No More Procrastination in 2017!

Think, for a second. How much difference would you make in a year's time if you just make yourselves 1% better in a day?

Everyday, upon waking up, allocate time to learn new things, tell yourselves, that you will improve yourselves by just 1%. It could be improving your vocabulary, meeting new people, learning new skill set, reading a good book, working out your body. All you need to do in that day is just achieve 1% better than you were yesterday.

By simple calculation, you will have 365% improvement by the end of the year. That would means that you are 3.65 times better than you were by end of the year! what about if you insisted that 1% improvement on a single thing? It would follow a totally different equation then, as the effect would be COMPOUNDING.

1.01^365= 37.78 times.

if you could just run 1km by day one, Just by running 10 meter extra everyday, you will be able to run 37.78km by the end of the year!

Now, what would happen if you tell yourselves, " com'on, it's still early, i can always start next month, or two months later. By procrastinating for 60 days, you would think that you would be able to cover at least 30km? Nope, you are wrong. Look at the equation below.

1.01^305= 20.79 times

The consequence is , you would be able to cover almost half less by procrastinating for two months in a year. Now we are just taking running as an example. Now imagine in all other things that you do, what would be the difference when you tell yourselves "I would do it when I am free", "I am too busy for this", or "just tomorrow/next week/next month". How much progress you would miss?

Another example. Your friend has shown you a good business opportunity/investment with good track record of, let's say ROI of 10% a month. If you start right away with capital of 100,000 dollar, after 5 years, your net worth would be:

100,000 x 1.1^60 = 30.448 million

Imagine the scenario if you hesitated even after verified that all the details in the business proposal, and come back a year later. by the time of maturity, your worth will be

100,000 x 1.1^48= 9.7 million

Your difference for one year procrastination will be 30.448 million - 9.7 million = 20.748 million.

Look at the difference. even though this is just an example to illustrate the effect of procrastination, It may happen to your lives in many other aspects. Do not underestimate the damage of procrastination. You must know that, tomorrow vs disaster, which one will come to us first. Take every day as a blessing. Appreciate every second that we are given and make the best use of it. Do not take for granted and procrastinate when you ought to do something.

Wishing you a Happy and Effective New Year!

The Power of WORD

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not."  ~ John 1:1-5, KJV


The above is a quote from the bible, Gospel according to John. John mentioned about the word, GOD, creation, and mankind.

In many Abrahamic religions, GOD is the creator. In the above scripture, if we substitute GOD with "creator" & "creation", it will sound like this:

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Creator, and the Word was Creator. The same was in the beginning with Creation.All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made."


In modern language, word, is a message, spoken or written. Each word carries a message. For example, when I say stop thinking of a purple apple, your mind already created the image of an apple in purple color, no matter you want it or not. That is the power of word, the power of creation. Every single word carries a message, and the massage creates an image/idea/concept in our mind, and thus creates the reality.

Our brain never process thoughts in words. We process thoughts by senses. For instance,

"Taking a sip of hot chocolate out of a yellow mug" will reminds you of the image of a yellow mug, the sweet and bitter taste of Chocolate, and also the feeling of the heat from chocolate touching your lips and radiating to your face, and the fragrance of cocoa.

Reality starts from IMAGINATION and VISUALIZATION.

Wright Brother imagined human flying on the sky like birds, that's how we have planes today.

Albert Einstein visualized himself travelling at the speed of light, and he discovered the General Relativity Theory.

" Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life's coming attractions. " - Albert Einstein

You may be thinking, in that case, then imagination and visualization is the more powerful than word in this case, isn't it?  Why are you saying WORD is powerful?

Well, in this case, WORD and IMAGINATION are not a comparison, rather they are complementary. The result of imagination is IMAGE. We convey image through WORDS. Word is the medium of message conveyance, at the same time being a trigger of imagination. Word is the spark of flame, which the power to imagine being the fuel.

Therefore, watch the WORDS that come out from our mouth. Every word we say is a drop of water creating a ripple in the universe, first we suggested to ourselves of what we said, and then we suggested to the people around.

For example, when you say "I'm fat", you are convincing yourselves unconsciously that fat is what you are, and what you should be. Then it reaffirms yourselves that whenever you come across little decisions in your lives unconsciously, such as whether to eat that cookies or not, whether you should take the fitness course, should you skip that beer.

Change the word, to "I am getting fitter day by day", then you will unconsciously remind yourselves about your new identity When you come across that cookies, that fitness course, that beer, likely that you will make a different decision based on how you label yourselves.

Be mindful of our thoughts, because that's what creates the reality. Think of the things that we want in our lives, and less of the things we dislike.

Be thankful of what we have at the present moment, so it helps to attract the better things into our lives. Be grumpy of the shortcomings, then more undesired encounter will come to you. Always guard our thoughts, over anything on earth. Be alert and be mindful of what we suggest to ourselves, and the people around us. If we can master our thoughts and our words, then we will be wielding a powerful sword by it's grip; otherwise, we would be holding the blade against ourselves. Be wise!

Proactive - A Life Changer

Today I'm gonna talk about a secret. A secret that lies within every single one of you who are reading this article.

Can you recall how you wake up from your bed today? Did you wake up and have the immediate idea of what you are going to do next and how you plan to complete your day? Or did you wake up and allowed your feeling to tell you that you should tug yourselves into the bed for another 10 minutes?

If you wake up with a plan, then congratulations! You are probably a proactive person. How you started your day will be very likely to decide how you are going to finish the rest of your day.

To be proactive means you are in charge of your own life. You make decisions for yourselves, and you take 100% responsibility for the decision. Reactive person is taking a passive stance. They wait for things to happen and response to it with limited choice. Reactive person dislike taking responsibility and they tend to put the blame on others. While reactive people see choices, proactive people create alternatives.

What differentiate proactive people from the rest is the self-awareness they possesses. Proactive people are aware of their feelings and aware of their identity, aware of their stances and positions in all circumstances. Proactive people have principle they hold on to. They have a standard in their heart, what is to be done and what is to be avoided at all costs.

On the contrary, reactive people do not have a target, neither they have a grounded values or principle as an anchor in their lives. They float , they sway from one point to another. They have no picture of who they are, and what they want. They face their lives with limited choices. They act based on how they feel, and their feeling is pretty much depends on how they are treated.

Proactive people are inside-out. They act, present and carry themselves based on their thoughts from within. They are confident but not arrogant. Reactive people are outside-in. What they do depends on how they are treated. For example, when criticized, proactive people will reflect and make correction if necessary or otherwise explain why the critic is untrue, while the reactive people will either label themselves with the criticism and do nothing to improve it, or react violently by raising their voices and shredding tears.

Now, comes to an important point that we all must realize. We are independent. Whether you show more characteristics on the proactive or on the reactive side, everyone of you can choose mindfully to be a proactive person. The first step is to remove the negative from yourselves. Get to know yourselves well so the next time when someone is trying to put a label on you, you have to know who you are. People can hurl all things at you, but you have the definite power to choose your response. They next time someone tries to shout at you, or putting insulting labels on you, instead of feeling sad or angry, remember you have other alternatives. You can choose to be unaffected. Remember: "No one can hurt you unless you consent the person to do so. "

The next time you are in a difficult situation, do not despair. Remember that the key to change the situation is in your hand. You are the center of your world, and the change of your world starts from you. You cannot change how the world is treating you, but you can change how you treat the world. Take immense action, be proactive. Do not wait for things to happen. Instead, make things happen!

