cognition and clerical office work.

The research summary: Thirty participants were asked to complete a variety of tasks associated with clerical office work. One of the tasks was the completion of a series of cognitive problems measuring visual memory, verbal memory, reaction time, and impulsivity. Participants were also subjected to a typing task, where they were asked to reproduce as quickly as possible, but also as accurately as possible, a short story.

The mock office workers visited the laboratory three times, each time performing the tasks under a different scent condition. These conditions consisted of the presentation of coffee scent or chocolate scent (administered through low flow oxygen via a nasal cannula), and a control condition where only un-scented oxygen was presented.
Upon completion of the clerical tasks, several additional assessments were made, such as the participants’ mood, self-rated measures of workload, and ratings of alertness and fatigue.

Statistical analyses were conducted by controlling the covariates of frequency of coffee and chocolate consumption, preference for coffee and chocolate smells, and preference for coffee and chocolate taste. Typing accuracy was greater when coffee scent was used, as was a significant increase in typing speed words per minute. When chocolate scent was administered, there was a significant increase in visual motor speed information processing and an increase in impulse control. An increase in visual motor speed means you can process visual information more quickly, and thus respond to information more quickly, so you can get your office tasks completed faster. An increase in impulse control also implies that you are less likely to make a mistake on your tasks. It’s a win-win!

So if you want to keep on track with your word processing tasks, keep that cup of coffee next to your computer so you can benefit from the aroma. Or if you need an extra cognitive boost for your Sudoku puzzle, an open box of aromatic chocolates may do the trick.


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Fragrant Attraction

Perfume

and Natural Scent

Forget fatal attraction; smell is the most important characteristic for a woman choosing a romantic partner, according to the new book by Rachel Herz, an expert on the psychology of smell. In her book, The Scent of Desire: Discovering our enigmatic sense of smell, Herz looks at the role of scent in sexual attraction, based on years of research.
“Since at least the time of the Egyptians, we have been adorning ourselves with scent for the purpose of attraction. Men and women differ in terms of how much of a role scent plays in their sexual attraction towards one another,” says Herz. “For heterosexual women, it turns out to be the number one physical factor, as well as the most important social factor, aside from pleasantness. And this isn’t about avoiding a man who smells ‘bad’, but rather about being especially attracted to a man who smells ‘good’.
From your nose to your heart (via your brain)
The connection between our sense of smell and our emotions is founded on the evolution of our brain with the two being intrinsically linked. Smell and emotion are located in the same network of neural structures, called the limbic system. The limbic system is the ancient core of the brain, sometimes called the rhinencephalon – literally, the ‘nose brain’. “A primitive olfactory cortex was the first fabric of our brain and from this neural tissue grew the amygdala, where emotion is processed,” says Herz. “In other words, the ability to experience and express emotion grew directly out of our brain’s ability to process smell. “Without an amygdala we cannot experience or process emotional experiences, we cannot express our own emotions, and we cannot learn and remember emotional events. Brain imaging studies have shown that when we perceive a scent the amygdala becomes activated and the more emotional our reaction to the scent, the more intense the activation is.
It begs the question: would we feel emotion and attraction if we didn’t have a sense of smell?
Sniffing out a potential partner
“Body chemistry plays a large role in terms of whom we are sexually attracted to and our noses speak loudly to our souls. All of us, and women in particular, end up relying quite deeply on our noses for some of the most fundamental decisions in our lives; in particular, whom we choose to have children with,” says Herz. “The sense of a lover being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ for you may feel like intuition, but it is real – and your nose knows it. There is something very important and biologically sound going on when a woman finds a man’s smell delicious or distasteful. The specific men a woman will be attracted to depend greatly on the compatibility between his immune system and her own and this is reflected in a man’s unique body odor.
“Women are also very attracted by artificial fragrance and a man can mask his natural body odor with fragrance and lure biologically compatible women to him that way.” “There is research showing that not being on the pill is best for picking biologically suitable mates,” says Herz. “A woman’s sense of smell is better than a man’s, but only during those few days within a woman’s monthly cycle when conception is possible. During the rest of her cycle she is no better than a man at detecting scents, and during menstruation, her ability to detect odors is often worse than a man’s.

Did you know?
• The Kama Sutra, the fifth-century Hindu sex manual, written by men, praises the scent of women and proclaims that the beauty of a woman is not determined by how she looks, but rather how she smells.

• Many cultures have recognized the special relationship between smell, affection, and sexuality. In India the word for “kiss” means smell, and the Inuit typically rub their noses together rather than engaging in mouth-to-mouth kissing.

Here's my "take five"favorite fragrant attraction:
1. Benetton Cold - my high school fave flava
2. Davidoff Cool Water - the first fragnant iv smelled so good
3. CK one - different kind of sweetness on it
4. Burberry London - i really like the lightness of the scent and it stays long
5. Bvlgari AQva - it's bold, alluring,and affordable...my new flava



Thanks to Institute of Smell
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Eyes, colors , and likes

