Making each day better

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AT 76, I have embraced a daily approach to living with purpose, positivity and resilience. Here are some simple yet powerful strategies that have helped me make each day better.

Start your day with purpose

Each morning, set a clear intention. This can be as simple as reminding yourself of your goals or deciding to focus on gratitude for the day ahead. Consider starting a morning ritual that makes you feel grounded – whether it’s a brief meditation, journalling, stretching or simply enjoying a peaceful cup of coffee.

Starting my day with purpose has brought clarity and calm, helping me stay focused on what truly matters.

Embrace the power of small wins

It’s easy to feel like you need to accomplish massive tasks to make your day “better”. In reality, small, incremental improvements lead to the biggest transformations.

Start with manageable tasks. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by your to-do list, break things down into smaller steps and focus on one thing at a time.

My practice of “small wins” has boosted my confidence, helped me build momentum, and motivated me to tackle bigger challenges.

Cultivate a positive mindset

The biggest barrier to making each day better often lies in your mind. Negative thoughts can spiral quickly, but the good news is that you can challenge those thoughts.

Practise positive self-talk. Replace “I can’t” with “I will” and “I’m not good enough” with “I’m constantly growing.”

Shifting my focus towards positivity has drastically improved my outlook and turned an ordinary day into something extraordinary.

Prioritise self-care

It’s easy to put everyone and everything else before yourself, especially when juggling multiple responsibilities.

But your wellbeing is the foundation upon which your ability to improve each day is built.

Make self-care a priority, not a luxury. This doesn’t mean hours of relaxation or expensive spa treatments.

Simple acts like deep breathing, getting enough sleep, eating nutritious foods, and engaging in physical activity can drastically impact your mood and energy levels.

Over time, I realise that when I take care of myself, I have more to give to others and the world around me.

Learn from challenges

Challenges are part of life, and while they can feel overwhelming, they also offer opportunities for growth.

Instead of seeing setbacks as failures, view them as learning experiences.

Each obstacle provides a chance to reflect, adapt and come back stronger. The key is not to dwell on what went wrong but to find the lessons and move forward.

I have embraced the idea that challenges are stepping stones toward progress, not roadblocks.

Connect with others

Building and nurturing relationships with family, friends and even colleagues can lift our spirits and make each day brighter. When we connect with others, we share not only joy but also support during difficult times.

I always take time to reach out to someone I care about, whether through a phone call, a message or a simple gesture of kindness. These connections create a ripple effect of positivity, making life richer and more fulfilling.

Reflect on your day

At the end of each day, take a moment to reflect. What went well? What could you have done differently? What did you learn?

Reflection helps consolidate experiences, recognise growth, and improve for the future.

Instead of focusing on what went wrong, I try to highlight the positives, even if they’re small.

I acknowledge my efforts and give myself credit for what I do right.

Keep moving forward

Lastly, remember that progress doesn’t happen overnight. It’s a gradual process, and not every day will be perfect.

However, if you commit to improving just one thing daily, you’ll look back and realise how far you’ve come. Perseverance is key.

I acknowledge that there will be good and bad days, but each one holds the potential to bring me closer to my best self.

I have learned to embrace the journey, trust the process, and keep taking steps forward.

Making each day better is within your power. It doesn’t require huge changes or monumental actions.

By shifting your mindset, setting intentional goals and focusing on small wins, you can transform even the most ordinary day into something extraordinary. - By LIONG KAM CHONG

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 IF you do an online search of the question, “What is happiness?”, there’s every chance your search engine will request emergency leave for the rest of the day. This deceptive and slippery question assumes happiness is singular and definable, ignoring its subjectivity, cultural differences, and transient nature.

Happiness can be a fleeting emotion from a burst of joy when receiving good news. Other times, it’s a mood – a general sense of positivity that lasts for hours or days. More broadly, it can be a state of being influenced by life circumstances, personal values, and our environment.

Some people assume happiness is a feeling that comes and goes, rather than something we can create for ourselves. A new book on the topic invites us to question this assumption. Written by Prof Alvin Ng and Janessa Tan, Happiness: Mastering the 5Gs For an Enhanced You (2025), serves as an insightful companion on how we can create “micro moments of joy” and build our personal happiness fund.

The “5Gs of happiness” are greeting, giving, gratitude, glorifying skilfulness in others, and giggling. At first glance, these seem obvious. Say “Hello” to people. Be generous. Express thanks. Acknowledge others’ strengths. Laugh more. It sounds simple, but nowadays we’re often so caught up in the busyness of living that we forget these qualities that are crucial to maintaining connections, friendships, and our well-being.

