Do you suddenly wake up at the same time every night? This is what it can mean

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Do you wake up in the middle of the night? Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) can have an explanation and a solution for you.

Forever Conscious explains the TCM body-clock principle that every organ has a time for high energy and a time for low energy. That is why there is an optimum time for every activity, from exercise to eating, from sex to rest. 
If you organize your day so that you follow the TCM body clock, you will feel your best day and night. Holistic Health Library recommends waking up and drinking water between 5 AM and 7 AM; take a nap between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. and avoiding sugary foods between 7 and 9 p.m.

During the day the body is full of yang energy, which is associated with activity, expansion and fire. Night, on the other hand, is reserved for yin energy. Sacred Lotus explains that yin is slow, recovering and cool. When you sleep, ying energy is used to restore the body, Organic Olivia says. During this time the liver cleanses the blood and expels the lungs toxins. This is why sleep is so important. It is also the reason why waking up in the middle of the night can be a symptom of an underlying problem.

If you wake up between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., your liver may have problems processing waste. This can be irritating and lead to attacks of insomnia, as well as frustration and anger. To strengthen the liver and resolve this problem, consider whether you harbor resentment against someone. If so, work to resolve your resentment and anger. It may surprise you that when you free your mind from toxic emotions, your body can better rid itself of physical waste.

Waking up between 3 and 5 in the morning is another sign of emotional unrest. Sadness and anxiety in particular are associated with the lungs. During these hours the lungs clean themselves of toxic build-up. So when you wake up coughing, your body can signal that your lungs have problems clearing up toxins. Forever Conscious recommends deep breathing exercises to help you fall asleep and refresh your lungs.

Waking up in the middle of the night is a sign of too much yang energy, says Cultural China. Wrap warm blankets or clothing around your shoulders to fall asleep again. Take a few deep breaths and exhale to rid the body of negative energy. Rub your hands together to generate heat and then use a warm hand to massage the sides of your nose and the other hand to cover your eyes. Do this for a count of 35. Then move your ears back and forth 35 times and then cover your ears with your hands so that your fingers rest on the back of your head. Tap the back of your head 25 times. Finally, stretch your arms wide and swallow three times, imagining that the saliva flows to your navel. Lie down again. It may surprise you that you fall asleep fairly quickly.

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13 Best Practices of KAIZEN for you

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Kaizen management best practices.Do It !!!

This article describes the following 13 kaizen management Best Practices in detail:

  1. Define clear objectives and expectations
  2. Focus on the process, not on the goal
  3. Involve all stakeholders in the decision-making process
  4. Go after the low-hanging fruit (quick wins)
  5. “Do it better, make it better”
  6. Remove waste in all forms & variations
  7. Choose the right fight
  8. Appoint a leader (facilitator) for the event
  9. Provide training for all participants
  10. Use available software
  11. Treat the Kaizen event as a business process
  12. Have a good plan
  13. Make sure that the improvement lasts (continuous improvement).

1: Define clear objectives and expectations

Prior to the event, you want a well-defined set of goals and expectations. This means that you must develop a list of the statistics that you will use to define success. It is now a good time to implement the “SMART” technology goals. Goals must be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and timely.

2: Focus on the process, not on the goal

Kaizen is based on a philosophy of small, incremental, continuous improvement. When this style is fully operational, it creates a self-sustaining cycle of opportunities and solutions aimed at reducing waste of time, money and resources. Targeted management focuses on control with a limited definition of success, while kaizen is flexible and adaptive. It uses statistics for evaluation instead of measuring improvements and reaching a predetermined number.

3: Involve all stakeholders in the decision-making process

Employees often feel powerless to influence change in their workplace. They are your biggest source for ideas and skills, but they believe that their voice is not heard. Token attempts at involvement such as the typical suggestion course do not provide meaningful action. Kaizen management includes employees in the improvement process, from identification to implementation and recognition. Seeing their position in the validated company gives them the confidence and motivation to look further for more opportunities to improve.

4: Go after the low-hanging fruit (quick wins)

As mentioned, kaizen management focuses on small, incremental improvement. Employees are encouraged to look for opportunities for change that have a low risk and low costs. This allows change to be influenced quickly, creating a momentum that will continue to the next project. It also keeps the energy level high and ensures more employee involvement.

5: “Do it better, make it better”

Everyone knows the saying: “If it is not broken, do not repair it.” In traditional business models, it is assumed that the process or system functions reasonably well, with maximum effectiveness. Kaizen management assumes that every element of a company can be improved. Employees are encouraged to take a fresh look at established policies and methods. Instead of thinking of why something cannot be done, they are encouraged to ignore conventional limitations and find out how it can be done.

6: Remove waste in all forms & variations

For many companies, waste is viewed from a financial perspective. For Kaizen’s management, waste applies to all resources. A resource that can never be supplemented is time. Every promotion should add value to the business, and employees are encouraged to find ways to increase efficiency and prevent waste. The workplace is constantly being adjusted to be organized so that unnecessary measures are not taken.

7: Choose the right fight

Not all problems can be solved with the short timeframe of a Kaizen event. It is important to be aggressive but realistic when choosing which challenge will be addressed during the event. It should be something that can be tackled by a limited number of people within a few days.