Imagining Universe and Black Hole

Ever imagined what if we assume the universe is to water, and the black hole is to bubble? What is beyond the universe, is as if a fish asking what is beyond the water? What if the space we know has a mass that is relatively insignificant to us, and beyond space there is another mass with lower density that we cannot reach? When water is heated with enough energy, it evaporated in the water itself and bubble is formed. The supernova could have done the same to space we know, creating so much energy that "boiled" a space bubble?
In this case, the vacumm space that we know may not be perfect void, it is just filled with matter of even lower density undetectable with any instrument. Then, the dimension theory has become philosophical. Is dimension no longer refers to the space, it becomes the degree that human beings is able to detect and react with the surrounding as an observer. The point at where no event can be observed by human being is considered void. then how many dimension is out there? The hypothesis is infinite. But this is an un-testable hypothesis. Nonetheless, the testing is not necessary as it would be meaningless to explore the dimension we can't exist in, can't observe and can't act upon.

Spiritual - Time Travelling and The Secret of Life

By: Noel H'ng

What is Life

Have you ever asked yourselves that good question?

What is the meaning of life? What defines life and death?

To some people, living means you are still breathing and your heart is still beating.

To some people, if your brain is still thinking, you are alive.

Some believed that you have never lived if you have not tried the best things in life. This includes owning and using the best things in the world, cars, properties, watches, art pieces.

Some also thinks that living means go around the world, travelling to most places in the world. If you have not been to corners of the world, you have not been to this world.

Another group would say that if no one remembers you after you die, you have never lived. You need fame, admiration, and remembrance.

Also, a fraction of people believe that living means making an impact to the world. leave a legacy to the world and the future generation. A revolution in anything will do, let it be technologies, belief, new drug formula, or philosophy.

All above are right, but something is missing. What is it?

Well, what is living?

First of all, we need to empty ourselves, and let go of all the existing paradigm and difference in cultural and religion belief. Let's explore into the root of life with an open mind.

First, start with our consciousness. This is what make us feel alive. The awareness. Some people call that our spirit, some say it is our soul, the mind, or brain activities.

We have 5 senses. everyone knows that. Lights comes through our eyes and the receptor cells convert the stimuli into brain and the information is interpreted. Sound travels through the ear and the signal is also transferred and interpreted. The sense of touch, pressure, cold, hot, pain etc, eventually traveled to the brain and interpreted. Chemicals stimulate the cells in the nostrils and in our tongues and the brain tells us smells and tastes.

Have you come across an instance that an item is in front of you, but you did not see it? When you have friend calling your name loud, but you just did not noticed? Your skin bleeding but you have not felt the pain until you noticed the would? Our brain is very interesting. The light, vibration, and pain signals are sent to our brain, but how could we not noticed them? This is where the consciousness come into place, how much awareness we have decides how much we are connected to this world.

There is a different between seeing and watching, hearing and listening, eating and tasting. The former is without consciousness, whereas the later do.

At this point of time, some people may have already gotten the idea. Whether we are alive or not, is decided by how much consciousness we have. How aware we are, or simply saying, how mindful we are.

The logical statement:
1. People connect to the world through senses.
2. Conscious awareness is the determinant of how much we are connected. Signal x awareness = connection. No matter how bright a light is, if awareness = 0, the person did not see it at all.
3. How much people connect to the world is determined by how mindful we are.

Why people do not appreciate free things? Why people are dying for one thing at one time, and bored of it after owning it for some time? Why is there a diminishing marginal utility in human behavior? The answer is direct: the conscious awareness in a thing is reducing, or there is no more conscious awareness in the thing.

Why some people owns many luxury cars in the world, stay at the most luxury mansion in the world, have many beautiful wives and kids with them, rich collections of arts and living the life of a king, and still feel emptiness in their heart, just like how King Solomon has described his life as a King to vanity? (Books of Ecclesiastes, Bible) He did not felt content and happiness even though he had the best things in the world with him. What Taoists called "Shen" (神), Buddhist called "Zen" (禪) are not mystical things. There is a reason Jesus said "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom in heaven; and blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see god. (Matthew 5; 3 & 8).

Too much material will divert your attention and therefore your awareness and consciousness. Imagine you have 20 beautiful exotic cars. You only have 2 eyes, 2 arms, 2 ears, but one consciousness. Our brain can only focus on one thing at a time. How are you going to appreciate (build connection) with all 20 of them at the same time? Your "Shen", "Zen", awareness, or whatever you want to call it, will be diverted. When your awareness is diverted, your connection with the world turns lose, and weak. Having said that, the more you have, the weaker your connection is to the world, and you will reach a state that emptiness kick in. You have all the best things, but there is no happiness from them.

Wondered why some kids are so happy? These are kids who don't really own many things. They play with their toy, and spent plenty of time "connecting" with their toys, appreciating them. Why people would never appreciate free things?

Why the most expensive things in the world are the things you cannot get? Why Buddha said that greed is what make people suffer? This is because when we grow greedy, we put all our attention and awareness on imaginations that do not physically exist, something that we labelled as "future". When that happens, we have limited awareness available for "now", or the physical world that we are in. More scientifically, it refers to the stimulus that is coming through all our sensory organs at the very present moment.  When we want a thing so badly, we are living in our imagination and disconnected from the real world. these are two different world, the "now" world is realistic, whereas the "imagination" world is abstract and non-existent.

The phrase "walking dead" describes people with heartbeats and walking around doing things, but with little to no awareness to their surroundings, the changes, the happening around them. These are people who are declared dead when their body is still living. This is what people said, "until the day I die, then only I realized I have never lived". These are the people who live in the future.

Time do not exist

Come to think of it, does future really exist? What is past, and what is time?  Scientists and physicians has always tried to find a formula for time and prove its existence. I may not be a scientist, but what if I tell every one of you that Time do not exist, and it is just a mere illusion of our mind, our consciousness? To scientist who are trying to build a time machine, the biggest challenge to them is not to overcome the speed of light, it is to overcome the time paradigm in their mind that time do not exist.

The moment when we start to ask "what is time?", we have already made a mistake. We have assumed that it is something that exist, and having effect to the universe. We are thinking it as a variable, or a cause. In fact, time is a product of consciousness, a product of human mind - the effect.

Past; is memory, present, is sensing; and future, is imagination.

Things progress in the universe, and things happen relatively. For example, the earth revolved around the sun and goes back to the same position relative to the sun after making 365..25 rotations. For light to travel 299 792 458 meters, the earth would have made a 1/86,400 rotation, or 0.00898 degree turn. Things progress, and time is a result of measuring the progression of things happening relating to each other. In ancient times, people communicate time through the position of the sun. This is to form collaboration and synergy to prepare and overcome the basic living challenges such as when to hunt, when the season changes, etc.

Things progress, but the concept of time is just an illusion from how things progress, and time travelling cannot be truly achieved, even though human are able to travel faster than speed of light. Light travels in all directions. The same waves of light that hits you, your skin, your desk, and your room wall, has been reflected countless of times inside your room and probably the same strand of light has hit all  things you know in your room before your conscious mind even can react. Now, let's say if you have a machine to travel at the speed of light, which direction are you supposed to travel in to observe the you 1 second ago?

Albert Einstein's law of general relativity is based on the observer's perspective, that light has traveled  299 792 458 meter in one second, and if you can travel at that speed , you will "freeze the time", by observing the "same strand of light" before things progress to another stage.

However, what will happen when time freeze? is it really that we are the only thing that moving around and everything else stop? No, when there is no time(progression), means there is no event at all, no light coming to our eye balls, no waves of sound travelling, nothing, nothing at all, and we goes into void. You will not have any conscious, your body do not exist, nothing exist in the time freeze. So, there is no such thing as freezing the time, because simple it cannot be observed, and by logic, then progression stop, it means no event, nothing happen in the universe , and nothing exist as there is no observer.

And time travelling is impossible for the fact that everything is relative. let's see you are between point A and point B, and you are travelling light speed from B to A. Everything is relative, remember? so you are relatively 0m/s faster than the light from point B, and if you turn your head around, your are observing the light from point A at doubled speed. So, the paradox is here: are you supposed to freeze in time or your are supposed to travel into the future?

