Came Back from Melbourne

Last night, I flew back to Singapore from my week-long vacation in Melbourne, Australia. The flight was about seven hours long, and it was mostly smooth and turbulence-free. I flew with Qantas, Australia’s most popular airline, both to and from Melbourne. The service level was quite decent, and I will definitely consider flying with them again.

One thing I liked about Qantas was that they provide an in-flight high-speed wifi service free of charge while flying in Australia’s airspace, which is a significant amount of time given the massive land mass of this country. During the flight, I got a WhatsApp message from my new friend Chris, whom I got acquainted with in Melbourne this time. It warmed my heart to hear from him, and I shot back a message to him immediately.

Another thing I liked was that their fold-out table comes with an ergonomically designed metal flap against which I can place a smartphone or tablet, allowing me to view the screen at a comfortable angle. With this feature, I had quite a pleasant experience reading from my mobile Kindle and watching Netflix shows on my iPad.

Speaking of reading, during my stay in Melbourne, I read an interesting book by Shion Kabasawa (樺沢紫苑 ), a Japanese psychiatrist. The book, titled 脳のパフォーマンスを最大まで引き出す 神・時間術, which translates to Miraculous Time Management Method to Optimize Your Brain Performance, is about how to use your brain power in the healthiest and most effective way within the 24-hour time frame of the day.

According to Kabasawa, the several hours after you wake up in the morning is the most precious time of the day because your brain is the freshest, and should therefore be reserved for creative activities, such as writing and studying. From this perspective, it makes more sense for me to write my journal entry in English in the morning, as it’s quite an exacting activity that requires substantial brain power and creativity.

Another thing that I found interesting was the significant roles that the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems play, in terms of switching your body between activity mode and rest mode. When you wake up in the morning with sleepy eyes, you’re still in rest mode, and your parasympathetic nervous system is dominant. It gradually gives way to activity mode as your sympathetic nervous system gains dominance. The opposite occurs when you go to bed at night.

In the book, Kabasawa mentions that one relatively easy way to switch your body from rest to activity mode is to take a hot shower right after you wake up in the morning. A hot shower helps you raise your body temperature by a few degrees, facilitating the activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

Following his advice, this morning, I hit the shower right after I woke up, and immediately afterward, I began writing this journal entry before doing anything else. This journal entry is already stretching longer than my usual entries, so maybe this method works, though it needs to be tested several times to verify its efficacy.

Now that I’m concluding today’s journal entry, I need to get to the daunting tasks of unpacking my suitcases and washing my dirty laundry from the Melbourne trip. Luckily, today is Sunday, so I can rest for one day before returning to work tomorrow.