The work week is nearly over - which means you're probably feeling properly buggered right about now. If you're anticipating a late Friday night and don't want to resort to hard drugs or caffeine, this infographic contains bunch of clever ways to keep yourself more alert, ranging from sniffing peppermint oil to various acupressure techniques.

Maxis's video game The Sims teaches an important lesson about human behaviour: Most of the time, we're just trying to meet a set of basic needs. In the world of the Sims, those needs are hunger, comfort, hygiene, bladder, energy, fun, social, and room, each represented by a slowly depleting bar. And they're so true to life that you should check your own before you leave home or start a long trip.

It may seem like some people are born likable, but everyone is capable of developing charisma. No matter what your personality, there are certain traits you can practise and apply to your own behaviour that can make you seem more magnetic, trustworthy and influential. Here are the basics to developing charisma.

One of the main ideas Marcus Aurelius focuses on in his stoic writings is the notion that the mind is immune to all external things. For example, you can't control a situation's circumstances, but since they do not affect your mind, you can control how you react to them.

Have you ever noticed a moment of breathlessness as you wait for Twitter to load, your email to refresh, or your Bluetooth device to connect? Your muscles seizing up as you wait for your technology to work? Annoyance at your phone your phone temporarily turning into the damn RMS for a whole six seconds?

Most of us should be drinking more water. In addition to keeping us hydrated and alive, there are a bunch of secondary benefits that H2O consumption can bring to your life. This infographic breaks down seven reasons you need to up your intake: from healthier looking skin to boosting your energy levels.

Dear Lifehacker, I keep seeing the word "mindfulness" everywhere, tied to everything from losing weight to being more productive. But what does this vague word actually mean, and how can I apply mindfulness to my life?

If you get panicked by crowds, you might not even know it. You might just tense up or get angry. (I got snippy at the farmers market for years before I noticed the pattern.) And certain crowded spots, like Times Square or an emptying stadium, can freak anyone out. As Dr Liz Lasky says in Time Out New York, it helps to have a safety plan.

I'm typically the queen of procrastination. If something doesn't have to be done until next week, then I'm more than likely not going to start it until the day before it needs to get done, regardless of whether or not I have plenty of time to complete it between now and then. As I've gotten older I've gotten better with the whole procrastination thing, but it's still a problem. Now researchers think they have found have a solution: visualising your successful future self.

With a heated global political climate and the threat of nuclear war seeming to loom over our heads, it's hard not to be stressed right now. But you don't have to sit there and stare at your news feed in agony.

Things weren’t looking promising. Less than two miles into the 42km run, my hastily scoffed pre-race breakfast – one banana, one sachet of Justin’s nut butter and two glasses of milk – was starting to re-appear in my mouth. I was also feeling decidedly delicate in my stomach.

Brilliant.

By rights, this story should have been written half an hour ago. Instead, I was looking at Game Of Thrones memes about Bran Stark and playing Rolling Sky on my mobile. Such are the perils of procrastination.

If you never seem to get things done on time, you're probably suffering from a productivity problem of one form or another. Fortunately, it's not difficult to yield more out of the workday via a few tried-and-trusted adjustments. This infographic provides 11 caffeine-free tips.

The early birds will inherit the earth. At least that’s what a 2009 University of Leipzig study found. The researchers concluded that “morning people were more proactive than evening types.”

But being an effective early riser isn’t just about waking up before everyone else. It’s about putting yourself in a positive mindset and getting important things done before everyone else.

The mindfulness craze has already been tapped for a huge variety of benefits — improved sleep, increased productivity, cutting out mindless snacking and so on. And we now may be able to add another upside to the list: Researchers with the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford University and the University of California, Davis, have found that mindfulness practice can be channelled to increase compassion, which can in turn, help us all deal with irritating (or downright) difficult people we encounter in our day-to-day.

There are many ways to manage and reduce daily stress. Unfortunately, most of them require a significant time commitment. If you're already overworked and struggling to keep on top of things, all that "wasted" time will leave you feeling more haggard than before. With that in mind, here are eight de-stressing techniques that only take around 15 minutes to pull off.

It’s hard to get moving in the morning. Simple math says that bed = warm + comfortable. Outside of bed = freezing + miserable. But it doesn’t have to be this way! Here’s five tips that will help you get up and out of bed and functioning like a normal human being before the sun’s even risen.

Our brains are lazy, easily lured away from productivity to timesinks like Facebook and Twitter. Make use of this mental laziness by carefully curating the icons on your phone's home screen.

It had been a particularly stressful week when, scissors in one hand and 10cm of hair in another, I decided to cut. A few snips later, I felt triumphant. Sure, a week from then I paid an expert to fix it. But in that moment, I felt like a weight had been lifted, and that felt good, even if it was just a few grams.

If you’re anything like me, you lose control of your day pretty much the moment you wake up. When I get home from coaching a couple of morning classes, I step into a maelstrom of Paw Patrol-inspired chaos featuring breakfast cooking, tea making, dog walking and feeding, child dressing, teeth cleaning, dishwasher stacking, all with the ultimate aim of getting the young ‘un out of the house and up to school.