Everything is connected 

It seemed sidetracked a too much, but if you can see the relationship in all these, it is actually attached. I-Ching recorded that the world is created from singularity, before the modern scientist even realized it. It's said that from none there is singular extreme, and forms the two phenomena. (無極生太極，太極生兩儀，兩儀生四象.....)

To visualize, when there is no event, it is called eternity. there is no time, as there is no progression/ event. From there, there is singular extreme, for example, something called light existed. Since there is light, there is bright and dark. In this case, light is the singular, and the bright and dark are two phenomena, from which one is the present of light and another is the absent of it. It existed from observer's point of view.

Everything around us, is closely connected, there is not a singular thing that is independent. This is how the famous butterfly effect becomes valid. In Abrahamic religions (Judaisms, Christianity, Catholics, Islamics), it is also said that god is the creator of the world and there is only one god. God, is that singularity, or what you may call it, the source, Everything is created by Him and in Him, everything is connected back to him. Hinduism called this Karma, and Buddhism called this Cause and Effect. The singularity is the cause, the world we observe now is the effect.

Golden Rules

Since time do not exist, and the only thing that truly exist is the present moment. The sense of existence come from the stimulus from the sensory organs, multiplied by the conscious awareness. So, in order to truly live, we need to have all our consciousness on the very present moment. That means listen to the sounds around you, look at the things that comes into your eyes, feel the things that your skins are in contact with, taste whatever come in contact with your tongue, and detect whatever smell comes in to your nose.

"Do not have idol", as taught in the bible, is equivalent to what it's said not to be greed. when you focus on a single thing - maybe focusing all your awareness on single thing you see to the extend that you cant hear, cant smell, cant feel your skin; or thinking of a single thing in your imagination all day and night to the extend that you are totally disconnect to the stimulus at the present moment, you are as good as dead. You live where your consciousness is.

Modern Slavery, or is it modern? Wake Up People!!!

By: Noel H'ng

Feel tired of repeating the same routine everyday?

Wake up, breakfast, go to the office with the same old traffic jam, repeating the same task you did yesterday and days before, rushing to finish your lunch, then the tedious job again, and then is the same road home with same traffic jam every day. By the time you got home, you have found yourselves totally exhausted and yet you have lots of chores to be finished.

But life does not seems to have mercy on you.You cannot stop. You need to carry on this life. You seems to have no choice.

When you were little, you were told to study hard and have dreams. When you grow up you realized that was just a white lie by the adults. People literally work like cattle.

This, is modern slavery.

Look what capitalism society has done to us.

Human are born with souls, but today, we live like machines, walking corpses.

We used to think independently, and have opinions. Now, we are trained to be submissive, and follow systems. The society tells us that there must be a standard answer to everything, and there is a standard practice and solution to any question. Our mind are so much pinned to equations. If you are A, then you are B. If you owns a Bentley, then you are successful. If your size is bigger than other, then you are not beautiful. If you do not get straight A's, you are destined to fail. There are much more examples like this in our society, in our daily lives.

People are taught to judge with equations since we are small. We have so much "logic equations" in our brain, as if the more we have, the smarter we are. (here goes another equation)

Hey, ain't we a living person with soul? Our world, our mother nature is kind enough to have variety. We have so many different genres and species of animals. We have different kinds of weather. Our eyes are designed to differentiate 10 million different colours, and our ears 20khz of sound. Who to decide which colour is superior to another, and which sound is sweeter than another? Is there a definite answer to this?

People are just afraid to be different nowadays. 

When we have a different opinion, how many times we have kept it to ourselves just because we are afraid to be laughed at for being different? The world is driven by creativity and imagination. We have 9 times more humans on earth than we were 200 years ago, yet we do not have 9 times more great artist,scientist and philosopher today. The great men in the history are those who do not seems to like to follow the heard. These are people with souls. They are the minorities.

Are you going to attend school, work, retire, and die just like everyone else. are you going to declare your soul dead the moment you enter into the school?

You need to make a conscious decision. You have to ask yourselves, who you are and where you belong. Big cities are not better than small town. Young people, rushing to big cities to find their dreams ended up spending their lives to build other's dream. Beware of the temptations and lies of big cities. By moving to the big cities, you though you were making more, but you did not realize you are spending even more. You do not live the same quality of life you live in your little town in big cities.

This is nothing new. Nothing is new under the bright sun.

In the old days, Chinese ancestors came long way from China and believed that opportunities and gold was everywhere in Malaya Peninsular ended up became labors, miners, and slaves to the capitalist here. What they earned was hardly enough to treat their rumbling stomach and buy some decent clothes to cover themselves when night turn cold. They were not entitle to any welfare. They had a burning fire in their hearts, as they were taught as a kid, that working hard was a good value to upkeep, and there would be one day they could live a good life.  They had hopes in their eyes when they were newly here, and the hope slowly turned acceptance, and despair as they grew old and realized nothing had changed. What have changed before and after they came, was that the capitalist had grown richer than before.

Then you may ask, what about the famous rich and successful in those times? There are a number of them who were quite successful..

Well, there were some who were successful, but there were even more who died below average. Why is it so? They were taught to be accept the status quo and be submissive. They had chosen the common mode of living over the others. They believed that whatever written in the books and taught by their elders were surely right. What they had not realized was that their elders had not been more successful than them in lives. And for those who has succeed in lives, what makes you think that all of them sincerely shared their secret of success with you? They know so badly in their heart that the average men who are "aspired" to live a common lives are their assets. These are the people who they can exploit for more profits. They give advises and false hope to people by publishing books on how they become successful, "inspiring" people to follow "their steps". 

In a way, the capitalist are encouraging the average people to work harder and spend more, so that their capital can grow. They pay you thriftily so that you can spend and maintain the economy. At one point when you run out of money to spend, they encourage you to borrow future money. Then the market is lack of cash, the federal banks print more money, and you thought it is for you. The fact is the money eventually end up in the capitalist. The cycles goes on. Inflation is on the side of capitalist who own business and assets that grow with inflation. Poor wage earners, the make you false dream and eventually you enjoyed a sedative death in their sweet lies.

Now, wake up, and start to doubt. Be courageous to question the status quo, and beautiful lies about the world capitalist tries to portray to you. If you have observed the nature, life has never been beautiful. It is a world where the strong and mighty hunts on the tiny and vulnerable. Know what you want in life. If you want to enjoy life with dignity and with a living soul, know what to avoid - places that will lure you to spend more than you can afford and enslave you to work like a machine for the next 40 years until you die. Spend only on things that you need to stay alive and support your passion. If you want to conquer the world, and be like one of the capitalist, you need to really think out of the box. Think differently rather and blindly accept what the society has given to you. Do not be afraid to challenge the status quo, do not conform. do not resign to what has been provided!

Investing 101: Fundamental Vs Technical Analysis

Fundamental Vs Technical Analysis

There are two major analysis method to assess stocks and predict the future price movement. Fundamental analysis look into the economic factor of a stock, whereas technical analysis studies the history market activity statistics of a stock through charting and uses the data obtained to predict the future movement of the underlying stock price.


Two Different Assumptions

In technical analysis, it is assumed that the market is efficient, that the price of a stock at any point of time has already factored in everything that could affect the price of a stock, including the fundamental factors and the market psychological factors. However, in fundamental analysis, it is believed that the price may be differ from the intrinsic value of an underlying stock due to human emotions and error, therefore the market is not efficient. When a stock price is below the intrinsic value, it is called an undervalued stock, and the reverse is called an overvalued stock.

