RADIANT LIFE F E B R UA RY
Cultivating a healthy mind, body, and spirit
Spark Joy A tidy lifestyle speaks to us all
How to Plant a Thriving Herb Garden The Road to Change Small steps are effective
Table of Contents
14 Mind & Body 10 Screen Habits
All habits, good or bad, are a reflection of the brain’s effort to save energy. Here are tips on targeting bad screen habits and creating healthier patterns.
14 Holistic Approaches to Solving Addiction
Changing our friends, diet, and habits can be part of a broad path to sobriety.
20 Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding offers profound benefits beyond those measured in health outcomes, so why are rates so low in the United States?
26 Declining Testosterone Levels in Men
Natural interventions can help men achieve a proper balance of this essential hormone.
28 Rethinking Magnesium
Magnesium is a cofactor in hundreds of enzymatic processes in the body, and there are several ways to get an adequate amount.
30 Self Care for Your Future Self
The love and security “future you” experiences, thanks to “past you” planning ahead, create feelings of positivity, which research shows are anti-inflammatory.
34 Getting Bolder
Aging isn’t the degrading inevitability we are taught.
40 How to Support Children’s Immune Systems
Various lifestyle factors, include diet and sleep, can bolster immune function.
44 Patterns of Near-Death Experiences
Thousands of records of near-death experiences affirm some of humanity’s most profound beliefs.
48 Want to Change Yourself? Start Smaller
Starting small with change reorients your attention from an end goal back to the daily practices that make up life.
Lifestyle 54 Pura Vida in Costa Rica
Abundant with natural wonders and beautiful places, it’s best to take your time and fully appreciate Costa Rica.
62 Easy Elegance
These items are classics and don’t need to break the bank.
66 Marie Kondo
A conversation with one of the most influential advocates of intentional living.
72 Sheetal Sheth
Actress and children’s author Sheetal Sheth writes about “real things in a real way,” helping children build empathy and resilience.
76 Fertilizing Your Garden
When planning your spring garden—vegetables or flowers—you may be wondering how and when to start fertilizing.
78 78 How to Plant a Thriving Herb Garden
Herbs are hearty, easygoing plants to grow. Here are the basics as you get started.
82 Drying Your Own Herbs
There are several ways to prepare herbs for longterm storage and use, and many uses for dried herbs.
90 Teaching Children Empathy Through Etiquette
Etiquette expert Julie Blais Comeau helps children understand the impact they have on others.
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92 Make Your Own Windchimes
Wind chimes—instruments producing mystical sounds when played by the wind—have existed in some shape or form since at least 3,000 B.C.
Table of Contents
Relationships 116
When Your Partner Denies Saying That You don’t have to feel shut down when your partner says “I never spoke those hurtful words.”
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Healing Through Human Connection The United Kingdom is making a unique effort to prescribe social and creative activities.
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De-Stressing Your Marriage
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Emerging From Winter
Communication is key, and it takes skills you may not have practiced.
It’s time to burst out from under our cozy blankets and get going once again.
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Arts 96
Beethoven’s Genius
Beethoven had a glorious vision of a universe of unimaginable scale, and he painted that glory in a way no one else could.
100 ‘The Course of Empire’
Thomas Cole’s pivotal series contemplating the rise and fall of civilizations.
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114
Frederic Leighton
Victorian England produced a number of talented artists, but few have become as iconic as Frederic Leighton.
Shakespeare’s Last Act
The Bard’s last play, ‘The Tempest,’ suggests that reason, virtue, and forgiveness are best—and may prepare us for what follows this lifetime.
