Welcome to Living Well Daily, the newsletter serving up tips to help you live a healthier, happier life.
In today’s edition:
😊Mental / Emotional Well-Being: Your Inner Calm Place: Practicing Peace on Demand
💖Longevity & Wellness: Fitness Friday: The importance of unilateral leg training
🧠 Inner Reps: Today’s workout practices gratitude, and mindfulness.
☀️Self-Care & Connection
🌱Trauma Healing: Building Self-Trust After Trauma (Day 5/5)
👇 And more good stuff!
Today’s Edition
Today is going to happen either way, so you might as well make it a day that adds to your life because you being here adds to our life! Do something today that helps you feel good, whether that be turning on some good tunes, messaging a friend, getting outdoors, etc. You are worthy of a good day, my friend!
Your Inner Calm Place: Practicing Peace on Demand
When stress or anxiety builds, it can feel impossible to find calm. But with practice, you can train your body and mind to return to a safe, soothing inner space, like a muscle you strengthen over time. Whether it’s inspired by a memory, a photo, or pure imagination, your calm place can become a powerful tool for settling your nervous system. And, babe, no joke this really helps. I started this practice after my anxiety started to border on panic attacks and it’s been a game changer that’s made it far easier to self-soothe and regulate. So, stick with it, it’s worth it.
✨ Why it matters
🧘 Repetition helps the body “remember” calm even in stressful moments.
🫁 Breath and imagery work together to regulate emotions.
🏞️ A personal calm place anchors you in safety, clarity, and peace.
💪 Builds resilience against overwhelm and panic.
🌟 How to practice
🌊 Picture a place where you feel safe and at ease (real or imagined).
🖼️ Use a photograph or memory to make the image vivid.
🫁 Pair the visualization/imagination with slow, steady breathing.
🔁 Practice daily, so your body learns to return there quickly when needed.
✅ Action Step: Choose your calm place today. Spend two minutes imagining it with all five senses, paired with slow breathing. Practice often, so it’s ready when you need it most.
My inner calm place as an example: imagining a cottage dock, the sound of the water and sun sparkle on the gentle waves, the leaves rustling behind me, my dog chewing on a stick, and the complete lack of responsibility in that moment.
Fitness Friday: The importance of unilateral leg training
Last week, we went over how having strong legs is so important for healthy aging and how it doesn’t matter how old you are right now, you can still increase your leg strength and leg muscle mass with proper exercise (even if you’re 90!).
For leg training, it is important to challenge them separately as well as together.
The reason for this is that you don’t want one leg to become too dominant over the other one and end up taking on more of the load, leading to some asymmetrical muscle and strength development. This won’t happen overnight; it can take years to cause issues, but if you train smart, you can avoid this.
You do this by doing some unilateral leg training. This means training each leg separately.
Many upper body movements like dumbbell bicep curls require each arm has to do the work. However, many lower-body movements, like squats or machines, use both legs at the same time. This can lead to one leg doing more of the work.
If you love using machines, a simple adjustment is to do a couple of sets each week, one leg at a time.
5 of my favourite unilateral leg exercises are:
Bulgarian split squats
Front foot elevated split squats
Single-leg Romanian dead lift (also a great way to work on balance)
Cossack squats (great for ankle and hip mobility)
Single-leg glute bridges
✅ Action Step: Start adding in some unilateral leg exercises in your weekly exercise routine!
Today’s Mental and Emotional Workout:
Practicing gratitude has been shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression.
Your voice matters; use it even if it shakes. Courage speaks in many volumes.
📖Journal Prompt:
Building a Caring Relationship with Yourself
What boundaries help protect my well-being?
🌟Spark of Joy:
Let Little Things Move You
Watch something that makes you laugh — like when tears roll down your cheeks from pure amusement.
🦋Weekly Connection Challenge:
Kindness Creates Ripples
Compliment a Stranger 🌱
Offer a genuine compliment to someone you don’t know once a day this week (in a shop, on a walk, or online). Mini positive connections uplift you and the receiver, making the world a more friendly place.
Rebuilding Self-Trust: Small Actions to Show You’ve Got Your Own Back
Trauma can damage your sense of trust in yourself. This week is about rebuilding it step by step and reclaiming your power.
Day 5: Your Self-Relationship Grows The More You Show Up For Yourself
Trauma can cause us to disconnect from ourselves and our surroundings. Self-trust builds as we continue to practice showing up for ourselves and meeting ourselves with kindness on the good and bad days.
🌟Patience helps to create psychological safety and trust with yourself. “It’s okay if today is hard, I’m still here for me and better days are ahead.”
📝As you practice mini ways to show up for yourself, reflect afterward on how it felt to back yourself up. This helps you create a new baseline to grow from.
❤️🩹Gentleness is as important as strength on a healing journey so know that showing up can look like one baby step at a time.
🥰Your relationship with yourself is life-long so prioritize talking to yourself and treating yourself like you would a loved one in the same situation. Become the person you can trust on bit by bit.
Keep going, beautiful. You will and can make it through. You’re worth it. Keep calling back that power and building your self-trust.
Darling, don’t give up on yourself, you’re so worth it. Sending love 💕
Thank you for being here!
Before you go, let us know what you thought of today’s edition and if there are any subjects you would like us to cover in the future reply to this email and let us know!
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With love and care,
Lola & Joshua | The Living Well Team
Living Well Daily is for educational purposes only and is in no way a substitute for professional medical and mental health advice and diagnosis. Please consult a qualified professional for care unique to your needs.
Remember: It’s okay to ask for help. Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988 (Canada & US).