Technical analysis assumed that the price move in trends. Once a certain price movement pattern has been formed, the chart is expected to follow the trend rather than against it. In fundamental analysis, the price is believed to be affected by the change in the economic, financial and market factors and therefore the future price movement cannot be predicted by studying the historical price.

Technical analyst assumed that history tends to repeats itself and price patterns will repeat the same way to the same market stimuli. The market is thought to be a simple if A, then B equation. On the other hand, the fundamental analyst do believe in another philosophy that past performances does not guarantee future results. A stock that peaked at $104 per share two years ago does not mean that it will go back to $104 few years later.

The Research Materials

The technical analysis looks at the price and volume movements of a stock, and analyze the changes of two data. Data can be presented in the form of charts and graphs. indicators derived from the price and volumes of the stock is also analyzed to predict the price movement. For fundamental analysis, investors has to dip into the financial statements of a company to understand the quality of the business. On top of that, investors also need to understand the macro economics of the business and the nature of the business. Related market info such as the market price of the goods sold are also taken into account. For example, if it is a oil and gas company, the price movement of the crude oil is expected to affect the revenue of the company, and therefore the price movement of a company

The Time Frame

Technical analysis can analyse and "predict" the price movement for as short as minutes, up to as long as years (though it is rarely relevant). On the other hand fundamental analysis often applies to longer term investments. This is also coherent to the fact that the fundamental analysis takes time to perform, and the the fundamentals represent the actual nature of a business. Imagine a company's revenue will not increase right away after, for example, the setting up of a new plant. Even the commodity price surge due to a supply shortage report, it does not guarantee that the earning for the next quarter will increase to the same degree for the commodity company. Generally, technical analysis is used for short term trading whereas the fundamental analysis is applied to long term investment.

How to get the best of both world?

This depends on your investing goals and your financial + psychological strength. Traders buy a stock and hope to sell it to another buyer at a higher price soon. Investor picks the undervalued stocks and hold it until the real intrinsic value has been realized.

If your investment objective is to make fast money and you are willing to take a higher risk, you can use the technical analysis for fast trade, and be ready to perform cut lost when the price is not moving the direction you predicted. Trading is a game of probability. You must be ready to accept losing trades.

If you aim to achieve a long term, sustainable wealth growth, you are advised to study and understand the fundamental of the business. This is because by investing in a company, you must aware that you are in a partnership with the rest of the shareholders of the company. You own the business and therefore you must know what you own. Find a good company by using your knowledge, and buy it at the right price. You can incorporate the technical data into your buying decision, such as whenever the price drop too much and reached oversold position.

More tips to choose the right counter to invest and the right time to enter the market will be shared in a more advanced articles. Please subscribe to us and follow us on Facebook to stay tuned!

Why You Should Never Stop Learning

Knowledge makes a humble person. The more a person knows, the more humble he is.

The more we learn, the better we understand the world. The better we understand the world, we will realize we actually know nothing about the world.

Fool thinks that he knows everything, the wise understand that he knows nothing.

Intelligent people speak, while wise people listen.

It is important that we must be humble and be ready to learn. Whenever we want to speak, give ourselves a good 3 seconds to observe what the other people have to say. Always let people finish their sentence before posting objection.

Steven Covey, the author of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People says that in order to be an effective person, we must seek to understand first, then to be understood.

Look at the cup below: 

How much more can you pour into the glass?

We must always empty ourselves everyday we wake up, no matter how much we learn the day before. We digest the knowledge and when we open our eyes the next day, we are hunger for new knowledge and keen to know and learn new things.

Imagine that you have a very precious experience that you want to share with a person, and he keeps on thinking that he has known it all. Whatever you tell him, he keeps on giving you objections before you even get to finish. He heard you but he never listened.

Imagine a millionaire has packed 3 gold bar in a box for his good friend who is poor as his birthday present. Unfortunately the friend told him that his house is already full and there is no more room to keep gifts. Without even opening the gift, he returned it to the millionaire friend. Would he enjoy the wealth his best friend has decided to share with him?

No matter how precious is the advise experienced veteran has to share with us, if we cannot humble ourselves, we gain nothing at the end of the day.

Knowledge is what transform the humanity and civilization. Knowledge is what changes a nation from third world country to a first world country,

The know-how of the manufacturing in the 1700s has brought transformations to the western countries including America and Europe. The economic underwent a huge boom and suddenly the western countries overtook China as the leading influential nations in the world.

Through the efforts of the early government post independents' effort to ensure every single Malaysian receive appropriate education, the newer generations now have better life than the baby boomers.

What do we attend the school for? Are we there to get a good grades and graduate with a good grade so that we can get a good, stable job until we retire?

Well that may be a remedy for some young people but definitely not me. I attend school and course to learn knowledge. I understand that knowledge has magical power to transform a person's life. When you are attending school, given homework, assignment or project at work, appreciate that opportunity to learn, opportunity to trial and error, opportunity to make mistake. Because that is how we learn.

It is impossible that we learn all the knowledge in the world. Not even genious like Albert Einstein can do that. But the more we know, the less we do not know.

This is an encouragement to all people, young and old, no matter what stage you are in your life, never stop learning!

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Investment 101: How People Make Money Through Share Market

Basically, people make money through share market investment through two ways - direct earning and indirect  earning.  Direct earning is through the dividend payout , whereas the indirect earning is through the appreciation of the share itself.

Example
If Tom buys 10,000 units of common share of ABC company at $1 each in January 2015, and after one year the company has announced a better profit, the price shoot up to $2 per share, then now Tom has total worth of $20,000 of shares. Compared to the money Tom spent to purchase the share ($10,000), he is said to have made a $10,000 profit out of his investment.

Under the same scenario, the ABC company has total announced dividend payout of $0.20 per share in the financial year 2015,  Tom would have received a payout of $2,000 in that year. By adding up, Tom has made total $12,000 in year 2015. If Tom sold the share in Jan 2016 at $2 per share, it is said that Tom has realized the profit of 120% for the year. If Tom has not sold the share, it is said that Tom has made a paper gain of 100% and a dividend yield of 20%.

Indirect Earning
Why is the capital appreciation is said to be indirect earning? This is because the price of the share is unregulated and close ended in nature. This means that the prices works on free market mechanism. Market supply and demand of the share itself will drive the movement of the share.

Closed ended asset means that the number of share available in the market will be of a fixed amount. For example, if ABC company has issued 1 million units of share during it's IPO (Initial Public Offering) , the will be only 1 million shares of ABC company available in the market at any point of time, until the company make a subsequent public offering or any issues of shares.

Imagine ABC company has just announced that their earning has increased by 30% compared to the same period last year. The investors noticed that the company is making good money. Assuming all other economical factor pertaining to the industry remains the same, there will be more people interested in becoming the owner of the company to participate with the growth of the company. The existing owner of the shares would not want to sell them at old price, and some of them would like to keep them for long term, at the same time the interested investor will increase, with people willing pay a higher price than before to buy the share. Therefore, there will be less seller and the selling price offered in the market will increase. Even though the company's net worth has increased, the investor actually make the money through the difference in the total price he bought and sold the share, which could be different from the gain in company value appreciation. In this case, the investor make money from other investor and not from the company's account itself.

The market participant are humans. Being human, we have emotions and sentiments. We have greed and fear. These are two main factors driving the prices of shares. The earning of capital appreciation is said to be indirect is because some times, for many factors,the movement of the share price is not reflected immediately after the company make money. Market is not rational most of the time.