When did you last enjoy a genuine laugh? Not the polite kind, but the deep, unrestrained kind that momentarily dissolves life’s worries. When was the last time you expressed admiration to a colleague, friend, or your partner? These micro moments of joy add up, subtly influencing how we engage with others.

At the book launch last month, Ng spoke about these ideas with his trademark dry wit. He, like me, doesn’t consider himself the most naturally joyful person. But we both recognise the value of creating and sharing moments of happiness.

Giggling, for example, might seem like a small thing, but it has profound effects. Laughter isn’t just a social nicety; it helps relieve stress and tension. During the launch, I was thinking about the importance of laughter and playfulness. Play isn’t just for children. Psychologists like Donald Winnicott and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi have shown that play fosters creativity, reduces stress, and enriches engagement with life. We lose something essential when we take life too seriously.

Many of us have been conditioned to see happiness as secondary to productivity. We prioritise deadlines, responsibilities, and efficiency, often at the cost of connection. But happiness and success aren’t mutually exclusive. Research shows that positive emotions increase creativity, resilience, and workplace performance.

The challenge is that happiness isn’t passive – it requires effort. This is where Ng and Tan’s book comes in handy. It’s a practical guide to integrating well-being into everyday life. It doesn’t promise a life without hardship. Instead, it offers a roadmap to finding moments of joy amid the ups and downs.

Giving is a prime example. Even a small act – checking in on a friend, buying someone a coffee, offering a word of encouragement – can create a ripple effect. Generosity fuels connection, and connection is central to well-being.

Glorifying skilfulness in others is another overlooked aspect of happiness. In competitive environments, we often focus on our own achievements. But when we take the time to recognise others’ strengths, we build relationships focused on appreciation rather than rivalry.

Gratitude is perhaps the most familiar of the 5Gs. But knowing its importance and practising it are two different things. Studies suggests that actively expressing gratitude – not just feeling it – increases life satisfaction. A simple “Thank you” can strengthen connections and shift our focus from what we lack to what we have.

Then there’s greeting. In a digital age where communication is often reduced to texts and emails, a sincere, in-person greeting carries weight. It signals recognition, fosters warmth, and strengthens bonds. Offering a smileora friendly nod can brighten someone’s day.

Given the rise in rates of loneliness and disconnection over the past decade,

Happiness is a timely reminder that these problems won’t fix themselves. Reading this book is a reminder that happiness isn’t a luxury – it’s a necessity, and it’s something we can create.

Of course, life will never be free from difficulty. Stress and setbacks are part of our experience – and that’s precisely why these moments of happiness matter. They don’t erase hardships, but they provide balance. They remind us that even in difficult times, joy is still possible.

For those sceptical about selfhelp books, this one is refreshingly down-to-earth. Ng and Tan don’t offer unrealistic promises of enduring bliss. Instead, they acknowledge that happiness is a practice – a habit to be nurtured. Their reflections, drawn from psychology, personal experience, and Buddhist philosophy, offer a realistic approach to well-being.

But just reading their book won’t change much. By applying and sharing the ideas found in Happiness, perhaps we can become happier over time, not just in fleeting bursts, but in ways that last.- -   Sandy Clarke

Sandy Clarke has long held an interest in emotions, mental health, mindfulness and meditation. He believes the more we understand ourselves and each other, the better societies we can create. If you have any questions or comments, e-mail lifestyle@thestar.com.my. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.

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Learn about your urine – it tells you more about your health than you think

 

Your urine can tell you several things about your diet and health even without a test. — 123rf

Go ahead, get the giggles out of the way; we’re about to take a close look at urine, and in such conversations, bathroom humour is often the number one byproduct.

But once you’re through, perhaps you can also relieve yourself of the notion that urine is simply material for third-grade (primary school) punchlines – or even simple at all.

Urine is the result of a fascinating and complex system – of which the kidneys are the star – that evolved to keep our internal systems in balance, said University of Alabama at Birmingham cardio-renal physiology and medicine co-director and professor of medicine Dr David Pollock.

“It’s basically what keeps your cells alive,” he said.

“It maintains the internal environment of your entire body.”

Which makes understanding what’s in your pee important.

And that begins with understanding how it’s made.

Kidney control

Urine is created in the kidneys, whose job is usually described as filtering blood.

But the kidneys do much more than that, Prof Pollock said.

“There’s a very close relationship between the heart and the kidneys,” he said.

The kidneys control how much sodium and water your body retains.

That water equates to the volume of blood you carry, and the greater the volume, the higher the pressure will be.

And that makes the kidneys the primary organ in charge of blood pressure.

“And basically, the kidney is responsible for making sure that it doesn’t get too high,” said Prof Pollack.

The kidneys control that volume by regulating sodium.

