Stop being stressed and be awesome instead

We all have these tiring days where we just want to escape from everyday life because of emotionally stressful situations. Most people cannot deal with this kind of stress and find themselves in therapies or even worse, doing drugs to calm down. While many believe stress is harmful to the body, it actually has the opposite effect. In a 14-minute video of TED Talks, called ‘How to make stress your friend’ released in June 2013, Kelly McGonigal explains how stress can be healthy and save lives.

Kelly McGonigal is a health psychologist who is known for her scientific research on achieving personal goals despite inner conflicts. With her willpower techniques and her stress-coping strategies, she enhances the patients’ quality of life, making it enjoyable again. The emphasis of her work is primarily directed towards people with less self-esteem and self-confidence.

Before I go over to the part where I tell you how to embrace stress, I want to explain several important terms that I find necessary to know in life.

Cardiovascular disease is a term for several other diseases that involves heart or blood vessels, such as heart attack, stroke, arrhythmia, etc. The most common way how to get it is probably by suffering from chronic stress.

Oxytocin is a hormone that is being released when we hug or kiss our loved ones. It can also be released when we help someone out or support people, increasing our empathy and compassion. When it comes to stress-induced damage, this hormone regenerates and heals heart-cells.

Stress-induced heart attack means that the heart attack was caused by stress.

Complementary therapy is being used for treatments without traditional Western medicine. For example, acupuncture.

Alternative therapy is being used for treatments without traditional medicine, i.e. chiropractic, homeopathy, faith healing, etc.

Stress is known as the 15^th largest cause of death in the world. However, this applies only to people who believe that stress is harmful to one’s body. After finding yourself in a situation where the heart pounds vigorously and the uncontrollable urge to breathe faster appears, it is important to see these sensations as energy rather than bad feelings. Your body is preparing you for a challenge that you need to succeed. The way how to make stress your friend is to change your attitude towards stress. What truly matters is how you think about it.

The problem with mental pressure is that it not only affects my milieu, but also everyone else’s. Everyone experiences stress differently, for example, I do when giving presentations. The next time I experience stress, I will recall the discussion with Kenny McGonigal which will help me to succeed not only when presenting, but also in life.

Her presenting techniques are just brilliant. In the beginning, she asks a question and tries to interact with the audience which makes her charismatic. Moreover, her jokes draw the crowd’s attention and, therefore, it increases her self-confidence. With these techniques, it shouldn’t be a problem to give a presentation the next time.

Remember: See the stress-induced sensations as energy, not as a weakness. 

or watch it here:

Om Nom Nom Nom – Seconds?

Hello my dear dessert-loving people out there! :D

Since I decided to write about the Irish apple tart in my food magazine, which can be read here, I couldn’t resist baking this mouth-watering dessert and telling you all the details. With support of a dear friend of mine, we managed to bake it. It isn’t difficult to make, but for the people who have never baked anything before, including myself, I compiled a step-by-step instruction. The Irish apple tart is a traditional dessert that can be found generally in any household throughout Ireland. It is straightforward to make, relatively cheap and the ingredients can be bought anywhere.

In order to make my post more interesting, I decided to write an untypical recipe instruction, for example, by adding some comments and plenty of pictures. Since this was my first experience with baking, I feel much more inclined to bake now. ;)

 

The ingredients are:

230g or 8 ounces of plain flour

120g – 150g or 4 ounces of butter/margarine

Cold water

2 big apples

2 tablespoons of sugar

Note: If you want, you can leave the butter in the fridge overnight for a better texture.

First of all, you ought to preheat your oven. The temperature should be around 200° Celsius or 400 Fahrenheit.

Take a deep glass bowl (or in our case a cooking pot because we didn’t had a glass bowl handy). Mix the flour and the butter/margarine and then add some cold water to make the pastry. You can even add some sugar here but it is not necessary.

Scoop the mixture out and put it on a slightly floured surface. Knead the pastry and then cut it in halves.

Sprinkle some flour onto your surface again, and then roll it out with a rolling pin. We had a problem with this point because there was no rolling pin in my household. If you have the same problem, try to find something else instead, such as a bottle of wine. While rolling out the second piece of the mixture, leave the first one in the refrigerator for about five minutes.

Peel the apples and cover the pastry with them. Add two tablespoons of sugar – you can even add some cinnamon if you prefer.

Then roll the second halve of the pastry up onto the apple-filled mixture. You can now flute the edges and adorn the pastry with the trimmings if there are any.

Cut a vent in the top of the tart and then it’s ready to be put into the oven. As above mentioned, bake the pastry in a pre-heated oven at 200° Celsius or 400 Fahrenheit for about 20-30 minutes or until the pastry is golden. Now it can be served with custard, cream, or ice-cream.

This, my friends, is how easy it can be to bake a traditional Irish tart. However, there are even more complex recipes which require more knowledge of baking. Why not bake one for your family or for Eastern. I am sure they would be surprised ;)

I wish you guys a nice holiday – enjoy your time. Bye

Who the heck is Mišel?

Hello all J

Some of you might know me as the chatty guy who never shuts up in class or as the creepy one, but I assure you that there is much more to know about me than you think ;)

For starters, my name’s Mišel which is actually a French name, just written in Croatian style. My parents are originally from Croatia, but were born in a remote village near Brčko, a town in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina. I, on the other hand, was born in Carinthia. I am grateful that I have been raised bilingually. This sure had positive effects on me and on my appearance. It makes me feel kind of special because people oftentimes tell me “Oh my God, you’re so lucky being raised bilingually. I wanna be fluent in another language as well.” Unfortunately, you won’t, sorry, but perhaps by learning a new language.

The thing is, when being in Austria, I don’t see myself as an Austrian citizen mainly because of my Croatian nationality. However, when I visit my home country, I don’t see myself as a Croatian citizen either. So, I ask myself the same question that probably everyone asks him- or herself, too. Who the heck am I exactly?

I’m just who I am. The guy who remembers to keep smiling even through terrible times, sometimes over-worried about the small things in life, but still enjoying beautiful moments, especially with my friends. Such precious moments can easily alter lives, such as mine.

Apropos changing lives: I think it was 2013 when I moved to Graz and it was certainly one of the best decisions I have ever made. Last year, however, I had the problem that I was sharing an apartment with acquaintances. By ‘problem’ I mean that I had barely time to study mainly because of difficulties with concentration. Now, I’ve got my own apartment, where I can have some peace and quiet, and study without any concern. In this apartment there you can find piles of books that demonstrate my dedication for languages. They are my hobby as well as my career. Frankly, I don’t enjoy reading bland books that don’t contribute to my knowledge, such as a roman, novel or something similar. I’m totally into science and history and, therefore, I am currently reading a scientific book in English about “serious” scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions. In parantheses, I don't know if you have ever heard of AsapScience before, but they have brought out their new book and it's just as awesome as I have imagined. In order to expand my knowledge on history, I’m reading a book in Croatian about the division of Yugoslavia. Lastly, I’m reading a culture-related book in Japanese with short stories about a notorious guy called Hikoichi. These stories are well-known by every kid in Japan.

"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you will go." 
- Dr. Seuss

At this point, I think I’ve mentioned enough about me. If you should require further information, please contact me ASAP. (Just kidding! – or not.)

Bye :D

This Irish Pub in Budapest had the best beer I have ever sampled.