O N T H E C OV E R Photo courtesy of Marie Kondo
RADIANT LIFE PUBLISHER Dana Cheng
E D I TO R I A L EDITOR-IN- CHIEF
Catherine Yang
MIND & BODY EDITORS
Chrisy Trudeau Matthew Little
A RTS EDITORS
Sharon Kilarski Jennifer Schneider
BOOKS EDITOR LIFEST Y LE EDITOR
Robert Mackey Joy Ye
G A R DENING EDITOR
José Rivera
TR AV EL EDITOR
Car y Dunst
EDITORS -AT-L A RGE
T ynan Beatty Maria Han
STA FF W R ITERS
Skylar Parker Tara dos Santos
C R E AT I V E CR E ATI V E DIR ECTOR DESIGNER ILLUSTR ATORS
Laure Fu Ingrid Phillips Linda Zhao Michelle Xu
PHOTOGR A PHERS
Jennifer Schneider J. Freishter
C O N T R I B U TO R S Melanie Hempe, Jennifer Margulis, A llison Williams, Brandon LaGreca, Datis Kharrazian, Carl Honoré, Ashley Turner, Janice Miner Holden, Mike Donghia, Tim Johnson, A nna Bey, Mark Lardas, A rleen Richards, Liz Wegerer, Pete McGrain, Jeff Perkin, Kara Blakley, Gideon Rappaport, Nancy Colier, Lorrie Kelly, Tenesha Curtis, Donna Martelli
O F F I C E & C O N TA C T Bright Magazine Group 229 W 28th St, New York, N Y 10001 General Inquiries: editor@radiantlifemag.com Media & Adver tising: ellen@radiantlifemag.com
MIND & BODY
Holistic Approaches to Solving Addiction Changing our friends, diet, and habits can be part of a broad path to sobriety By Jennifer Margulis
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hen I met Nicky, a 33-year-old mom of two, and a recovering addict, she told me she’d been a cheerleader, sang in her church choir, and always held a job. But Nicky’s life took a downward turn early on. She started smoking marijuana when she was 11, moved on to using inhalants with her friends, and eventually began shooting heroin. When I interviewed her, she was committed to recovery, but she told me that every day was still a struggle. Her journey was not easy.
Addiction, Drug Overdose on The Rise
Although these topics have not been getting as much media attention as they did pre-pandemic, both addiction and drug overdose are on the rise. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over 81,000 people died from drug overdoses between May 2019 and May 2020, the highest number of overdose deaths the CDC has ever recorded in a 12-month period. Just as disturbing, suicide, depression, and self-harm also seem to be increasing, particularly among young people. That’s the bad news. The good news is that if you, or anyone in your life, is struggling with addiction, there are lifestyle changes you can make—right now—to help you heal. While getting completely sober might not feel possible, lifestyle improvements make a big difference. We tend to think of addiction as black and white. Either you’re an addict or you’re not. But when you take small steps to improve your mental health and physical well-being, you can move away from the severe end of what my coauthor, Dr. Paul Thomas, and I call the addiction spectrum. The goal is to get out of addiction and into good health.
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The Addiction Spectrum?
Thomas, who is both an addiction specialist and a recovering alcoholic (he has been sober for 18 years), argues that there is a spectrum of severity when it comes to addiction. The first step, as we explain in our book, is identifying where you are on the continuum of mild to moderate to severe addiction. The next step is to be willing to make changes that will move you toward the mild end of the addiction spectrum, so that your substance abuse, or addictive behavior, no longer dictates your life. “Over the last decade, addiction specialists have moved away from calling someone an ‘addict’ or an ‘alcoholic,’” Thomas explained. “We don’t want people to associate with labels that put you in a box. These labels keep you trapped. Just as a person can recover from cancer or some other chronic condition, why wouldn’t you be able to recover from an addictive tendency?” The idea that we may be able to heal the root causes of our addictions, without embracing complete and total abstinence, flies in the face of the philosophy of 12-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). But while Thomas supports AA (and personally credits this program with helping him find sobriety after years of struggling), he also points out that AA does not work for everyone.
Find Your Right Tribe
As Johann Hari, a British-Swiss writer and author of “Chasing the Scream: The Search for the Truth About Addiction,” famously explored in a 2015 Ted Talk, the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. “The opposite of addiction is connection,” Hari said. He pointed to a series of experiments, done in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, that confirmed this idea. Dr. Bruce K. Alexander, now professor emeri-
MIND & BODY
Shutterstock
While getting completely sober might not feel possible, lifestyle improvements make a big difference.
