Energy Drinks

I'm not a 'health and lifestyle' blog. In fact, I'm not even sure WHAT my blog is yet since the original purpose is so uncertain at this point in time.

I may not be a health and nutrition expert, but I want to share this with you.

Energy drinks are such a bad idea.

I used to drink them. Not all the time. I didn't need one every day like some people I know. But if I was at work and I was tired of soft drink, I would have a can of Mother. These were the big 500ml cans too.

I don't remember exactly when it was that I drank my last can of energy drink EVER (I've gone off them for good because of what I'm about to share), but it was probably about two months ago, because it was the same night I watched Broadchurch season 1.

I was at work. I cracked the can of Mother at about half past 6 in the evening and I drank it slowly. I hate gulping them down because they taste a bit funny.

I still had a good half the can left when I got home at half 9 and I sipped it slowly while eating my dinner and watching Broadchurch. I think I drained the can by 11pm.

I finished up the first half of Broadchurch by 1am and I had a shower and went to bed.

Well...I got into bed.

My brain was going about 1000 miles per hour. Broadchurch was still fresh in my mind (great show, by the way) so all the prominent scenes of this sleepy little seaside town were playing back in my head at about 10x normal speed. Every time I shut my eyes, it was like people were screaming and talking at top volume in my room. Not that I could hear any noise, but that's the only thing I can liken the disruption in my brain to.

It was actually the second most horrendous night of my life. The first was the night I hallucinated in my hotel room in Thailand and woke up my entire family by screaming for the people to stop chasing me. Yeah. Not fun. By the way, I am not mentally disturbed - I was not well in Thailand, and I'm fairly certain my fever and upset stomach had a hand in the strange wonky visions from the middle of the night.

Anyway, this Mother induced night of tossing and turning and my brain screaming at me like the asshole it can be was enough to stave me away from energy drinks for good. And the reason I say it is the energy drink is because my nights often end in me going to bed at 1am after watching a movie and eating dinner. The energy drink was the only differing factor that night.

I fell asleep at 7am. 7am. The sun was up and so were my dad and my sister. They were well-rested while I was having an emotional breakdown behind my bedroom door due to my lack of decent sleep.

I woke up at 1pm after a rough and disturbed 6 hours sleep. I watched the second half of Broadchurch and got ready for work all the while feeling like I'd been run over by a semi trailer.

No, there was definitely no alcohol in that energy drink.

It truly was a horrible night.

Don't drink energy drinks, guys. They might just be a drink, but if you randomly throw one into a normal part of your routine, you WILL feel a difference. Not only that, but they are so bad for you.

The choice is yours.

Xo.

Songs of 2015

That title is a little misleading, I apologise.

After creating my Top 20 Nostalgia playlist, I realised how much I wanted to share the songs I love today with you guys. I have quite a few that I absolutely LOVE and can play over and over without tiring of them. So without further ado, here is my Top 20 of 2015!

1. Holes in the Sky (ft. HAIM) - M83 (oh my god, words cannot express how much I love this song)
2. Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding
3. Beating Heart - Ellie Goulding
4. Hooligan's Holiday - Albannach (if you're open to bagpipes, seriously, go listen to Albannach. It will change your life)
5. Slam - Pendulum
6. I Believe - Christina Perri
7. Smoke - PVRIS
8. Pictavia's Pride - Albannach
9. Take Me To Church - Hozier
10. Circle - Flyleaf (I still love Flyleaf)
11. Ran Off in the Night - Echosmith
12. We Didn't Start The Fire - Billy Joel (you will feel like an absolute legend when you master singing along to this)
13. Radioaktivitat - Das Atom
14. Lights (McKayla Maroney mix) - Ellie Goulding (this is not an official mix. It's a fanmade mix accompanying a video of American gymnast McKayla Maroney, so I have dubbed the McKayla Maroney mix)
15. Underclocked - Eric Skiff (anyone who watches Dark5 on YouTube will have heard this song)
16. One They Fear - Jeremy Soule
17. Dragonborn - Jeremy Soule
18. Forging A New Light - Position Music
19. Warriors - Imagine Dragons
20. Caliban's Dream - Underworld

As evident by this list, I have a HUGELY diverse taste in music. I will literally listen to anything that sounds catchy to my ear. I discovered a couple of years ago that I love foreign music. Indian, Iranian, and Persian music has such beautiful backing music and you feel like a legend if you can sing along to the foreign vocals. Instrumentals/techno/house/electropop are also things I frequently enjoy, as well as the amazing tribal Celtic sounds of Albannach.

I honestly can recommend every song on this list. Even if you think it's not something you'll enjoy, or it's not your taste/style/type...give it a listen. You might surprise yourself.

Xo.

Nostalgia

Now, I'm only 18, so this post is hardly relevant. I've been listening to my iTunes library of 921 songs on shuffle all night and I've been trying to resist the urge to skip the songs and see how I feel about them (I find this is also the fastest way to refine my library; if I absolutely have to skip a song, it clearly grinds my nerves and has to go).

Tonight, iTunes decided to play a heap of songs that I used to listen to constantly between the ages of 12 and 14. That's not that long ago, honestly, but it feels like so long ago because I wasn't even in senior high school back then. These songs evoked a serious feeling of nostalgia in me, and I wanted to share them with you.

Here's my top 20 '2010's nostalgia' pack (even though some of these came out before 2010, I listened to them mostly after 2010):

1. We Run the Nite - Tonite Only
2. Battleflag - Lo Fidelity Allstars
3. Explosive - Bond
4. Take It Off - Ke$ha
5. Reel Around the Sun - Bill Whelan (a must for lovers of Irish/Scottish music!)  **
6. Enemy - Flyleaf
7. D.I.N.O.S.A.U.R. - Ke$ha
8. Fully Alive - Flyleaf
9. Victory of Life - Future World Music  **
10. Arise [Ben Moody Mix] - Flyleaf
11. Bad Boy - Cascada  **
12. So Cold - Nikisha Reyes-Piles  **
13. May I Have This Dance - Tommy Lucas  **
14. Someday We'll Move to A Small Farm (And Sit and Watch the Snow Fall) - Linford Detweiler
15. Backstabber - Ke$ha
16. We Run the Night - Havana Brown
17. Beautiful Bride - Flyleaf
18. If Today Was Your Last Day - Nickelback
19. She Got the Honey - Mat Kearney **
20. Viktoria - Maria Mena**

Yes Ke$ha makes quite an appearance. I still enjoy her songs, they're catchy and easy to listen to.

And I will not justify my enjoyment of Nickelback. No-one is allowed to give me flak for that because I listen to whatever music I like, ok?

Enjoy this, and I hope some of you might find some new songs from this list to enjoy! I've put a star next to the less heard of songs, so go check them out! They can all be found on YouTube!

Peace out!

Xo.