When sodium is retained, blood volume goes up.

The kidneys also regulate potassium, which helps limit the effects of sodium.

Both are electrolytes, and the kidneys maintain electrolytes at “very, very precise concentrations,” said George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences professor of medicine Dr Janani Rangaswami.

Those concentrations can significantly affect health, said the chief of nephrology at the Washington VA Medical Center.

Electrolyte imbalances such as low sodium levels, can lead to seizures.

High or very low potassium could lead to heart rhythm problems.

The kidneys also balance the blood’s acidity and filter out waste products, as well as some drugs, from the bloodstream.

The result of all this balancing and filtering is urine.

It flows from the kidneys through the ureters to the bladder, where it’s stored until the next commercial break, rest area or whenever it’s your turn in the bathroom.

Depending on a person’s size, the kidneys might filter around 48 gallons (181.7l) of blood each day, Prof Rangaswami said.

That might yield up to a couple of quarts (1.9l) of urine, although it’s important to not fixate on how much urine you produce, she said.

Patients sometimes get the mistaken notion that “if they don’t have a certain urine output, that’s a bad thing, which is not true,” she said.

In reality, the amount can be “all over the place”, varying because of how much fluid you’re drinking, the health of your kidneys and the medications you may be taking.

Urine composition

The exact composition of urine can vary day to day as well, she said.

But most of it – from 91% to 96% – is water.

Thousands of additional components have been identified in urine.

Prof Pollock and Prof Rangaswami say these are the most prominent ones:

> Urea

“Your body takes the protein that you eat, it breaks it down and takes energy from it, and then you have urea left over,” Prof Pollock said.

Urea is mostly nitrogen.

It makes a good fertiliser, and bacteria break it down into ammonia.

This made urine valuable in pre-industrial times for everything from tanning leather to cleaning laundry.

In ancient Rome, urine was collected from public toilets, and it was taxed.

Ammonia is what makes urine smell the way it does, Prof Pollock said.

> Electrolytes

In addition to sodium and potassium, electrolytes include chloride, magnesium and calcium.

Phosphorus, another electrolyte, is what causes urine to glow under ultraviolet light.

> Uric acid

This nitrogen-based compound is created when the body breaks down food and drinks that contain chemicals called purines.

Meats, seafood, beer, beans and some vegetables are high in purines.

Too much uric acid can lead to kidney stones or gout.

> Creatinine

This waste product is created as muscles work and as protein is digested.

A test called UACR, which stands for urine albumin-creatinine ratio, looks for albumin, a protein that can be a warning sign of kidney disease, Prof Rangaswami said.

That, along with blood tests that look at creatinine or urea nitrogen levels, can give doctors a good idea of current kidney function and future risk for worsening kidney function.

That’s important, she said, because “kidney disease is a powerful risk enhancer for cardiovascular disease”.

Observing your pee

Although urinalysis is as old as medicine itself – Sumerian and Babylonian physicians recorded their findings on clay tablets 6,000 years ago, and Sanskrit texts from 100 BC noted 20 types of urine – your urine can tell you several things even without a test.

Urine gets its yellow colour from a chemical called urobilin, or urochrome.

But the intensity of that colour can vary depending on how much water you’ve been drinking.

“A lot of patients wrongly infer that if their urine looks concentrated, or if it’s dark yellow, that something is wrong,” Prof Rangaswami said.

“That’s just a reflection of the urine being more concentrated.

“And usually, drinking more fluids will make it clear.

“So there is no reason to get concerned every time you notice a slight change in the colour.”

Certain foods, such as beets and asparagus, and some medications can also cause exotic, but harmless, changes in the colour or smell of urine, she said.

But “any blood that is visible in the urine should always prompt a medical evaluation,” Prof Rangaswami said.

And persistent foamy urine could be a sign of too much protein in the urine.

This would be a symptom to discuss with a doctor, she said, particularly for someone who is at risk for kidney disease.

That would include people with diabetes, obesity or high blood pressure.

Prof Rangaswami encourages people to make sure their healthcare team is performing routine UACR tests to monitor kidney health, and to follow a doctor’s advice if they have specific conditions such as kidney stones.

But for the most part, healthy urine flows naturally from healthy kidneys, and kidneys are kept healthy by the same habits that help the rest of the body.

“In terms of diet, what would generally be considered a heart-healthy diet is also a kidney-healthy diet,” she said.

That would include eating less sodium and more fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains, while backing off on heavily-processed foods.

Overall, Prof Rangaswami said, a conversation about urine is a good way to put the importance of kidney health in focus.

And “anything we can do to protect and keep the kidneys healthy is going to be good for their heart as well”. – By Michael Merschel/American Heart Association News/Tribune

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