Welcome to Living Well Daily, the newsletter serving up a daily dose of care designed to support you, cheer you on and remind you, always, just how wonderful you already are.

In Today’s Edition:

🥰Well-Being & Self-Care: How Sensory Input Affects Your Mood
💖Longevity & Wellness: Good News for Coffee Drinkers (Like me, YAY!)
✨Daily Affirmation & Daily Prompt

Look at you…
You are absolutely radiant, glowing from within with so much care and love in your heart.
This world is so much brighter and better with you in it!

We often think of our mood as something happening only in the mind. But our nervous system is constantly responding to the world around us, including what we see, hear, smell, touch, and experience through our senses.

Sensory input can either help regulate us or contribute to overwhelm.

Bright lights, clutter, noise, constant notifications, uncomfortable clothing, crowded spaces, or nonstop stimulation can leave the nervous system feeling overloaded without us even fully realizing it. On the other hand, calming music, soft textures, natural light, pleasant scents, nature, warmth, and comforting environments can help the body soften and settle.

This is part of why certain spaces or experiences can instantly change how we feel.

Many people underestimate how deeply their environment impacts their emotional state. But creating supportive sensory experiences can become a powerful form of self-care and nervous system support.

Ways to use sensory input to support your well-being:

•🎧 Notice what sounds affect your nervous system: music, silence, noise, nature sounds
•🕯 Create small comfort cues: lighting, scents, blankets, cozy textures
•📵 Reduce overstimulation where possible: especially during stress or exhaustion
•🌿 Spend time in environments that help your body soften
•🧠 Pay attention to how different spaces make you feel emotionally and physically

Your nervous system is always taking in information from the world around you.

Sometimes changing your environment, even slightly, can help change your state too.

✅ Action step: Choose one sensory input today (sound, lighting, texture, scent, etc.) that helps you feel calmer, softer, or more grounded, and intentionally add more of it into your day.

^{Love, Lola Graham}

Research compared 31 regular coffee drinkers with 31 non-coffee drinkers and found that regularly drinking coffee, both caffeinated and decaffeinated, shapes the gut microbiome and influences mood and stress through the gut-brain axis.

When regular coffee drinkers stopped drinking it for two weeks, clear shifts appeared in the metabolites produced by their gut microbes. When coffee was gradually reintroduced, without participants knowing whether it was caffeinated or decaf, both groups reported improvements in mood, including lower levels of stress, depression, and impulsivity. This suggests the mood benefits are not coming from caffeine alone.

The two types of coffee showed distinct benefits, though.

Decaffeinated coffee was associated with improvements in learning and memory, pointing to polyphenols and other non-caffeine compounds as the likely driver.

Caffeinated coffee was linked to reduced anxiety, better attention and alertness, and a lower risk of inflammation.

The study also identified specific gut bacteria that were more common in coffee drinkers, including strains linked to digestive protection and positive mood, particularly in women.

Since this is a small study of only 62 people, these findings aren't definitive. But it adds to a growing body of evidence that coffee is far more than a caffeine delivery system; it interacts with your gut microbes, your metabolism, and your emotional well-being in ways researchers are only beginning to map out.

✅ Action Step: If you already drink coffee, keep enjoying it! If you don’t maybe think about adding in some decaf here and there to get some of the benefits of the polyphenols.

^{By: Joshua Graham}

^{A reflective journaling prompt to explore learning, self-awareness, and becoming.}

Where in your life are you being invited to trust yourself more deeply?

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.}

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