We hear about importance of drinking enough water constantly. On the flip side, there’s been a growing trend in the media lately that the commonly recommended eight cups of water a day is a myth, which is technically accurate, but not the whole story. Whether you need eight cups of water daily—or four or ten—most people are not getting the message that whatever their particular water needs are, they aren’t meeting them.

And even dietitians, nutritionists, and medical professionals are contributing to the problem by informing people that they get enough water in their diet in the form of fruits and vegetables. That might be true for some people, but after assessing the diets of countless people, I assure you, that isn’t the case for most people.

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Staying awake is easy … five shots of espresso and a can of Red Bull is all you need. You’ll certainly be wide awake and wired, but you may also die from a heart attack a few hours later. In all seriousness, conquering drowsiness before it overwhelms your mind can be quite a challenge without the help of stimulants.

So the big question is: What are some healthy ways to stay awake when you must? Let’s take a look at seventeen possibilities.

1. Crank Up the AC
Warm, stuffy environments accelerate mental fatigue. If you need to stay awake in a lecture hall or meeting room find an open seat under an AC vent.

2. Cold Water
Splash some on your face and the pulse area of your wrists. Drinking an ice-cold glass of water can also help to wake you up, and if you drink enough of it you’ll be up on your feet using the restroom every thirty minutes as well.

3. Fasting at Mealtime
The human body expends a great deal of energy during the digestion process. This can create a great deal of fatigue when you are trying to stay awake. Fasting is a great way to avoid this natural fatigue. As long as you are drinking enough water, fasting for a meal or two is also a healthy way to detoxify your cells and rejuvenate organs.

4. Light Exercise Breaks
Take a break and take a walk or do a couple jumping jacks to get your blood moving. Even the slightest bit of exercise can act as a healthy way to energize your mind and body.

5. Chew Sugar-Free Peppermint Gum
It won’t rot your teeth and it will generate just enough physical activity to keep you awake. Strong peppermint flavors seem to work best for me; there’s just something about that refreshing minty taste.

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Remember Johnny Depp’s “Winona Forever” tattoo? How about Angelina Jolie’s “Billy Bob”? It took more than just Softsoap and a marker to turn them into “Wino Forever” and map coordinates, respectively, after their celeb owners fell out of love with their tattoos’ namesakes. So what are the options if you change your mind once you’ve already been inked?

According to laser tattoo removal specialist Dr. Roy Geronemus, Director of the Laser & Skin Surgery Center of New York, the best way to zap an unwanted tattoo is laser removal. In fact, most professionals almost never recommend anything else. So forget about ineffective or outdated methods like creams (no matter how many times you use them to dissolve a tattoo, they won’t); excision (removing the whole tattoo as well as the skin beneath it; it leaves prominent scars, not to mention the agony factor); and dermabrasion (removing layers of skin in a process similar to sanding; it’s just not as effective as laser removal and can damage skin).

With laser tattoo removal, the laser beams—short, intense bursts of light—break up the tattoo ink both on the outer skin and under it. After that, says Geronemus, “Some of the ink is eliminated externally; [the rest] is carried away by cells in the body.”

Although laser tattoo removal has a terrific success rate—Geronemus said about 90 percent of tattoos can be removed—he cautions that sometimes it “just isn’t possible to remove them completely.” What raises the odds against a successful removal? Among the biggest factors: the age of the tattoo and the color of the ink. “Older tattoos come out faster,” Geronemus says. Surprisingly, red ink and black ink are easily removed because of the amount of light they can absorb, thus allowing the laser to break them up more extensively. Greens and yellows take more time.

Skin color is also a factor; removal works best on lighter-skinned people since the lasers work by differentiating between the colors of the tattoo and the color of the skin. If there isn’t that much difference, it’s harder to target the tattoo. (And some tattoos shouldn’t be removed at all—Geronemus doesn’t recommend removing cosmetic tattoos, such as permanent eyeliner or tattoos used in breast reconstruction, because they’re in very delicate areas.) As for the risks, Geronemus says there’s a chance of scarring or losing your natural skin pigment, especially if you’re darker-skinned.

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Recently I had to take an online course so that I could get my BASSET Certification.

The BASSET Certification Program is an educational and training tool to sellers/servers of alcoholic beverages to serve responsibly and stay within the law. The BASSET Certification Program serves as a preventive measure to discourage over consumption and keep drunk drivers off the roads.

The training was timed and before you can go on to the quiz for that lesson you had to wait for the time to run out.  Then you had to get all the questions on the quiz right before you could advance to the next lesson which made for a very long and tedious process.

However, I did learn a lot about alcohol and how it effects your body and why …check out some of this interesting stuff:

Be careful out there! ..We all want to have fun but keep yourself safe & others! And if your bartender or server hands you a water or cuts you off …maybe its time for you to go home! Have fun this weekend & don’t black out!