Russell Foster is a neuroscientist and he does a lot of research into sleep. His engaging TED talk reiterates a lot of what we’ve probably heard our whole lives: that we aren’t getting enough sleep. But we are now starting to understand some of the science behind it. Russell encourages us to stop the cycle of limited sleep and caffeine stimulation in favour of listening to our bodies and honouring the light/dark cycle that our bodies observe to keep us being the best that we can be.
Default to text (HTML) editor in WordPress
The visual editor in WordPress is generally very good and helpful, but if you have code or special formatting on some of your posts, the visual editor can sometimes screw up the formatting.
This little snippet solves that by defaulting to the text (HTML) editor every time you open a post, while retaining the ability to use the visual editor if needed.
Stop making breastfeeding weird
Even before I left the UK, people were starting to get a bit weird about breastfeeding in public, but it was still fairly commonplace.
After moving to the States, I’ve realised that it’s an action which is much more taboo on this side of the pond, which infuriates me to no end.
Martina showed me a blog post about it recently that sums up exactly how I feel about it, so I encourage you to read it and actively support breastfeeding mothers and stand against bigots who see naturally nourishing your child as some sort of shameful act.
Stats can be so misleading
As a new parent, I’ve found myself reading a lot about child-rearing and the like and one thing has become very apparent that is really starting to annoy me.
People parade statistics around far too much and hold them in too high esteem. Some examples of stats I’ve read recently include:
Breast-fed babies are 24% more likely to be upward mobile.
Breastfed babies are 41% more likely to go to college.
This sort of statistics drives me nuts, because it is so often misrepresentative of what’s going on.
People scanning those stats may quickly come to the conclusion that breastfeeding your baby will result in your child having higher upward mobility and being more likely to go to college.
Gym membership? Pffft!
Thinking of improving your upper body strength? Looking at joining your local gym? Save your money. Have unprotected sex instead: you might not notice much change in the first 9 months, but you’ll get pretty buff between months 10 & 12.
An inside view of politics in China
In the West, we’ve long been taught that the success of any modern nation is dependent on a deomcratic political system. Eric Li does an excellent job of challenging that perception by offering an insight into the Chinese political arena, a country which has risen far up the ranks to be one of the most prosperous nations on Earth. And all with a one-party system.
The very mention of communism scares the West (mostly America) to death, but any intelligent person can see that he has some good points. After all, in democracies, we go through a cycle of anticipation, excitement at the prospect of change, and ultimately, disappointment. The system is clearly broken, and Eric suggests that democracy may not be the only path forward.
3 a.m. sit-ups
When you have a baby, you learn to make the most of every minute. So when she wakes up for a feeding at 3 a.m., getting in some sit-ups is perfectly sane!
Christianity, Islam, Judaism, faith, doubt and fanaticism
I happened upon a thought-provoking TED talk this morning, about an agnostic Jewish woman (Lesley Hazleton) who spent several years studying Muhammad and his revelation of the Quran. She discusses how he had doubt about what happened to him that night and it’s doubt that forms up the very fibre of our faith: a point that applies to all of us, regardless of what we believe (or don’t believe).
Despair is self-fulfilling. If we call something impossible, we act in such a way that we make it so.
-Lesley Hazleton
Light and fluffy vegan blueberry pancakes
Made these for Martina one morning and we were thankful that we made all 16, because we boshed the lot that very morning!
These are so delicious, better than any other pancakes I’ve had before (vegan or otherwise), and better still, there’s no artery-clogging ingredients, so you can sleep easy at night. Here’s how to make them:
The wine conundrum
I’m in a weird situation, because I really want a glass of wine when I think about the texture and the flavor and the smell, but then, aside from not having a breast pump, I just realize that I’ll fall straight asleep.