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MIND & BODY
Getting Bolder Aging isn’t the degrading inevitability we are taught By Carl Honoré
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t comes to all of us in the end: that crushing moment when you suddenly feel—old. The trigger might be a milestone birthday, an illness, or an injury. It might be a romantic snub or a missed promotion at work. For me, it was discovering that I was the oldest player at a hockey tournament. Picture the scene: I was 48 at the time and had just propelled my team into the semi-finals by scoring a highlight-reel goal. I was walking on air. And then came the crushing news. An official told me there were 240 players at the tournament—and I was older than every one of them. In the blink of an eye, I went from goal scorer to grandad. Even though I’d been playing well and having fun, the questions crowded in. Do I look out of place here? Are people laughing at me? Should I take up a more age-appropriate pastime. Bingo, perhaps? My wobble got me thinking about a scourge we all face, but seldom do anything about: ageism—stereotyping and discriminating on the grounds of age. Ageism can hit both young and old, but it weighs more heavily on those of us in later life. Why? Because ageism is tangled up with the cult of youth, the belief that younger is always better. The evidence is all around us. We live in a world where companies market “anti-aging” products, as if aging were a disease, and where Mark Zuckerberg can declare with impunity that “young people are just smarter.” The other day I saw a birthday card showing a woman, recoiling in B-movie horror, beneath the words, “Good God, you’re 30!!” But does it actually make sense to worship youth? Is it true that younger is always better? Is it really all downhill from 35? Of course not. If you’re like me, you know loads of people thriving on the wrong side of 40—because there is no wrong side of 40. I’m now 53, and in many
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ways, I feel at the top of my game. Let’s be honest: aging does have its drawbacks. To hear time’s winged chariot hurrying near can be an existential bummer of the first order. No matter how much kale you eat, or how many hours you spend doing Pilates, your body will work less well over time. Even though I’m as sporty as ever, I no longer have the strength, speed, or stamina of my youth. My joints are stiff and sore more often than I’d like. My hair is thinning, and there are times when what I see in the mirror looks a little too Lucian Freud for comfort. I also now need reading glasses. And what a pain that turns out to be! My glasses are always so smudged, it’s like peering through a kooky Instagram filter. Or they’re missing in action: I’ve broken three pairs by sitting on them. On a more somber note, we also become more vulnerable to disease as we age—something the COVID-19 pandemic brought home with a thud. But that’s not the whole story—not by a long shot. After my self-demotion from goal scorer to grandad, I set off around the world to find out if there was a better story to tell about aging. Spoiler alert. There is a better story to tell—a much better one. Why? Because what you discover when you stop obsessing about the drawbacks of aging is that, as you grow older, many things actually stay the same—and some even get better. In other words, many ageist stereotypes are flat-out wrong. One falsehood is that later life is depressing. Look at the words we attach to older people: sad, cranky, crotchety, grumpy—all actually untrue. Studies show that human beings follow a U-shaped happiness curve. We start off riding high in childhood, fall steadily to rock bottom in middle age, before bouncing back up again. Across much of the world, the adults who report the highest levels of happiness and life satisfac-
All photos by Shutterstock
MIND & BODY
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LIFESTYLE
Simple Luxury
Finding Pura Vida in Costa Rica
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oy emanates from the water. Playing in waves pushed out from the hull of a motorboat, dolphins swim and spin, corkscrewing just below the surface, clearly visible in the aquamarine water—so close you can see their faces, and imagine a smile. Keeping pace with the boat, they breach the surface, emitting a little pop from their blowholes like a quick hello, before plunging back down into the blue.
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The nearby shores, all protected nature areas, are a lush green. The hot afternoon sun seems to accentuate all the colors. The dolphins disappear, and soon we will be swimming, too. Arriving at a deserted beach, people leap off the side of their boats, paddling their way through the warm ocean. No beach chairs or piña coladas awaits them, just a stretch of sand, blissfully unoccupied, and the rest of the day to enjoy it.
