Sleep is one of the most important things we need to take care of in order to live a healthy life and have enough energy to do all the activities we want to do on a daily basis.

When discussing sleep, the first thing we need to learn is that the idea that sleep is just one long state that we enter every night is a false one. Our sleep time is actually broken down into what are called sleep cycles.

Each sleep cycle is around 90 minutes long. There is some variation here between 70 and 110 minutes, but 90 minutes is a good figure to keep in mind as a start.

During the night, sleeping follows a predictable pattern, moving back and forth between two different types of sleep.

These two main types of sleep are referred to as non-rapid-eye-movement (NREM) and rapid-eye-movement (REM) sleep. On an electroencephalogram (EEG), REM sleep, often called “active sleep,” is identifiable by its characteristic low-amplitude (small), high-frequency (fast) waves and alpha rhythm, as well as the eye movements for which it is named.

Many sleep experts think that these eye movements are in some way related to dreams. REM sleep comprises about 20 to 25 percent of total sleep in typical healthy adults. The average length of the first NREM-REM sleep cycle is between 70 and 100 minutes; the average length of the second and later cycles is about 90 to 120 minutes.

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I recently came across a service that is awesome for getting great discounts on travel, provided you are flexible with your travel plans.

Sparefare allows you to buy non-refundable flights, hotel reservations etc from other travelers.

Here’s how it works:

There are lots of pre-paid, non-refundable flights, hotel rooms and package holidays that go unused. This is where you resourceful traveler come in! You can buy someone else’s reservations for half price! Sellers know they can’t ask for full price, otherwise you are just going to buy from the airline or hotel directly. And if they do not sell the reservation, all of their money is wasted! If you buy their travel at a 50% discount is a win-win for everybody.

Flights are trickiest. To resell a flight, a purchaser has to change the name associated with a ticket to a different name — this is how a flight is transferred from one passenger to another. This means that the airline needs to allow name changes. You can check out this useful list of airlines that allow name changes. If the airline allows name changes, it will also charge a name change fee. Everything is done through the traveler’s online account and is 100% legal and allowed. Lots of airlines allow name changes and their number increases all the time — it is a service that passengers want and the airline industry is responding accordingly.

Transferring a hotel reservation is much simpler. The seller just needs to call the hotel and change the name of the main guest under the reservation. Hotels allow that and usually, there are no name change fees to pay for the service.

Whether a packaged holiday (this is where you buy travel and accommodation together) can be sold on to another person depends on the terms & conditions of the travel agent selling the holiday. Most travel agents allow name changes for a fee. If they are based in Europe, they are obliged to offer this service by law!

I haven’t used SpareFare yet but I’m looking forward to grabbing a cheap trip sometime soon.

Whenever I mention to people how WordPress has really enabled me to be location-independent and live in various countries around the world, the typical next question is where to search for jobs that they can do from anywhere.

Here are two sites that I recommend, and feel free to suggest any others that have worked for you.

• WeWorkRemotely
• RemoteOK
• Upwork
• Jobs.WordPress.net

Have you found online location-independent jobs on other job boards that you can recommend? 

 

I love riding my Brompton in Barcelona and other places when we travel. In fact I’ve taken it with me all over Europe since it’s so easy to travel with it, whether it’s by plane, train or car.

It’s a great means of transport, but it’s also true that if you live in hilly regions it can be a challenge to use it on a daily basis as a means of transport. The same thing applies if you’re not that young anymore and don’t have the same energy and stamina as before.

Enter electric bikes. They’re not a new concept but recent advances in battery size and capacity as well as electric motors have really made possible and driven the market for electric bikes.

The official electric Brompton is now a reality and is already being sold in the UK, albeit at quite a high price. There are however several alternatives that don’t require you buying a new bike but just convert your existing one.

In this post I’ll summarize the options available, and continue updating it with new developments as they happen.

I have a 6 speed Brompton that is love to convert, but I’m not fully convinced by any of the current solutions. It also seems that every year there are some significant advances in this technology and so I’m hesitant to make a significant investment now just to see something much better come out next year.
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