Art comforts, elevates the spirit and affirms life and hope. Consider creativity a wellness practice. The arts are important for our lives because beauty has a powerful role. When we are involved in creativity, we feel that we are living more fully than during the rest of life. Creativity produces mental wealth.    Let’s take a look at just one of the arts. Music. Music impacts brain function by reducing stress, pain and symptoms of depression as well as improving cognitive and motor skills, spatial-temporal learning and neurogenesis, which is the brain’s ability to produce neurons.    Musical training strengthens the brain’s executive function. Executive function covers critical tasks like processing and retaining information, controlling behavior, making decisions and problem solving.    After James Allison, a scientist and musician, won the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize in Medicine for a major breakthrough in cancer research, he shared, "My lab has been so well-tuned it feels like a really good band.” After I read about his approach in the lab, I couldn’t help but hear the music improvisation. He hadn’t consciously known where he was going with all of this experimentation and suddenly they had arrived at a result that had cured cancer in mice.   https://www.wired.com/story/meet-jim-allison-the-texan-who-just-won-a-nobel-cancer-breakthrough/   https://www.wired.com/story/tech-effects-how-does-music-affect-your-brain/   Einstein had a mind that came up with some ideas that would have to wait 100 years to be proven correct. Einstein was an accomplished violinist. He thought about science in terms of images and intuitions often drawn from his experience as a musician. Then later converted these into logic, words and mathematics. He wanted his science to be unified, harmonious, expressed simply and to convey a sense of beauty in form.   It’s your authentic expression through art making, music, song, movement, writing and other forms of art-based imagination that makes creativity central to a wellness practice.    Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

If you can exercise your body to make your muscles and heart stronger, how do you exercise your mind to make it more powerful? Learn a new skill.   Learning a new skill takes focus and concentration. Find something that really interests you that you can deeply engage in. New hobbies like painting or pottery. Learn a new language or take classes.    Activities that improve your attention are good for your brain. Reading, board games, playing instruments, dancing lessons. My dad loves to play mahjong.   I’ve even used youtube to learn a few new things. How to fold napkins for fun holiday table settings. Different ways to wear scarves which I’ve never truly mastered. One of my favorites was learning how to tie a proper bow for a dress. I had to write each step down, then change it to the mirror image so I could tie something on myself, practiced and then memorized the steps.   This exercising of the brain creates a cognitive reserve, this is the brain’s ability to adapt. Seeking to satisfy our innate curiosity supports keeping our brains agile.   Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from difficult situations. One way to develop resilience is to find the positive.   One time I dozed off on a train in Sicily and got off one stop early. It appeared this stop was in the middle of nowhere. I went to the board to read the schedule. The next train was in an hour.    With nothing to do but wait, I nudged myself to play the positivity game.    Luckily it was not the last train. I remembered I had a half eaten cannoli I could not finish. I sat down and took a bite. I was in Italy, sitting outside under the shade on a nice summer day enjoying the best cannoli in the world. I felt like the luckiest person and indeed I was.    Sure it’s easy with something small but what about something big? Well that’s why you practice with the small things so that when something big comes along you’ll already have the neural pathways and programming in place and small things stay small instead of accumulating.    So when the taxi driver overcharged me for the ride to the hotel, I handed him half the amount and said with a smile, I know this will cover it. He accepted with a sheepish, Bella. I had the humor to handle it that way because despite my exhaustion, I was in good mental form.     Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected] Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

Is TV a good way to relax?    Let’s get into some neuroscience. The brain needs a break because humans are only wired to be focused on a specific task for an hour or two before the mind gets fatigued and can’t absorb new info. Beta brain waves are present when the mind is alert and focused and alpha waves when the mind is relaxed, free to wander or daydream. Take that break at work because the alpha state is when the brain is processing, storing memories to make room for more info and making new connections that spark creative ideas.   The brain is in a limbo state when watching tv - neurons are firing but the mind is not actually engaged. The brain isn’t fully relaxed but it’s not being exercised ether.   Television provides an escape but the relaxation ends when the set is turned off, feelings of passivity continue. People have more difficulty concentrating after viewing TV but rarely feel that way after reading. Improvement in mood was reported after playing sports or engaging in hobbies. After watching TV, moods were the same or worse.   So think of tv as a treat like a candy bar. Fine in small doses but it’s not meant to be a meal. It’s not the most satisfying form of relaxation and it can be addictive. On average, US adults watch 4-5 hours a day.   https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3daqaj/is-watching-tv-actually-a-good-way-to-rest-your-brain   Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

