One day in the month of September, I joined an event held by one church in Jakarta, the event named Treasures Women Conference. This event was dedicatedly served for women only, thus all decorations, souvenirs, presentation topic are so female.

When we checked in, we got a goody bag which consist of a cute scrapbook, something to write a note complete with the schedule, advertisement, information, etc; discount vouchers from several sponsors; kiranti; lactacid; uv sunscreen from ERHA; and this is what I like the most, a cute blue flowery scarf.

Actually, what I like to discuss right now is about one of the presentation topic. Personal Health by Yohanes Sunardi. I got a lot of new knowledge about Health.

The trainer is also interesting. He’s so passionate. He knows exactly the detail of his work. He is nutritionist, personal trainer, also a chef. He knows about how to cook particular food, at what time should we eat a certain food, what is do’s and don’ts for the food, how to keep food, and many many more..

The session is only an hour, but he spoke as if he wants to share all of his knowledge so he spoke too quickly and jump from one topic to another before he even finished his sentence.

These are what I can share here:

Food and Mood
What will affect our mood and of course health?
1. The type is right.
2. The portion is right.
3. Eat at the right time.

Right food at the right time
The right time to consume egg is in the morning, because it won’t cause cholesterol since it contains ‘lesitin’ which can kill the cholesterol and it has ‘kolin’ which function is to take the memory from brain, also called ‘brain booster’. So this chemical is the right thing to start the day.
How to store egg in the refridge? The sharp-pointed part should be put under so the yellow part of the egg will stay in the middle.

Meat. Don’t eat meat in the morning, because our digestive system will focus on it thus the blood and oxygen from the brain need to supply more to this area, so we’ll be sleepy in the afternoon.

The right food to be eaten every time is fish.

Our digestive system
4am – 12pm Defecation
12pm – 7pm Ingestion
7pm – 4am Absorption

So you can refer to above hours, for example if you don’t want to get bigger, you should have dinner before 7pm.

Drink
For women, there is a myth that when we are having our period, it will be good to drink soda or coffee. But in fact, this is wrong because the soda will drain the mineral in the body which actually needed during this period.

Calcium
Avoid consuming calcium tablet. Instead get calcium from the low fat high calcium milk.

Fruit season
Always eat food/fruit that are sold only in the fruit season because it contains good nutrients which are needed to avoid disease on that season.

Gastritis
Every morning, squeeze ¼ of lemon (neither lime nor orange) into a glass of water, stir with chopstick, not with spoon because it will react in the acid water.

Cooking style
Instead of vetsin, use salt and sugar to cook. Put salt and sugar in the same spoon and throw into the food at the same time, so it will give the same effect compare to Monosodium Glutamate from the vetsin but is better.

Use the same cooking oil for only one time, not frequently. You can buy the cheapest one as long you don’t use this frequently.

Don’t let the olive oil boiled when you use it for cooking, it will be poison.

Those are the things that I can remember so far.
Hope it will be useful for us to afford a better healthier life.

We have been in the month of Ramadhan now.
As I ever shared in one of my posts, ada banyak sekali orang-orang - istilahnya gepeng bukan ya? - yang nongkrong di pinggir jalan kayak kecapean abis kerja berat, atau bapak-bapak yang bawa anaknya di dalam gerobak atau justru si anak itu yang disuruh narik gerobak, atau tukang sapu jalanan yang tiba-tiba jadi ada di jalanan yang di hari bisa diluar Ramadhan ga pernah keliatan..

Few days ago, a' asked me to do charity again, by distributing food for breakfasting for people in the street.
Hmmm... with this fact, I think we need to re-consider whether this is the right way to help people or not..
After discussing, with our idealism, we decided to not doing this again. This way will not help people to learn. The right way is actually to give the bait, not the fish..

So, we need to find out other way for our charity then..

I have an odd experience. Suatu malam, waktu lagi jalan pulang ke kost dari arah Chase Plaza, I met an old Grandma. She brought ‘peyek’, di dalam bakul gede, jalan kaki. I was on the phone. Waktu papasan, si Nenek tiba2 nawarin peyeknya. I was surprised, jadi spontan menggeleng, sama spontannya sama saat ditawari sesuatu oleh penjual di lampu merah. Pas dah lewat, yah nyesel deh, kok ga beli aja ya.. Tapi ribet ah, lagi nelp juga..

Bermalam2 kemudian, secara tak terduga, ketemu lagi ama si Nenek. Again, I was on the phone. Tapi kali ini agak pinter. Waktu si Nenek tiba2 ada di depan mata dan menawarkan peyek, suddenly I nodded. Hang up the phone, berhenti, dan dimulailah pembicaraan itu.

Nenek (N): Peyek neng?
Deyla (D): Satu ya Nek, berapaan?
N: Ada yang kacang ada yang teri neng.
D: Satu nya berapa?
N: Tujuh ribu neng, soalnya seratus ribu cuma untung satu bungkus, harganya sekarang pada naik, bla bla bla.. – I can’t remember word by word..
Satu aja neng?
D: Iya Nek.

