When I left for Malaysia in mid February, I blogged about taking some time off the blog to spend time with my family and close friends. I also mentioned that you could follow me on my travels by checking out the hashtag #tinetravels on Twitter and Instagram. I’m not sure if you noticed but unlike my previous trips/holidays, I barely posted any photos on Instagram or Twitter updates this time. Believe it or not, I didn’t think of it as a #FAIL but a #WIN.
Say what? 😛
Selfie-ing with Mum, my brother and cousin Stella
If you’re wondering why this blog post isn’t out at its usual time, it’s because for the first time in goodness-knows-how-long, I’m not scheduling this post to publish but actually blogging on the fly. I haven’t done this in ages so do excuse any typos or grammatical errors.
Anyway, yes, I’m back from Malaysia! It’s so good to be home. Last night I slept on my own bed and I couldn’t have slept any better. I know, I know, I was only gone for 2+ weeks; you’d think I was gone for much longer. But it’s true, nothing beats your very own bed. 😛
Having said that, it’s been a great trip. If you’re subscribed to my weekly newsletter, BA Insider, you’d have read some of my updates on the trip (shameless plug: if you haven’t subscribed yet, I share a lot of goodies there that I don’t share here on the blog! By the way, I’ll be sharing my holiday shopping haul in my next newsletter. Y’know, just in case you’d like to see what I got 😉 ). I had a great time with my family and close friends. It was really good to see them again and I spent as much time with them as I possibly could. As usual, leaving my folks and brother behind was really tough and it just gets tougher each year. Sigh.
A note from Tine: Welcome to another edition of Tim Talks! For those who are new to Beautyholics Anonymous, Tim Talks is a new series on the blog where my husband, Tim, will be sharing his knowledge to help raise mental health awareness. Tim is a psychiatrist who works in metro Melbourne. His area of interest is child, adolescent and youth psychiatry.
Sleep is something that is underrated and overrated at the same time. A lot of us don’t have enough sleep yet some of us think we don’t need that much. Today, Tim shares his thoughts on sleep hygiene (didn’t know there was such a thing!) and how you can improve on your sleep.
Enjoy!
© ComZeal
As I was contemplating this write-up, Tine was curious to know how sleep tied in with mental health. In my view, sleep is an underrated and essential component to maintaining good mental wellbeing. There’s always airtime and exposure about lifestyle modifications pertaining to diet and exercise, but sleep doesn’t get a lot of mention, even though we spend on average a third of our time in bed. I could only recall some mention of sleep and dreams within such movies as the Matrix, Inception as well as Insomnia. There is a correlation between poor sleep quality and exacerbation of mental illnesses such as depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. On the same vein, changes in characteristics in sleep can be an indication of emerging depressive illness which I feel is important to recognize and manage assertively.
Remember when I raised the term sleep hygiene in the introduction piece to Tim Talks? Well, I will try to demystify what the principles are, and what are the things to avoid doing to promote better quality sleep.
Note from Tine: Norlin is my “emergency” stylist. She has great style, which I really like, and I often go to her pleas of “how the heck to I style this item of clothing that I need to wear next week?? Help! Ideas please!”. The idea of styling a white blazer came when I picked up a white lapel-less blazer from Sussan. The price was significantly reduced and I just couldn’t resist a bargain. A shopping mistake to make for when I finally took the blazer out of the shopping bag, I had absolutely no idea how to style it! Most of my blazers are black and now there’s this stark white blazer hanging in my wardrobe unloved. I turned to Norlin with my usual “HELP ME!!”. Thanks to her tips, I finally managed to wear it and it’s such a refreshing change from my boring black blazers!
I hope you enjoy her post as much as I did.
As you can see, I’m jumping in today to fill in for Tine while she’s enjoying her holidays – lucky duck! Seeing that my speciality is in the area of styling, I thought I’d help Tine out a little and give her some ideas on how she could style up this white blazer she’s bought and has been hanging in her wardrobe since goodness knows when!
When Tine asked me to help give her some styling ideas, she also asked if the white blazer could get stained by the colour from the bag she might be carrying. I’ve searched high and low for that answer and unless you’ve waxed your bag, this usually doesn’t happen especially if you’re carrying a good leather bag. If say, for some unfortunate reason it DOES happen, then let me say this – make Vanish or Napisan your best friend. Actually, you need to have those handy just in case you stain the white jacket any other way for that matter.
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