Relaxation is the emotional state in which there is an absence of arousal from sources like anger, anxiety or fear. This state is required for mental and physical health.   In the same way that you need a physical off switch like sleep for your body to regenerate. You need some time everyday during your waking hours that your mind can be free and relaxed.   During my freshman year in college, I became so ill that I had to drop an entire semester. My waking hours were scheduled from 6 or 7am until midnight in 15 minute increments. I had 3 meals a day, exercised regularly and just barely enough sleep scheduled. One day I became woozy and had to go to the doctor. The doctor didn’t look into why I was suddenly ill. What he did tell me was that my blood test indicated I had become severely anemic. My red blood cell count was so low that if I did not reduce my workload I would die.    I look back now and see that I had no mental rest and become tolerant of such a high level of anxiety that I wasn’t able to comprehend how much stress I was putting on myself and my body.   Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

For the past three weeks, I’ve been talking about the basics of physical well-being. The body is a container that also holds our brains and mental well-being.    Mental well-being is having the capacity to live a full and creative life, and having the flexibility to deal with life's ups and downs.  It's all about resilience.  It involves our thoughts and our feelings.  It requires an awareness of our feelings and emotions, as well as the feelings of others. It also includes the capacity to manage feelings and related behaviors. This awareness helps us to have satisfying relationships and to cope with stress.   Since everything is connected, let’s spend the rest of the week expanding on brain and mental health.   Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

Exercise is about creating energy and flow in your life. Being strong enough to support you in all the things you may want to experience. It creates movement that allows you to truly live.    It’s wonderful to have aesthetic goals but unless you’re a professional bodybuilder or model where your income is attached to your physique, have the self-awareness to realize that aesthetics are an exterior benefit. You want to look and feel good in and out of your clothes. That’s a positive and I absolutely encourage that because it allows you to engage in and enjoy intimacy with your partner.   True health is about being able to pick up and play with your kids if you’re a parent. Taking a dip in the sea or walking to that gorgeous vista while on holiday and having the endurance to enjoy the beauty around you. Moving through life with ease and grace.   One time I was locked out of my house. I used my climbing skills to shimmy along a terrace wall and then my balancing skills to get across the railing and finally a solid jump down with a bounce to protect my knees. Being fit let me do this with confidence.    Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

Let’s talk about habits and behaviors that will encourage positive movement in your life.   Make one friend that is a passionate fitness junkie. Why? Because they will talk about it so much that it will drive your focus in that direction. More importantly, their action and results will inspire you.    Enlist a friend with similar goals for accountability.  For example, I was doing a new glute routine with a friend. We were squat buddies. I would do 10 squats and then text her, she would do 10 and text me. Over the course of a day, we were able to get up to our rep goal of 100 per day.   Attach movement to something you already do like going to the restroom. During the squat challenge, I would actually do 10 squats every time I went to the washroom.   If you live or work in a building with stairs, take them. Get off the train one stop early. Keep extra shoes at the office. It’s about designing your life so that physically activity feels seamless.   Plan ahead. Have everything ready to go the day before. Gym bag, shower caddy and change of clothes if you need to go straight to the office or have a lunchtime workout planned.    Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

What if you’re unhappy with the way you look? Do you get lean or muscled up first or do you get happy first?    Do you change the way you look to be happy or do you change how you feel about yourself so that you have the proper motivation to change the way you look? It can feel like a chicken and egg issue. True transformation falls somewhere in the middle, you do both simultaneously.    Find reasons to love yourself that have nothing to do with the way you look. This gives you a cushion when life throws you a curveball. Perhaps a life change or injury that modifies your body shape. Sometimes it’s just age, every decade your body will likely observe a small shift.    There are some very beautiful, very unhappy people that create all sorts of chaos in their lives because of self-destructive patterns stemming from self-loathing, the inability to give or receive unconditional love and an under-nourished soul.    Body image is a picture you paint of yourself and it has nothing to do with how you actually look. It’s the way you apply the brush strokes. Do so with love and kindness.    Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!

Do you have the self-discipline to work out no matter what your surroundings are like? I can gut it out once or twice but I can’t summon the energy to sustain that for very long. I love to be inspired in all things so why not include my workouts.    This means having the right equipment. Get a yoga mat that doesn’t slip. Buy appropriate footwear. Get two outfits of breathable fast drying wicking technical fabrics. You can wash one and wear one since they dry overnight. I love colorful hairbands to keep the hair off my face. Use elastic hair ties that won’t damage your hair. I work harder when I look the part.    If you don’t know what activities you like yet, borrow or rent. I have a rule that I can’t buy new gear until I’ve stuck with a hobby for at least 30 days.   I built my lifestyle so that I was 4 blocks from work most of my career which means I walked on a daily basis. It takes longer for me to get my car than walk to the grocery store. If you can’t do that, join the nicest workout facility you can afford. Not because it’s the nicest, because it’s the one you want to go to most.   Want answers? Send your questions, comments and thoughts about life to [email protected]   Thank you so much for listening to The Lin Life Universe. I hope you’ve been enjoying it. Please leave a review!