Efficient market theory suggested that market is efficient, and the price of a particular share is at its fair value at any point of time. Well, if we all take in the fact that human sentiment is a factor, then yes it is true that at any point of time, the price of the share is effectively determined by (intrinsic value of share + market sentiment effect).  (how people make money through this will be explained in separate article, this article is meant to be basic for newbie ;-) )

Direct Earning
Dividend is considered a direct earning because there is no supply demand mechanism involved in the process of determining the amount the investor earn. Whether the company share has good demand or not, the amount of dividend received by the share holder is as per the amount announced by the company. It is a fixed earning, directly paid out by the company to the share holder and not by buying and selling of the ownership. Please note that the dividend announced per share is fixed, the dividend yield is a totally different thing depends on the price the investor bought the share.

Taking the above example, Tom is said to have make 20% dividend yield. However, if Tom bought the shares at the price of $2 per share instead of $1, the dividend yield would be recalculated as follows:

Dividend Payout ÷ Cost of Shares x 100% :
= $0.20 ÷ $2 x 100%
= 10%

Therefore, the higher the price you paid for the shares, the lower your yield will be. However, you are still being paid $2,000 as long as you own 10,000 units of shares, regardless of the price you paid for the share.

Currently we are sharing articles for new investors.  We will progressively share articles for intermediate and advanced investor in the future. Please stay tuned. If you have friends who is just started to learn how to invest, please help them by asking them to:-

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8 Things You Need to Know When You Hit 21

Once we hit 21,

1.  We need to learn to take up responsibility. As a kid we didn't bother mess up things. We always have our adult behind our back. Now, you are an adult. You should learn to solve your own problem before seeking your parent's help. You need to understand as you are growing up, your parents are growing old. That means, you need to start to plan your own expenses. You need to start making you own money, and stop asking money from your parents. If you are still studying, you can take up part time job. Our parents may be our support, but not excuse for not trying and be in charge of our own life.

2. You should not spend beyond your means. If you have 1000 bucks, spend less than that. Many youngster today are left broke before the next payday. Worst is that they do not even work and spend lavishly. You should learn to manage the balance between you earning and your spending, especially when you are not born with a silver spoon. Even if your family is well to do, you still need to learn to manage the wealth pass down to you one day, or the wealth will perish.

3. Treasure the friends you made when you are in school. You spent 6-7 hours of your lift grow up with them. After you graduate, you may be busy with your further study and career, but do not give up contacting them.

4. It's time for us to be humble.  This is the time you learn about society. The school is a tutorial, the game of life just started the moment you leave school. The real world is like the ocean, and you were swimming in a pond when you were in school. Having a higher education does not mean you are better than others. There are still many life lessons to be learnt through life experiences. Be humble and take advise whenever you have adult who is willing to share their precious life experience with you.

5. Do not take social media too seriously. Live in the real world and not trapping yourselves in the virtual world. It does not matter how many "friends" you have in your Facebook account. What you need is real friend who you engage with personally. Adding your friend in your social media account is not an excuse not to asking him/her out and speak to him/her. Social media is a platform where most people share the best part of their lives. When you see people posting pictures of their cool rides nice watches, beautiful holiday and hi-tea, do not forget there are another side of their lives they did not show you -  the argument with their superiors, their ugly breakups, their credit card accounts, the sleepless nights they gone through to earn these, Don't use social media to compare lives. When you take it too seriously, you will live with bitterness. If you want to have a good life, work hard and earn it.

6. Call instead of SMS/Whatsapp. Compare how much message you can convey through calling vs when you send messages. No matter how fast you can type, you can't be faster than when you are speaking. On top of that, when you engage in verbal conversation, you are conveying emotions in your tone that texts lacks. How many people are actually laughing when you send "LOL" and actually rolling on the floor  when you send "ROFL"?

7. Your social media account is not your diary. You do not need to post everything you do and everywhere you go on your Facebook. You are making yourselves exposed and vulnerable.  If you really want to write a diary, keep it to yourselves. If you have something memorable, you can always document it on Facebook, but pay attention to your privacy setting. Beware of who you add on your social media. Stalkers and conman are everywhere nowadays. If you have something exciting to share or if you are having a bad day, speak to a real person. Do not take the "like" button to seriously. Do not be upset when people do not like your status or photo. It is not that you have 1000 people liking you even you have 1000 like clicks.  after all, it is just a click on the mouse, real friends will spend time and effort to talk to you instead.


8. It is time for you to start to plan for your future. Set a target for your life, and plan your way to achieve it. The target has to be measurable, attainable and with a time frame. Dream for a goal and then stop day dreaming. Start to execute your plan and progress towards your goal. "If you have no dream, your are no different from a salted fish"~ Stephen Chow, actor.

When You Start To Doubt Yourself..

"Am I doing the right thing?"

"Things do not seems like it is working! Am I on the right track?"

"Why is it harder than I thought? Maybe I should just give up instead?"

As an entrepreneur, sometimes (well... actually many times) everything seems like it is out of plan. We may mess up things and situation may become out of control. The adrenaline rush and cold in the feet, is telling us that something is wrong. The business is growing slower than we planned, and we are running out of cash faster than we think.

Being an entrepreneur is exciting and fulfilling, but there are more time we are exhausted and lost. What keep us pushing on is our FAITH - believing in what we started. When we start to doubt ourselves, things may fall even further. It may be hard to stay cool when you are running out of cash and your marketing plan is not working, but doubting yourselves and wake up terrified every morning is not going to help the business either. To reverse the condition, we would have to keep trying, and take multiple approaches to tackle the problem.

Discuss your difficulties with someone experienced, see their advice. Sometimes we are out of idea and there is no point cracking our head further. Visit our peers and competitors who are successful, we may notice the reason behind your stagnation. However, wewill have to be observant to notice the little secret that they succeeded.

When you are in doubt and in fear, ask yourselves, "what was the reason I started all this?" Remind yourselves of the reason and motive that bring you where you are today. When there is a will, there is a way. If a once debt ridden company like Air Asia could be a leading budget aviation company in the country, what else is impossible?

Success is 99% failure. We have to find 99 ways things do not work until we accidentally bump into that single idea that work, and boom! Many successful people in the history has faced many failures in their lives. Colonel Sanders only founded KFC when he reached 62 years old. Before that, he has done many different jobs, including a conductor, blacksmith helper, laborer, fireman. lawyer, secretary, tires salesman, insurance agent, and many more. if he gave up trying at either one of his failure, we would not have KFC in our neighborhood today.

Always remember, we are not born to be ordinary. We are not a product from a manufacturing plant. Each of us is born to be different. While we live, keep on trying and bring the best out of us, so that we will not regret at the end of our lives!

Work for Money or Work for Passion?

Work for Money or Work for Passion?

When we were in primary education, the most common essay exercise title would be "my ambition", "my dream", or something similar. As a kid, we were taught to dream and let our imagination run wild. We were taught by the teachers and parents about different occupations - teacher, postman, singer, fire fighter, doctor, artist, musician, astronomer, pilot, and many more different occupations. Life was full of possibilities.

Then, as we grow older, we were told that we should be working hard to achieve our dreams. We were told to study hard so that we could get a good grade. Schools taught us that we can only achieve our dreams by getting a good grade and get into the university and the course that we want. Make a living through working on things that you really love, your passion, so that you can be happy working and not feeling miserable, they said.

Everything was all so promising and exhilarating, that we could not wait to grow up and finish whatever academic study required to be the person that we dreamed to become as a kid, until the reality kicks in. When we were kids, we had the freedom to involve in whatever we like to do, because we do not have to worry about paying rents, our hire purchases, our credit card bills, our meals, telephone bills, and the list go on. As we grow up, commitments and responsibility comes to us gradually. We have a life to sustain, and bills to pay. With ever increasing living costs, it seems that the dreams we had could not provide us a living. This is especially true for those with family. It is no longer the issue of living a simple life. We have dependents to take care. We need to keep them warm, keep them comfortable, to pave road for our kid's future. Then we lost our direction.

Should we work for money or work for passion? Dreams appeared to be so far away. Is it still reachable?

