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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: Waiting Until You Feel Ready: Loosening Limiting Mindsets
💖Longevity & Wellness: Fitness Friday: An exercise almost everyone stops doing, you shouldn't
✨Daily Affirmation & Daily Prompt

You are a magnificent being who radiates love and kindness even on your hardest days.
You are here reading this, and that means you’re taking action to care for yourself.
We are proud of you!

We often imagine readiness as a feeling that arrives before we begin: confidence replaces fear, uncertainty disappears, and suddenly we know we're ready.

Sometimes preparation really is necessary. But other times, waiting to feel completely ready becomes a way of avoiding the vulnerability of beginning.

Confidence often isn't the prerequisite for action. It can be something we build through action.

Common ways waiting for readiness limits us:
• ⏳ Postponing something meaningful until you feel more confident
• 📚 Constantly preparing, researching, or learning without beginning
• 😬 Interpreting nervousness as evidence that you're not ready
• 🎯 Believing you need to know exactly what you're doing before trying
• 🚪 Watching opportunities pass while waiting for fear to disappear

Ways to gently loosen the need to feel ready:
• 🥠 Ask: What would “ready enough” look like?
• 🌱 Take one small action that allows you to learn through experience
• 💙 Let nervousness and readiness coexist
• 🧠 Separate actual preparation needs from fear asking for certainty
• 👣 Focus on the next step instead of needing confidence for the entire journey

Sometimes readiness doesn't arrive and announce itself. Sometimes you take one shaky step and discover you've already begun.

✅ Action step: Think of something you've been waiting to feel ready for. Ask: What's one small step I could take while still feeling uncertain?

^{Love, Lola Graham}

As a kid, I skipped, jumped rope, and hopped onto and off monkey bars; somewhere along the way, along with almost every other adult, the jumping ceased.

But jumping has benefits that walking, cycling, and even weightlifting can’t replicate.

Bones build themselves stronger due stress placed on them and the forces produced by jumping can be up to 4 to 6 times body weight, which stimulates bone-forming cells in a way that low-impact exercise simply cannot match.

A 2018 systematic review confirmed that high-impact exercises, like jumping, significantly increase bone mineral density, particularly at the hip and femur. But bone density is only one of the benefits.

Jumping specifically recruits fast-twitch muscle fibres, the ones responsible for explosive power, reaction time, and the ability to catch yourself before a fall. These fibres atrophy faster than slow-twitch fibres as you age and are hard to rebuild once lost.

Research confirms that explosive power declines more than twice as fast as general strength with aging. Jumping is one of the few training methods that directly targets that decline. It also helps keep your tendons and joints healthier.

Three ways to add jumping in:

Assisted jumps: if you’re worried about getting started with jumping, you can hold a band wrapped around a pull-up bar or hold supports with your arms to take some of the load off of your legs and make it a gentler introduction.

Double-leg hops (think bunny hops): you don’t need to jump high for this, so it is a low barrier but can give a high return. Even 30s three times can give meaningful bone stimulus.

Box jumps, or squat jumps: 3 sets of 5 to 10 reps a couple of times a week can help preserve fast-twitch function and power output.

No matter if you jumped yesterday or haven't jumped in a decade, it can help provide lots of benefits. Remember to start where you are and build from there.

✅ Action Step: add in some jumping to your next workout.

^{By: Joshua Graham}

^{A gentle invitation to integrate lived experience with kindness, perspective, and care.}

What’s one way you’ve cared for others that also reveals something beautiful about you?

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).}