From the moment you wake up in the morning to the time you go to sleep at night, your eyes are acting like a video camera. Everything you look at is then sent to your brain for processing and storage much like a video cassette.
How Your Eyes Work? Take a moment to locate an object around you. Do you know how you are able to see it? Would you believe that what you are actually seeing are beams of light bouncing off the object and into your eyes? It is hard to believe, but it is true. The light rays enter the eye through the cornea, which is a thick, transparent protective layer on the surface of your eye. Then the light rays pass through the pupil (the dark circle in the center of your eye) and into the lens.
Color Perception: Light as we see it runs from Ultra Violet (where it leaves our perception) through Violet, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and ultimately to infrared, whence we again cannot see it. You can 'loop' this spectrum by letting the red go further from orange into violet mode. It is more like a color wheel continually flowing than individual colors. All colors can be darkened with black or lightened with white. But are black and white colors? Yes -- ALL colors mixed together make black, and, if done with light, all colors together make white light.
Overall, the only perfect color is white -- and all the other colors are breakdowns thereof, in some combination. How many distinctions in color can a human eye see, varies greatly from individual to individual. Some person may be able to perceive 128 shades between red and orange. Someone else may only be able to see red, red-orange, and orange. Some people may see the color brown in burgundy, others only dark red/purple. Some of us are better able to filter colored light out of solid color and see color more distinctly. Other things, like fog and moonlight, tend to filter all color out, while still keeping things very beautiful. The only whole color, however, is white. Everything else is a breakdown of white. Mix all the colors up and you get black.

Our eyes are wonderful blessings from God. See how complex it works and how it gives wonder to our life – from taking photographs to seeing our loved ones, to the colors of the rainbows, the green fields, the wonderful colors of sunset, and to everything around us.

Here’s my “take five” - the best things to look at
1. The faces of my loved ones
2. The sunrise
3. The eyes of an innocent child
4. Anything green (excluding my gray matter)
5. My own face – no matter how “whatever” my look is... i still love to look at my own face because it reflects to the biggest and unconditional Love of GOD.

With all these wonderful things, it is our obligation to take care of our eyes. My lil' advise - Don’t spend too much time at your computer, if it indispensable, take a few minutes to rest your eyes from time to time, at least every two hours and do some eye exercise after wards. Like moving your eyes up and down for several times, then left and right, then clockwise and followed by counter clockwise. This will help you to reduce some eyestrain and stress too.

More detailed info: click How to exercise your eyes

Credits to: Askville, Thinkquest, and to you

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Reader's Digest Widgets

My Dad is real RD (reader's digest) fanatic. Since 1970's (on the pic, my dad's 1970's RD issues)he's already collecting the magazine. He's fond of reading every page of the magazine from the regular features e.g. Word Power, Laughter, Personal Glimpses, up to the special features and I was awed why he's enjoying the magazine. Then when I developed the fondness of reading, Reader's Digest has become one of my favorite magazines to spend a quality time with. But now, living in the world of blogging, which I spend most of my hours, I find it hard to get in touch with my first-loved magazines. Luckily there's now online RD so I’m back with her embrace again. And the biggest thing right now is the ReadersDigest.com Widgets. Now you can add a little fun to your personal web space with free widgets and downloads from ReadersDigest.com Widgets

Visit ReadersDigest.com Widgets
and choose from the following:

Word Power: Now is your chance to have fun while building your vocabulary. Think your smarter than your friends? Go ahead and challenge them to beat your score and see who comes out on top!

Daily Laughs: Laugh a little louder each day with new jokes, cartoons, photos and videos from ReadersDigest.com. Grab this widget, add it to your personal web space and enjoy!RD Laughs Main

Prop My Photo: If you have a Facebook page, you can have crazy fun with your personal photos. Download this application to your profile page. It allows you to add funny props to your favorite pics and share them with friends. Check it out and while you're at it, enter the rd.com funny photo contest using your latest creation.

Toolbars: The perfect tool for the information junkie! Download the ReadersDigest.com toolbar for IE or Firefox and have the latest RD articles and info at your fingertips.

What are you waiting for fella, grab it NOW!
My favorite? The Laughter Section, so wanna have this kind of widget? Visit RD Laughs Main
Make laughter a part of your daily routine with funny jokes, hilarious cartoons and silly photos from ReadersDigest.com. Bonus: Watch a new stand-up comedy video every day!

Psychology 101: Projection

It was a sunny Sunday morning, my mum, nephew, and I went to our village chapel to celebrate mass. It’s quite a long time since the last occasion that I had a mass at our village chapel. The celebration was presided by a new parish priest in town and to my surprise I didn’t feel like dozing off while the he was giving his long homily. During the whole mass my mum was sitting in between me and my nephew; less interaction to my chatty nephew. With the usual scene at the mass – the reading of gospels, the sitting, kneeling, and standing, the priest then said, "I leave you peace, my peace I give you. Now let us all offer one another the sign of peace." I am not really generous in giving nods or handshake during this “peace-be-with-you” scene at the mass. But for this time I reached for my nephews ear and told him “hey you should kiss nanay” but it was quite aloud that my nanay heard it and told me “He gave me kiss already”. I got quite embarrassed for it was really me who wanted to kiss her but I was pretty shy for a man with filthy beard to kiss his nanay in public. But with a second thought, I gave a smack kiss on her cheeks. I got shy – of course, but I had the relief feeling with my repressed thoughts and it felt good too. Happy Sunday to all…

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Coolest Blog Award

Thank you so much Rose for giving me this award. It really feels good whenever i see my name on your award's list,wahehehe.



Once accepting this award, the rules are as follow: Put the logo on your blog. Add a link to the person who awarded you. Nominate 10 other blogs. Add links to those blogs on yours. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs. With that I nominated 10 other bloggers for this award...

I would love to give this award to the the following cool bloggers:

amor - for inspiring me to create a fotoblog and for being a nice friend

OR -for the quality time you spent with me and for all the help you gave me

Arch - for the making me feel at home at xat

Kosa - for the funny posts and small talk,lol

faye - for your beautiful comments and friendship at the blogsphere

I'll complete the list later...
Thank you .....
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