Know Yourself
We are not born to just pay bills and die. We are all born with a purpose. Did you dream to be a doctor, or a fire fighter? What was your motive? to save lives? Now you are neither of both, but is there any other ways that you can save lives?

Find a quiet place, take 10 minutes to ask yourselves these questions, "all of us is going to perish one day, what would be my legacy? What would people associate me to after I die? If I have all the time and resources in this world to achieve one thing, what would it be?" Know your talents, know your strength and weakness, what you can do and what you cannot do.

Is There a Cheaper Alternative?For example, a person who wished to be a doctor to save lives, but he did not make it to medical school due to his results. He can save lives through other alternatives. He could be a counselor for suicide prevention. He could be a volunteer social worker to take care of the drug addicts, raise awareness campaign and donate syringe and condoms to them. Is he not saving lives? It may not be as direct as doctors saving patients, but he is preventing the spread of AIDS and it leads to the same results.

Set for Yourselves a Time Frame
Rome was not built in a day. It takes time to realize our dreams. We need planning and execution. and we need time. No matter how talented a person may be, the law of nature must be obeyed. All things in this world take time to grow, so as our plans. Focus on your talents and what you can do. Plan in stages and do things progressively, and soon you will be there.

But I am not making enough to sustain a living...
Then do something. We cannot be repeating the same thing day in and day out in our lives and expect different result. If you are thinking that working hard for a pay raise is going to change the situation, no that will not happen. Here is why. You need to learn how to allocate your income. You need a strategy for your financial planning. A good financial planning should involves saving, risk management, and investment. If you are waiting for a paycheck end of the month until you retire, you will be working for money all your life, like a rat racing in the rat wheel, it is a race of never ending. Without dream and life purposes, your will be a walking zombie, a cold machine work up to your last day. Please, do not let that happen. We are all born with a great purpose!

Learn to manage your money, then you can have the freedom to chase after your dream. None of us should work for money all our lives, once we make enough for living, it should be all about achieving dreams and making impact in the society. If you wish to learn how to invest and financial management knowledge, Follow and subscribe to us and we will share more knowledge in future!

Investing 101: Why Your Salary Increment is an Illusion

At the end of a every financial year, everyone who work for salary is is going to face a emotional session with their superior. To some people, it is something worth anticipating because they believed that they have performed their best in the last financial year; while some people are anxious and agitated, heart palpitating walking along the corridor into the superior's room. The appraisal is the most important assessment to decide whether an employee deserves an increment.

In human resource management, appraisal is a measure to ensure that the performing employees are rewarded fairly and encourage the not-so-performing employees to work harder. The performing employees are given a higher percentage of increment, which could be 2-3% higher than those who are not performing as well as them. According to Aon Hewitt's new salary survey, Malaysians anticipate 5.8% increment for 2016, increased 0.2% from 2015 figure. Increment gives the employees a hope that as long as they continue to work hard, they will be paid more and more, and one day they will become rich.  Now, we are going to show you why this is a mere illusion (or at least, less reality than you have imagined)

In earlier article, we have discussed the concept of inflation. Let us assume that in 2016, all companies in the country gives a 5.8% increment to all the employees. Is that a happy ending? Does that mean that all the citizens are richer by 5.8% this year? If you know what inflation is, then NO.

In January 2016, inflation rate in Malaysia is 3.5%. Presume that this figure is precise, your increment is actually 2.2% only instead of 5.8%. Why not 2.3%? Well, the calculation goes this way:

Assume that Salary = $3,000,
Increment = 5.8%
New Salary =$3,174
Inflation rate = 3.5%
New Salary purchasing power compared to year before = $3,174 ÷ 1.035 = $3,067
Actual increment = [($3,067 ÷ $ 3,000) - 1 ] x 100%  = 2.2%

However, the official inflation numbers is just an indicator, by the finance ministry and federal bank  to formulate the best fiscal policy for the country's economy. The actual inflation experienced by the citizen can be very much different from official figure, from region to region and according to individual's lifestyle.

Today, a fresh graduate in the country are offered salary around $2,500. A 750 square feet apartment in Georgetown, Penang area is now worth around $300,000. Fried Koay Teow today in Penang is calling for RM 4.5 to RM 5 per plate. 15 years ago you could buy the same apartment below $100,000, and a plate of Fried Koay Teow was only $1.80.

Yes, to those who are born in 1990s, all of you dreamed to make thousands monthly as a kid, and many of you managed to achieve it today. Today, to help you get out of the illusion, we would have to wake you up from your fantasy, your wonderland.

The $2,500 salary that you are making today is not the same $2,500 back in your old days. Assume the value of money has depreciated 3 times against the cost of food and cost of accommodation, the $2,500 you make today is just $ 833 in the old days. Those days, that's the salary for a labor worker without SPM certificate. So, are you getting richer after all these years of economic development? Are we moving forward and improving? If so, why would a degree holder receive the pay of a labor worker who did not even have the proper education 15 - 20 years ago?

We are not discouraging you to work hard. In fact, we believe that by working hard one person can change his fate. But, you must work hard the smart way. Be an informed employee, learn to plan your finance. Learn to allocate funds, learn to invest. If you fail to plan today, you plan to fail tomorrow.

More articles like that are coming up and we will move progressively to more in depth knowledge in future. Like us on FB and follow us for more financial tips!

Investing 101: How Inflation is Eating Into Your Pocket

Inflation, a term that is often overlooked by people in modern days unless they possesses financial knowledge. Inflation is a pest in your treasure chest, a rat in your piles of cash. It is eating up your worth. You could be wondering, hey my cash is still there, and my bank account gives interest. My money in the account is growing more and more, how could there be a rat?

So, what is inflation?

Inflation is a reduce of purchasing power of a currency. An inflation rate of 3% would mean that whatever cost $1 last year would need $1.03 to buy. The value of the money fall as more money is required to buy the same thing compared to last year.

Imagine just by a 3% inflation rate, the stack of $10,000 cash you keep under your mattress today, would only worth $ 8,626 in 5 years time compared to today's value. Imagine after 5 years you bring the same stack of cash to the grocery, you can only fill your shopping cart with what you can buy with $8,626 today.

How reliable official data is?

The real problem is, the inflation data is often published by federal bank or finance ministry after taking a the mean price movement of important living needs items such as food, cost of education, cost of transportation, housing prices etc. Of course they have professional team of mathematicians and economist to help them in reducing the chances of error, but still the number can hardly represent the inflation if a specific area in a country. Take a simple example, the price changes of property in Kuala Lumpur City Center and Cheras can be different in that same year. The price of flour may increase by 2%, but the price of noodles in hawker centers increases differently; some even increase a hefty 10% for a mere 2-3% increase in flour price or petrol price, as if their noodles are made of petrol. Therefore. the reliability and practicality of this data is really questionable when comes into real life application.

According to Bank Negara Malaysia, our inflation for past one year as at January 2016 was 3.5%, while everyone knows that the country has just implemented a 6% GST to most of the consumer items and services. Despite there is a drop in global petrol price by near 50% (USD 75 bbl to USD 30 bbl), the price of petrol in the country did not drop as much. In practical, the composition of every family's expenditure can be very different. Tom's family may spend 50% on property and 20% on food, while Peter's family will spend only 30% on property and 40% on eating out. Therefore, the inflation figure is just a comforting figure, where in actual life, the damage can be far bigger.

The FD interest rate in Malaysia is around 3.5% to 4% last year. In this scenario, it is not even enough to cover the rise of living cost from GST implementation. Is it really a wise choice to save all our money in the bank? Of course not! We need to have a balanced portfolio,

Like us on Facebook to get updates on new articles! In the coming articles, we will learn  to allocate funds to hedge against inflation.

