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25 Useful Tips On How To Control And Take Advantage Of Your Own Body, Shared By “Learn Today”
Interview With Author
It often feels like things are slipping out of your hands. But the best place to get back control over life is to start with your very own body.
Thanks to the TikToker Andy Jiang and his video series “Tricks That Give You Power Over Your Own Body,” we now can start from little things. Like dealing with cramps on your morning jog or avoiding getting your ears painfully stuffed on a plane and so much more.
So let’s see Andy’s useful advice right below which amassed him a total of 12.1M likes and may well make our lives if not easier, then slightly more bearable. And that’s already a win.
.Image credits: learntoday
@learntoday AKA tricks that are actually helpful and useful (Part 1) ##useful ##trick ##cool
♬ Coffee for Your Head - Vinyll
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If you feel like you're about to fall asleep when you definitely shouldn't be sleeping, try holding your breath for as long as you can. This increases your heart rate and blood flow, waking you up quickly.
If you feel very hot or that your body is about to overheat, pour cold water over your wrists, this helps the entire body to cool down.
If you ever have a really itchy mosquito bite that doesn't go away, putting deodorant on it can help it stop itching.
Bored Panda reached out to the creator of the widely popular “Learn Today” TikTok, Andy Jiang, who’s been making storytelling and fact videos on TikTok for over a year. Andy said he got into TikTok after a friend bet him $20 that he couldn’t hit 1,000 followers on TikTok in one week.
“I ended up taking the bet and getting around 1,100 followers that first week, but it led me to continue creating different types of content on TikTok and eventually arriving at the content I make today."
If you ever get that nasty static-y feeling when your arm has fallen asleep all you have to do is shake your head for a couple of seconds and the feeling will go away.
Another good tactic is to open and close your hands. Also, same goes if it happens to your foot.
If you ever feel your gag reflex come on when you're eating food, brushing your tongue or doing something else, literally all you have to do is grab your left thumb in your hand and the gag reflex will go away.
If you want to remember something easier, you should think about it right before you go to bed. This gives whatever you're trying to remember a better chance of getting stored in your long term memory.
This is good advice if you don't actually want to sleep and would rather stay up an extra hour or two worrying.
The idea for the video series featuring interesting body facts came after Andy once heard “how you can make yourself happier by just putting a pencil (cleaned of course) in your mouth because it forces your mouth into a smile and tricks your brain.”“I thought that facts like that would make a great video series, and played a little with the wording until I got the 'Tricks that Give you Power' title,” he recounted.
When asked what fact stayed with him, Andy said it’s “that your brain actually subconsciously edits out your nose, and you’re actually always looking at your nose but your brain just doesn’t let you perceive it.”
If you ever find yourself doing some last minute studying, find a pack of gum and chew it. This will give you around 20 minutes where your memory, attention and cognitive skills are boosted.
If you need to remember what you read, chew some other gum than what you normally use. Then when you need to remember (for a test or something) chew the same gum again. The taste will help you remember
Chewing gum when a plane is taking off or landing helps equalize the pressure in your ears.
Chewing, sucking or swallowing...and none are guarantees. You might still end up with an earache regardless of what you do.
Opening the mouth like in a yawn helps extremely well (you need to try to lower the BACK of your jaw and open the back of your throat, sort of). ALWAYS works for me. I think it actually opens this little connection between the mouth and ears.
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This is also why Air New Zealand hands out boiled sweets before landing - the sucking motion helps to equalise the pressure. I also used to bring a bag of chewy sweets with me when I flew long haul.
Wait don't all airlines do that? Every time i take a plane they give candies! I thought it's standard but i haven't been outside Europe.
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pinch your nose, close your mouth, and GENTLY blow into your mouth... you will force air into the tubes that lead to your inner ear...
The Valsalva maneuver is a breathing technique that can be used to unclog ears, restore heart rhythm or diagnose an autonomic nervous system (ANS). To perform the Valsalva maneuver, you should close your mouth, pinch your nose shut and press the air out like you are blowing up a balloon. All scuba divers know this
or just hold your nose and pop your ears. . . works just as good, and feels better
Except when it doesn't. There's lot of "home remedies" for dealing with pressure changes from flying, but they don't all always work. I know as I've tried. Can't fly any more due to severe pain.
Sometimes these techniques work sometimes they don't. Couple of times I've spend the first couple of days holiday deaf from the flight. Weirdly a couple of times I felt pressure in my eyes on take-off and landing. They watered and made weird squeaky noise ín my head as air/fluid moved around under pressure. Yeah I'm weird :)
A simple swallow does the trick as well. And no issue figuring where to put the gum when its chewed
If you feel tears building up and you don't want to cry, hold your eyes wide open without blinking, the feeling will go away. If you already started crying but you want to stop, look up with your eyes and keep your jaw relaxed, it will help stop the tears.
Doesn't holding your eyes wide open without blinking dry them out, causing you to produce more tears...?
With 3.1M followers, Andy’s TikTok has been growing, but his content had to adapt too. “My content has become more storytelling-related rather than interesting facts. I like to make sure I keep connecting with my followers and audience to make sure that I’m known for my storytelling and ‘stay relevant.’”
Andy also said that he “started doing more recent interesting news stories that I have come across as well for my content to be things that are happening today, which also helps my videos perform better. At the end of the day, the app will always be competitive and my views won’t always be great, but I try to always put out high-quality content and things usually work out well for me,” the TikTok creator concluded.
