for the good of over-worked singaporeans, students and working adults alike, i shall share my secrets on how to prevent yourself from falling asleep.

as we all know, dozing off during lectures and tutorials (for students) and during conferences and meetings (for the workforce) isn't exactly the most glam thing to do. plus you run a risk of being blacklisted by your tutors/bosses.

let us examine the possibilities that we can undertake.

1) open your mouth big. expel as much air as you can. this way you are getting rid of the excess carbon dioxide which makes you feel sleepy. after you have expelled all air, take a deep breath in until you can breathe no more air in. hopefully this would transport more oxygen to your brain and make you feel less sleepy. hooray!

2) pick up a pen or a stick or virtually anything and start to twirl it around your fingers. now when you're moving you cant exactly sleep, can you? moreover this increases the dexterity of your hands too. double yay. some pple claim doodling is a good way to stay awake but i choose to differ..if you are sleepy enough i highly doubt that you would even want to make any strokes with your pencil.

3) press the corner of your jawbone (near your ears) with two fingers each side and draw circles with hard pressure using your fingers. do the same all the way down your jawline to your chin. this increases blood circulation and also prevents you from getting an early onset of saggy chins.

4) eat some sour orange peels. super effective. but of course there are people who cannot stand the sourish taste which makes them cringe and squirm. also, do not consume on empty stomach unless you wish to spend the subsequent half hour in the toilet. then again that might not be such a bad idea since you were going to fall asleep anyway.

of course, these solutions are more or less temporary and will not work if you are severely deprived of sleep. nonetheless you can give them a shot..after all they're all free! apart from the orange peels that is.

however lastly, no cure to a problem would ever be complete if we were to eliminate it's syndromes only. we have to get to the root of the problem and hence the bottomline is: GET MORE SLEEP.

SLEEP =)

on a separate note, this week i am proud to say i have exercised twice. jogged once with my sister just now..and the other time was yesterday morning; a 100m dash to catch the bus after spotting it from afar.