7 Tips To Improve Your Productivity

Today, most people are struggling through the day in the office. It feels as if 24 hours per day is not enough for them to finish their work. They feel busy all day but at the end of the day, accomplish less than they thought. At the end of the day, they realized that they are not closer to their objective.

If you think that the above description is talking about you, the tips below are for you.

7 Tips to Improve Productivity

1. Sleep early. Staying up late will cost your your cognitive power the next day and leave you lethargic all day. When your brain cannot work fast, it is basically impossible for you to be productive.

2. Understand your goals. Without a proper goal, you will have no direction and take whatever task thrown at you. Learn to identify what is important to you and what is not. Always engage in activity that is related to your goal.

3. Plan your day ahead. List down  important tasks early in the morning, and reserve the best time of the day for these tasks when your are at your best condition. Many people spend their best time attending to unimportant errands and by the time they attend to what really matters, they are either out of time or gotten too tired to handle the real issues.

4. Learn to say No.  It is good to be kind and helpful. But you have to be able to help yourselves first before helping others. Know what you are capable of and the resources your have. If helping others would cause you deep trouble, maybe someone out there could help them better.

5. Schedule your time for social media. Social media can be very addictive. Once you start, you can never stop. Always schedule your time for social media and stop when the time is up. If you find yourselves totally unable to discipline yourselves, we recommend you to uninstall the social media apps on your phone. Without the logo and notifications to remind you every time you unlock your phone screen, you can be more focus to your task in hand and less time is wasted.

6. Take plenty of action. Some people just find it hard to start a new task or a project. Before starting a project, these people will be thinking all kind of possibilities and spend more time thinking whether to start this project or to do something else first. This is pure procrastination. A thousand miles starts with one step. Whatever you have to do, start first, and you will find ways to overcome the challenges arise.

7. Invest in a watch.  You need to keep yourself timed. There is no point making a schedule when you have no watch to ensure you complete your task in time. Making schedule is planning, completing your task in time is execution. A plan without execution is just a piece of paper.

Investing 101: What are Shares?

For advanced investors, you may already understood what shares are. But for many people who are just starting to learn about investing, they may be very curious about shares. They have seen people make a fortune thorough it, they have also witnessed their friends lose everything from share markets. For people who do not understand what shares are, they regards share investing as gambling. When asked, they may tell you shares are playing around with a chart.

What Shares Really Are?

Shares, or a common stock, is a part of ownership of a business.

For instance, Tom started a seafood supplying business "Tom's Seafood"in his town with a capital of $100,000. After 10 years of hard work, the business is now worth $ 3,000,000. Tom now plans to expand his business into a new market. However, the cost of setting up branches and marketing campaign for a new market is so much beyond his company cash reserve. He has a few options, He can either take a loan from the bank, issue a bond, crowdfunding, or going public through Initial Public Offering (IPO). The last option is where shares come from.

Assuming Tom's Seafood needed $1,500,000 for his new expansion project, he would now engage an investment bank to plan for his IPO. The investment bank then divide his business into 4,500,000 small pieces and list the company on stock exchange at $1 each share.

Now, Tom retained his 3,000,000 share through private placement, and 1,500,000 shares to sell to the public.To simplify the scenario, assume that there is no cost incurred during the IPO process. After IPO, Tom's Seafood Limited now has $4,500,000 worth of equity (3 million initial worth + 1.5 million cash from IPO). Tom owns 66.66% (3,000,000/4,500,000)of the company through the shares that he holds.

Let's say today you spend $ 45,000 to buy 45,000 units of Tom's Seafood Limited during the IPO, now you own 45,000 / 4,500,000 of the company, which turns out to be 1% of company ownership.

When Tom's Seafood make a profit in a new market, the equity of the company increase in the company balance sheet, so as the net asset value of the shares you own. In another word, you are Tom's business partner.

Being a share holder of a public listed company, you have a limited liability. This means that if one day Tom's Seafood filed for bankruptcy due to poor business and bad debt issue, the banks and supplier has no right to claim any money from you. The worst scenario in this case, you lose all you money and that's all.

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How Prolonged Sitting Can be Detrimental to Your Health

By Dr. Mercola

Your body is designed for regular movement, but many Americans spend the bulk of their day sitting still instead. On average, a US adult spends nine to 10 hours each day sitting,1 which is so much inactivity that even a 30- or 60-minute workout can't counteract its effects.2

As Katy Bowman, a scientist Organ Damageand author of the book: Move Your DNA: Restore Your Health Through Natural Movement, told Reuters:3

"Actively sedentary is a new category of people who are fit for one hour but sitting around the rest of the day… You can't offset 10 hours of stillness with one hour of exercise."

Worse still, many Americans don't fit in a workout or a long walk either, which means their bodies are virtually always in a sedentary state. It's not that sitting is inherently dangerous… the danger is in the dose.

While a brief period of sitting here and there is natural, long periods of sitting day-in and day-out can seriously impact your health and shorten your life.

What Happens to Your Body When You Sit for Too Long?

Dr. James Levine, co-director of the Mayo Clinic and the Arizona State University Obesity Initiative, and author of the book Get Up! Why Your Chair Is Killing You and What You Can Do About It, has dedicated a good part of his career to investigating the health effects of sitting.

His investigations show that when you've been sitting for a long period of time and then get up, a number of molecular cascades occur. For example, within 90 seconds of standing up, the muscular and cellular systems that process blood sugar, triglycerides, and cholesterol—which are mediated by insulin—are activated.

All of these molecular effects are activated simply by carrying your own bodyweight. These cellular mechanisms are also responsible for pushing fuel into your cells and, if done regularly, will radically decrease your risk of diabetes and obesity.

In short, at the molecular level, your body was designed to be active and on the move all day long. When you stop moving for extended periods of time, it's like telling your body it's time to shut down and prepare for death. The Mind Unleashed featured a particularly noteworthy description of what happens in various areas of your body after prolonged sitting:4

Organ Damage

•Heart: When you sit, blood flows slower and muscles burn less fat, which makes it easier for fatty acids to clog your heart. Research published in theJournal of the American College of Cardiology, for instance, showed that women who sit for 10 or more hours a day may have a significantly greater risk of developing heart disease than those who sit for five hours or less.5

•Pancreas: Your body's ability to respond to insulin is affected by just one day of excess sitting, which leads your pancreas to produce increased amounts of insulin, and this may lead to diabetes.

Research published in Diabetologia found that those who sat for the longest periods of time were twice as likely to have diabetes or heart disease, compared to those who sat the least.6 Sitting for more than eight hours a day has also been associated with a 90 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes.7

•Colon Cancer: Excess sitting may increase your risk of colon, breast, and endometrial cancers. The mechanism isn't known for certain, but it could be due to excess insulin production, which encourages cell growth, or the fact that regular movement boosts antioxidants in your body that may eliminate potentially cancer-causing free radicals.

Findings presented at the 2015 Inaugural Active Working Summit also found that sitting increases:8

◦Lung cancer by 54 percent

◦Uterine cancer by 66 percent

◦Colon cancer by 30 percent

Another reason for this increased cancer risk is thought to be linked to weight gain and associated biochemical changes, such as alterations in hormones, metabolic dysfunction, leptin dysfunction, and inflammation—all of which promote cancer.

Digestion: Sitting down after you've eaten causes your abdominal contents to compress, slowing down digestion. Sluggish digestion, in turn, can lead to cramping, bloating, heartburn, and constipation, as well as dysbiosis in your gastrointestinal tract, a condition caused by microbial imbalances in your body. According to Microbial Ecology in Health and Disease:9

"There is growing evidence that dysbiosis of the gut microbiota is associated with the pathogenesis of both intestinal and extra-intestinal disorders. Intestinal disorders include inflammatory bowel disease, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and celiac disease, while extra-intestinal disorders include allergy, asthma, metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease, and obesity."