8: Appoint a leader (facilitator) for the kaizen event

Although we believe that Kaizen events should be a collaborative process and that all voices should be heard, it is important to have one person responsible for guiding the team during the event. This person can be called the event leader or the facilitator. They must have some experience with Kaizen events.

9: Provide training for all participants

People should not be thrown into a Kaizen event without the required knowledge to make them successful. They must understand the principles of Kaizen and understand how this is applied in the corporate culture. They must be introduced to any enhancement technique such as PDSA, value stream mapping, the 5 whys and others used during the event. All team members must understand their role and the goals for rapid improvement events.

People do not automatically know how a quick improvement action works. Take the time to teach all participants about the Kaizen mindset, the flow of the event, their specific role and what you can expect before, during and after. Training is important, but practice is also necessary to keep participants in top form.

10: Use supporting software

Kaizen software helps guarantee success by providing a uniform platform for all the work that will take place. Relevant document can be saved, tasks can be assigned and progress can be measured at one online location. The best solutions provide notifications and alerts that help maintain momentum and provide a structure for collaboration. This is especially important if the problem being addressed requires a functional effort. It is quite common for new opportunities for improvement to be discovered during a Kaizen event. Software helps them capture for future projects.

11: Have a good plan

Prior to the event, the leader should work with the team to find out what will happen during the event. For example, most event plans include a number of versions of the following steps:

  • Document and agree with the current status
  • Define the desired status 
    Discuss possible solutions and agree to changes
  • Implement improvements
  • Refine refinements and develop new standard work
  • Institutionalize the improvement

12: Treat the Kaizen event as a business process

The first thing we mean by this is that the event must have a route map and documentation. You would not let employees work on a different business process without a clear set of expectations and desired results. The same should be true for your Kaizen event. It is a process with a defined beginning, middle and end. The second we mean by treating the Kaizen event as a business process is to acknowledge that this should also be the subject of improvement. Before you start your next appointment, you must review the previous one and determine if it could have been more efficient or effective. If this is the case, make the necessary adjustments.

13: Ensure that the improvement lasts (continuous improvement)

Nobody wants to go through the effort of a Kaizen event only to see that the improvements deteriorate over time. To guarantee long-term success, you build up periodic check-ins and report on the follow-up plan for the event. Keep track of the immediate results of the improvement, but also keep the team responsible for reporting results on a month, six months, a year or any intervals that are relevant to the situation.

Once the event has been completed and the desired improvements have been made, it is essential to make a follow-up plan to measure the results and ensure that the improvement is maintained. We find it useful to follow after 2 weeks, a month, three months, six months and a year. You may notice that additional adjustments to new processes are needed or that some of the changes have not been fully applied. Although the ‘event’ is a one-off thing, Kaizen is continuous improvement(s).

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How does kaizen work?

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Kaizen is based on the belief that everything can be improved and that nothing is status quo.

Kaizen involves identifying problems and opportunities, creating solutions and deploying them – and then re-analyzing and evaluating the entire process for other issues or issues that have not been addressed adequately.

The following seven steps create a cycle for continuous improvement and provide a systematic method for carrying out this process.

  1. Kaizen cycle for continuous improvement: 
    Involve stakeholders (for example employees) in the process. Seek the involvement of stakeholders, including collecting their help in identifying problems and problems.
  2. Find problems: 
    Make use of broad feedback from all stakeholders and collect a list of problems and possible opportunities. Set priorities if there is a lot of feedback.
  3. Make a solution: 
    Encourage stakeholders to offer creative solutions that encourage all kinds of ideas. Also define what is meant by success.
  4. Test the solution: 
    Implement the winning solution chosen above with everyone participating in the rollout. Create pilot programs or take other small steps to test the solution.
  5. Analyze the results: 
    Check the progress at different time intervals, with specific plans for whom the point of contact will be and how stakeholders can best be contacted. Determine how successful the change has been.
  6. Standardize: 
    If the results are positive, adopt the solution throughout the organization.
  7. Repeat: 
    These seven steps must be repeated continuously, testing new solutions where necessary or tackling new lists of problems.
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What is Lean management?

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  • Lean management has become a universal management tool for delivering value and optimizing work processes.
  • Lean management is an approach to running an organization that supports the concept of continuous improvement. It is a continuous effort to improve products, services or processes that require an “incremental” improvement over time to improve efficiency and quality.
  • Lean management uses methods to eliminate factors that waste time, effort or money. This is achieved by analyzing a business process and then reviewing it or by removing steps that do not create value for customers.

Lean management principles

Lean management principles are derived from the Japanese manufacturing industry and include:

  1. Definition of value from the end customer’s point of view.
  2. Identify each step in a business process and eliminate those steps that create no value.
  3. Making the value-forming steps is done in a strict order.
  4. Repeat the first three steps on a continuous basis until all waste has been removed.

These lean principles ensure that the processes that bring a product to market remain cost effective from start to finish.

Lean production or lean manufacturing is a systematic method for eliminating waste within a production process. This can include waste created by inequality in workloads, overloading and work that adds no value. From the point of view of the customer who uses a service or product, “value” is a process or action for which a customer is willing to pay.

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