Get Rid of Urban Stresses With Meditation and White Noise Machine
The last time we checked our staff’s weekly updates , our editors went into foam rolling, boiling eggs, charcoal camouflage, and redesigning the Facebook feed to suit our hearts.
Our self-improvement efforts this week have ranged from improving sleep (with earplugs, white noise machines, and meditation); enjoy the joys of ready-made frozen meals (and Tupperware keeps them); and do our holiday shopping shockingly in advance.
What updates have you made this week? Let us know in the comments.
Block road noise with white noise
“We love our new apartment, except for one small catch: our bedroom faces the main motorway. “How bad can it be?” we told ourselves before moving. “It looks like white noise,” we added to ourselves.
We were wrong.
In any case, even if the noise of the expressway cannot be defined as “white noise”, there are these magical creatures known as “white noise machines” and I went straight away and bought us one. This particular device offers a variety of soothing sounds besides the constant white noise: there is a brown noise that looks more like “uuuuuhxxx” (datasheet), or, if you prefer, there are a few nature sounds. options such as a babbling stream or a typhoon (why would you listen to a typhoon? I’m better, but I appreciate the option). You can also listen to a lullaby if you are young or like to pretend to be a baby. (No judgment.) Anyway, there are a lot of sound machines on the market, and I’m not going to pretend this is the best. But this is the one I bought and I am very happy with it. ” – Alice Bradley, Associate Editor
Master your work lunch routine with a freezer
“The last few months when I moved and started a new job at the same time, I was on the sidelines when it came to preparing food for work or even cooking at home. (My grocery and restaurant budget has turned into a nightmare, as Mint likes to remind me.) But I’m usually the queen of frozen dinners – my favorites areversions of these burrito bowls , plus Chrissy Teigen’s individual servings (extremely cheap and delicious) recipe vegetable tortilla stew . I realized that almost everything freezes and reheats well, so if you prepare a few meals ahead of time, you can put things away for a rainy day and you won’t have to eat a large portion of something every day for a week until you get tired of it or just will not throw it away. Next thing I want to try: a vegetarian version ofthese frozen breakfast burritos.
Anyway, with fall coming (and partly inspired by last week’s update comment thread ) I’m getting ready to get back to my post-holiday weekend routine, and that started with investing in some nice new glass containers to freeze and reheat all of this in. Something in my old plastic containers with food stains wasn’t quite appetizing. – Virginia K. Smith, Managing Editor
Shop for the holiday in advance
“I bought Christmas presents in August! I read that these baby Monkeys fry are going to be in It 2017 toys (maybe even new Hatchimals), so I bought a bunch because they already sold out. What are they doing? I do not know. But I plan on being the coolest aunt in the world – otherwise I suck. In any case, the year is over. – Michelle Wu, staff writer
Take an early meditation trip
“ Between hectic commutes to work on the subway and an overactive terrier at home, surviving a little quiet time on your day is a bit tricky. I meditate, but I am not the best mindfulness practitioner. This week I decided to change my morning routine a little and leave home a little earlier. Sure, I have to get in the bag before all good TVs start at 9:00 pm, but the combination of Apple’s Bedtime Mode that sends me a notification when it’s time to turn in, plus my recent purchase of Dubs earplugs means my morning commuting to work is a little less hectic. Plus, it’s much quieter here. Now when I board the local C train, I close my eyes, focus on my breathing and think, well, nothing. It’s a welcome change from grumbling about who’s bumping into me and stepping on my toes all the time. “- Patrick Austin, Staff Writer
Get Perfectly Blown Hair
“My hair is getting longer, so I finally buckled in and ordered hair products – something I hadn’t done in a long time. I want to give my hair a “blown in the wind” look, but my hair is thick and wavy (almost frizzy) making it very unruly. But I found something that works really well! This is called Suavecito hair cream . ” – Patrick Allan, Staff Writer
Become a pinball master
“At the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, I learned to read instructions on a pinball machine. As a casual pinball player, I was just trying to keep the ball in play, but I found out that most machines reward you with points or even an extra ball for lighting the correct series of targets. ” – Nick Douglas, Staff Writer
Learn from your own thinking patterns
“ My update this week is just a tag on Lifehacker: numbers in context . This happened because I wrote several posts that help readers understand the noteworthy number, and our editors, especially Melissa, began to notice this and ask me to do more posts in this direction. The takeaway from this is that sometimes you can get good ideas for the future simply by recognizing the pattern in your good ideas from the past. ” – Beth Skorecki, Staff Writer
Avoid laundry altogether
I have this very cheap clothes dryer at IKEA so I don’t need to hang clothes in the bathroom or on chairs. It is also good for laying out knits that can warp if you try to hang them to dry. ” – Claire Lower, staff writer