Brain Damage

•Your brain function slows when your body is sedentary for too long. Your brain will get less fresh blood and oxygen, which are needed to trigger the release of brain- and mood-enhancing chemicals.

Posture Problems

•Strained Neck and Shoulders: It's common to hold your neck and head forward while working at a computer or cradling a phone to your ear. This can lead to strains to your cervical vertebrae along with permanent imbalances, which can lead to neck strain, sore shoulders and back.

•Back Problems: Sitting puts more pressure on your spine than standing, and the toll on your back health is even worse if you're sitting hunched in front of a computer. It's estimated that 40 percent of people with back pain have spent long hours at their computer each day.

The disks in your back are meant to expand and contract as you move, which allows them to absorb blood and nutrients. When you sit, the disks are compressed and can lose flexibility over time. Sitting excessively can also increase your risk of herniated disks.

Personally, after I reduced my normal 12 to 14 hours of daily sitting to under one hour, the back pain I'd struggled with for decades disappeared.

Muscle Degeneration

•Standing requires you to tense your abdominal muscles, which go unused when you sit, ultimately leading to weak abdominals.

•Hip Problems: Your hips also suffer from prolonged sitting, becoming tight and limited in range of motion because they are rarely extended. In the elderly, decreased hip mobility is a leading cause of falls.

Sitting also does nothing for your glutes, which may become weakened, affecting your stability and the power of your stride when walking and jumping.

Leg Disorders

•Varicose Veins: Sitting leads to poor circulation in your legs, which can cause swelling in your ankles, varicose veins, and blood clots known as deep vein thrombosis (DVT).

•Weak Bones: Walking, running, and engaging in other weight-bearing activities lead to stronger, denser bones. Lack of activity may cause weak bones and even osteoporosis.

Too Much Sitting Can Take Years Off Your Life

The more hours you spend sitting in a day, the shorter your lifespan may be. One study found, for instance, that reducing the average time you spend sitting down to less than three hours a day could increase your life expectancy by two years.10

Another study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, concluded that each hour spent watching television after the age of 25 reduces your life expectancy by nearly 22 minutes.11 To put this into perspective, the authors compared it to smoking – each cigarette reduces your life expectancy by about 11 minutes. All in all, the researchers found that adults who spend an average of six hours in front of the TV will reduce their life expectancy by just under 5 years, compared to someone who does not watch TV. Obesity Panacea made a good point in its report on this study:12

"These sorts of theoretical studies obviously need to be taken with a large dollop of salt (just like the recent Australian study which estimated that every hour of TV viewing shortens your life by 25 minutes). The point is simply that there is a non-negligible impact of sitting/TV viewing on mortality, and given the extremely high prevalence of these behaviors at the population level, they can have noticeable impact on the lifespan of the population as a whole."

How to Get Up and Get Moving

I believe high-intensity exercises are an important part of a healthy lifestyle, but considering the fact that more than half of American men, and 60 percent of American women, never engage in any vigorous physical activity lasting more than 10 minutes per week,13 while at the same time sitting for hours on end, it's clear that most people need to begin by simply getting more non-exercise movement into their daily routine.

It sounds simple, doesn't it? Simply get up and move. The reality can be harder to get used to, since most people are so used to sitting while they work, eat, and watch TV. I recommend using a pedometer, or better yet, one of the newer wearable fitness trackers that can also give you feedback on your sleeping patterns, which is another important aspect of good health. At first, you may be surprised to realize just how little you move each day.

Setting a goal of say 7,000 to 10,000 steps a day (which is just over three to five miles, or 6-9 kilometers) can go a long way toward getting more movement and less sitting into your life. This should be over and above any exercise regimen you may have. I personally am doing about 14,000-15,000 steps a day. The only way I can get this many steps in is to walk for 90 minutes. Tracking your steps can also show you how simple and seemingly minor changes to the way you move around at work can add up. For example, you can:

• Walk across the hall to talk to a coworker instead of sending an email
• Take the stairs instead of the elevator
• Park your car further away from the entrance
• Take a longer, roundabout way to your desk

Other simple ways to increase your physical movement and avoid sitting down at work include:

• Organize the layout of your office space in such a way that you have to stand up to reach oft-used files, the telephone, or your printer, rather than having everything within easy reach.
• Use an exercise ball for a chair. Unlike sitting in a chair, sitting on an exercise ball engages your core muscles and helps improve balance and flexibility. Occasional bouncing can also help your body interact with gravity to a greater degree than sitting on a stationary chair. But this is a concession and it is still sitting, so standing would be a better option.
• Alternatively, use an upright wooden chair with no armrest, which will force you to sit up straight, and encourage shifting your body more frequently than a cushy office chair.
• Set a timer to remind you to stand up and move about for at least 10 minutes each hour. You can either walk, stand, or take the opportunity to do a few simple exercises by your desk. For an extensive list of videos demonstrating such exercises, please see my previous article, "Intermittent Movement Benefits Your Health. Here's How to Get More of It into Your Work Day."
• Use a standing workstation. For a demonstration on proper posture, whether you're sitting or using a standing workstation, check out Kelly Starrett's video. We are in the process of providing all our employees at mercola.com standing desk options. If you have a sit-down job, I would strongly encourage you to present this information to your employer and get a stand-up desk.

How to Sit Smarter

The evidence is overwhelming at this point—10,000 studies and growing—that prolonged sitting will reduce your lifespan by promoting dozens of chronic diseases, even if you exercise regularly. I've previously recommended standing up and doingexercises at your desk every 10-15 minutes to counteract the ill effects of sitting, but after reading Dr. Levine's book, I'm convinced even that may be insufficient if you're seeking optimal health. I really think the answer is to stand up as much as possible.

That said, sitting is sometimes necessary, so when you do sit following the recommendations by "posture guru" Esther Gokhale can go a long way toward improving posture-related pain associated with prolonged sitting, and will likely help ameliorate the worst risks of sitting. The basics of healthy sitting include the following points:

•Stack sitting: In order to allow the bones in your spine to stack well and permit the muscles alongside them to relax, sit with your behind sticking out behind you, but not exaggeratedly so. Now, when you breathe, each in-and-out breath will automatically lengthen and settle your spine.

This gentle movement stimulates circulation and allows natural healing to go on even while you sit. While conventional advice tells you to tuck in your pelvis to maintain an S-shaped spine, Esther has found that a J-spine is far more natural. A J-spine refers to a posture where your back is straight, your lumbar relatively flat, and your buttocks are protruding slightly. By tucking your pelvis, you lose about a third of the volume in your pelvic cavity, which squishes your internal organs. This can compromise any number of them in a variety of ways.

This is further compounded if you're both "tucked" and "hunched" while sitting. This biomechanically correct posture allows you to move freely, discourages pain, and allows your digestive organs to function without restrictions or blockages.

•Stretch sitting. Another way to elongate your spine is by using your backrest as a traction device. You can see her demonstrate this move in the video below. You will need either a towel or a specially designed traction cushion for this purpose. This simple maneuver brings your back away from the backrest, lengthens your spine, and then roots you higher up against the backrest. 

This position helps you maintain an elongated spine, and by getting traction on your discs, you allow them to rehydrate and prevent the nerves from being impinged between your vertebrae. It will also help flatten out your lumbar area, and this alone can sometimes provide immediate pain relief if you have sciatic nerve root pain.

Remember, however, that for optimal health sitting should be your last resort when you have no alternative. It is far better for you to stand than sit. It might take a bit to adjust but once you do it will be every bit as comfortable as sitting. As noted by Dr. Levine, while we clearly need to rest from time to time, that rest is supposed to break up activity—not the other way around. Inactivity—sitting—is not supposed to be a way of life.

Source:http://fitness.mercola.com/