Dimasukin plastik.
Bayar.

Sambil nyari kembalian:
N: Kerja di mana neng? Di depan?
D: Bukan, agak jauh..
N: Oo.. semoga sukses kerjanya ya neng, semoga berhasil, uang kuliah dulu pasti mahal, semoga sekarang bisa jadi orang sukses, bla bla bla – Again, I can’t remember word by word..
D: Aminnn.. – Sambil terbengong-bengong.. Panjang ya doanya..

I always remember this moment. What a lovely Grandma.
She must be and hopefully live her life happily, she kept blessing others.
I wish I could do that way – walopun ga sepanjang itu tentunya – Nice!!

In my office, we have regular Monday Morning Meeting which one of the agenda is someone who has been appointed the week before to do a presentation in front of everyone in the meeting. It’s called Pecha Kucha.

Pecha Kucha itself means a presentation which presents only maximum 20 power point slides and the time for each slide is only 20 seconds. Therefore we need to set an automatic timer for each slide.

Last week was my turn.
I pick a topic about stress, because I think this is an important knowledge for everyone. Usually, people will not aware that they are stress or they don’t want to admit the fact that they are stress.

So, here is my Pecha Kucha.

What could trigger stress? Basically it will be different for every one. Nervous, anxiety, under pressure, etc. You could have a different trigger.

When we are in these conditions, the signal will be sent to our brain, saying that there is a danger or threat to our body. So, the natural stress system will be activated.


Because we are stressed, our brain will respond with what we called Fight or Flight Response. Because this kind of respond, our body will release several hormones, including the adrenalin and cortisol.

As a result, our heart will beat faster, we begin to sweat, then our breath becomes shallower, and our senses become more acute. This is what we call Fight or Flight response.

So what is adrenaline? Actually this hormone will help us to fight, increase heart rate, elevate blood pressure, we become stronger because it boost energy supplies, we become alert and focus, so we are ready to fight.

So does the cortisol. It helps our body in such a way so we are ready to fight. It increases glucose supplies to our brain and even it helps us in getting our muscles tensed and ready.

So if you realize that this natural response is so needed by our ancestor, in escaping from a lion, chasing away a rival, etc.
But in this modern society, we cannot escape easily from the stressor, be it our work, crowded cities, or traffic jams, etc.

Adrenaline works at a different speed with cortisol. Adrenaline rise quickly to meet an emergency, but drop just as quickly when the emergency is over.
While cortisol builds up more slowly and works on a larger scale. It's also slower to go back down to normal. Often the cortisol is just getting started while adrenaline level is heading back down.


Each individual will release a different amount of adrenaline and cortisol. Because people are biologically created to react differently to stress.
One person may release higher levels of adrenaline and cortisol than another in the same situation.

So imagine if we are under stress for long time. When the adrenaline is going down, the cortisol is just going up.
If we face another stress trigger, the adrenaline will again go up, while the cortisol is even not yet going down.
The higher our cortisol level, the longer it takes to recover from the rush.

Its long-term elevated levels in the blood stream affect how our whole body functions.
This is what doctors are so concerned about because it has been found to be the root cause behind a large number of stress diseases. And even it can lead to death.

So stress is related, even though seemingly indirectly, to many…diseases.
But usually, we take this lightly. We don’t put attention to this and consider that this is not a real problem.

In Medical Science, they call it psychosomatic, when stress affects our physical area.
Based on the research by UI, around 15 to 30% of people live in Jakarta die because of psychosomatic.

In summary, these are the effect of stress on our body, thoughts and feelings, and behaviour.

There are so many sources like journals, books, articles that provide methods for relieving stress, such as:
§ Laughter
§ Quite time
§ Noisy time
§ Move around
§ Talk
§ Get enough sleep
§ Quit worrying
§ Etc

We can find it easily. But what I want to discuss more right now is not how the stress people should manage their selves but how you could help stress people.

The simplest way is to let stress people talk to you. But if they don’t want to talk, don’t insist.
All you have to do is only to listen because they just need trash bin.

There are many popular advices for stress people, but please avoid:
1. Don’t be stressed. Why? Because it will just create an additional burden, we will keep thinking I shouldn’t be stressed, but why I do?
2. You should think positively, because it’s difficult to keep us focus at only one thing, just let the mind walk so we are not burdened with these additional rules.

Finally..
§ A moderate amount of anxiety and stress is good for us. It helps motivate us to plan for future events.
§ But, when stress or anxiety become too great or continue for too long, they become a problem. Beyond a certain point, your performance will deteriorate.
So, remember that stress is a normal part of life, but don’t accept it as our normal condition.

Happy Valentine..

In fact, I’m working from 8am up to 11pm today..




In Bangkok..
Bless me!