If you feel an uncontrollable itch inside your throat, try scratching the back of one of your ears, this helps the itch to go away.
If you ever find yourself in a dreaded situation where you just really need to use the bathroom but do not have access to one, scratch the back of your calf really hard. This stalls your brain and gives you more time to find a bathroom.
If you get that feeling where your nose itches and you really want to sneeze but it doesn't come out, try looking into very bright light. Studies show that this can help the sneeze come out.
If you're ever doing a project and need some creativity, raise your eyebrows. Believe it or not, it's been scientifically proven that this makes you more creative.
If you can't fall asleep, blink with your eyes really fast for a minute. This helps you tire your eyes out and lets you fall asleep easier.
When you're cutting onions, move your tongue to the roof of your mouth, this prevents you from crying.
Only onion induced crying. If you are thinking about your life while you are cutting onions try to tips mentioned earlier to stop crying
If you find it hard to swallow big pills, a really easy technique you can use is just lean your head forward. This causes the pill to move to the back of your throat and makes it easier to swallow.
Considering how many people have difficulty swallowing pills, I am SO glad that I can just chuck them into the back of my mouth and just swallow them without water.
If you want to temporarily improve your vision and see further, hold your hand into a fist and look through it like a telescope. This allows a narrow beam of light to enter the eye, which reduces the size of the circle of confusion on the retina and increases the depth of field, letting you see further.
If you're having trouble thinking or remembering during a test, readjust your body position. This helps to change the way you're thinking and helps to see the question from a new perspective.
If you have a stuffed nose, hold your breath for as long as you can before you finally have to breathe. This actually activates your survival mechanisms and your nose will consequently unclog.
Only for a few seconds and after u relax the lethargy mechanism kicks in and blocks nose again
If you want to experience night vision: sit in a dark room and get your eyes accustomed to the darkness. Then close one of your eyes and turn on very bright light. After you turn the lights off again, the eye you closed will have night vision.
I've heard this is why lots & lots of pirates wore eyepatches. It meant they would always have an eye adjusted to the dark when they went below deck. Of course, I'm sure some of them were actually missing eyes seeing as it was such a dangerous lifestyle!
If you have acne or poor skin, at the end of every shower you should change the water to cold for around a minute. This can help seal your pores and stop dirt and bacteria from getting into your skin.
Not true. Acne is a systemic problem, and "closing" your pores this way only lasts as long as the cold water is actually touching your body.
When taking a photo, you should always push your tongue to the roof of your mouth when you smile. This makes your smile look more natural and helps chisel your chin overall making you look more photogenic.
If you get a cramp while you're running, all you have to do is breathe out when your left foot hits the ground and breathe in as your right foot hits the ground. This will take the pressure off and make the pain go away.
I assume, he means leg cramps? Because with that "trick", you will get stitch, if you're lucky. Hyperventilation or worse, if you're unlucky. If he means stitch, you need to exhale longer than inhale (think during 5 steps vs. 2 steps). That should help. If you start to feel dizzy, stop immediately and just walk for a bit and breathe normally.
If you're ever feeling sad, put a pencil between your teeth. This moves your mouth into the shape of a smile, which tricks your brain into feeling happier.
I am running to the patent office with a horse bit designed for humans. I mean horses always seem happy despite our fat arses sitting on their backs and I figure it must be because the bit forces them to smile
If you're experiencing anxiety, blowing air on your thumb can help reduce your stress.
Random ideas by a dude who found random info on the internet. And then BoredPanda randomly found his tiktok video. What a random situation. :|
I have a medical degree. I call BS on just about all of these. Cold water doesn't help a migraine; blwoing on your body won't stop anxiety; the thumb-gag reflex thing is iffy; and do NOT cough when someone is about to put a needle in you. You ruin their aim. Bad idea.
Smell the flowers and blow out the candles. This will work on kids to help them calm down when sad/scared/crying. It gets them to focus on breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, and slowing the whole process down. I figured blowing on your thumb was something like that. Get you to focus on breathing and distract from the anxiety.
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I'm with @Leo Domitrix on this one. Some (very few) useful ideas; many useless ones; some dangerous. And as for crying - by the time I'm there, I'm going to cry. I normally cry in frustration or anger - it's stress relief. Tears generally are (Leo might disagree with me on this last one).
Random ideas by a dude who found random info on the internet. And then BoredPanda randomly found his tiktok video. What a random situation. :|
I have a medical degree. I call BS on just about all of these. Cold water doesn't help a migraine; blwoing on your body won't stop anxiety; the thumb-gag reflex thing is iffy; and do NOT cough when someone is about to put a needle in you. You ruin their aim. Bad idea.
Smell the flowers and blow out the candles. This will work on kids to help them calm down when sad/scared/crying. It gets them to focus on breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth, and slowing the whole process down. I figured blowing on your thumb was something like that. Get you to focus on breathing and distract from the anxiety.
Load More Replies... I'm with @Leo Domitrix on this one. Some (very few) useful ideas; many useless ones; some dangerous. And as for crying - by the time I'm there, I'm going to cry. I normally cry in frustration or anger - it's stress relief. Tears generally are (Leo might disagree with me on this last one).