Shutterstock
By Tim Johnson
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All photos by Shutterstock
LIFESTYLE
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LIFESTYLE
A small country, roughly the size of West Virginia, Costa Rica is nonetheless immensely diverse. In Costa Rica, the pleasures are often simple, a pura vida kind of luxury. Natural wonders, beautiful places, and all of that pure life: from volcanoes and hot springs to an almost unimaginable array of amazing creatures on land and sea. It’s a place where it’s best to take your time, for full appreciation. That’s definitely the case at Playa Cativo, where you’ll find upscale accommodations on an island suited for castaways. All arrivals come by boat, skimming along the Golfo Dulce, a rare tropical fjord. Pulling up to the dock, most of the resort is hidden from sight, tucked behind the lush rainforest, amidst a grove of impossibly tall palm trees. A total of 18 casitas are built from reclaimed wood, with tile work created by local artisans. Each one has a big, gracious porch, and all feature an open concept: meaning you’ll drift off to sleep caressed by sea breezes, lulled by the curi-
ous and distinctive nocturnal sounds of the jungle. The whole place is a model of ecological responsibility, off-the-grid, and powered entirely by renewable sources (hydro and solar). You can cool down in the chemical-free pool or take a little hike back to the gardens that are filled with ingredients for the restaurant: everything from yucca to cilantro, celery, carrots, and tomatoes, plus pineapples, oranges, bananas, star fruit, and lots more—all flourishing in the sultry weather. And you’ll find all sorts of options for excursions to fill your days: a kayak trip through the mangroves, fishing for mahi-mahi, marlin, and amberjack, or spending time spotting some of the 390 bird species that reside and migrate nearby. Or take a trip out on the water, for a chance to spot humpbacks and dolphins.
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LIFESTYLE
With Joy and Consideration The ‘magical art’ of Marie Kondo’s lifestyle philosophy begins with a deeper look at our possessions and grows into a holistic way of being
Radiant Life: In the past several years, your philosophy of tidying has really captured attention and has been adopted by people all around the world. What do you think really resonates with people about this philosophy? Marie Kondo: The KonMari Method™ is more than just organizing; it starts with physical objects, which are often just symbols of the larger self-reflection we need. Evaluating the things that spark joy in our lives to help us achieve the vision we have for the lives we want to live is a part of the KonMari Method™ that I feel people really appreciate and resonate with the most. Radiant Life: What are some of the early influences that attracted you to tidying and organizing? Marie Kondo: Tidying is something that I learned from my grandmother at a very early age, and she was always such a big inspiration to me. She was so careful and considerate of the things she owned, and that level of intent and care is now deeply rooted in the KonMari Method™️. If I can personally help people tidy and see positive changes in other areas of their lives, then I feel like I have done what is needed, while also honoring my grandmother’s memory. Radiant Life: When people go through the process/ apply the KonMari method, they seem to have a lot of epiphanies. Many people start to realize that it’s not just about things; it’s about living and lifestyle. Was this always the starting point for you? How do you encourage people to think about lifestyle? Marie Kondo: As a young girl, I was truly captivated by the craft of organization after reading “The Art of Discarding,” a bestselling book in Japan at the time. Being inspired from this book, I really started to explore tidy-
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ing more seriously, and at that point in my life, I thought that tidying was mainly about discarding. I remember once during a difficult tidying session, my body became heavy, and I ended up passing out on the floor. After several hours, I thought I heard a voice telling me to “look at the items carefully and closely,” and in this exact moment, I realized I had an epiphany. Instead of looking for reasons to discard an item, I should be looking for reasons to keep them. Right then, I knew that tidying was so much more than just cleaning and discarding items. It transformed into focusing on the things and moments in life that spark joy. When applying the KonMari Method™️, it’s important to remember that you are not choosing what to discard, but rather, choosing items to keep items that speak to your heart. Through tidying, people can reset their lives and make sure they’re spending the rest of their lives surrounded by the people and things that they love and cherish the most. Radiant Life: In your method, you mention some procedures and rituals. Tell us about the importance of rituals and how they can change the way we look at things? Marie Kondo: Before you can truly care for another person, space, or object, you have to know how to take care of yourself, which is where the importance of rituals come into play. I prioritize daily rituals that enable me to honor my whole self, because when the body, mind and spirit are in alignment, I can easily sense what sparks joy in my life each and every day. I have many different rituals that I perform throughout the day to help me maintain a rhythm, and I always encourage others to do the same. My morning ritual is one of my most important routines as it sets the tempo for the day ahead. I
LIFESTYLE
“Through the tidying process, you confront yourself and determine what is most important to you, all on your own.”
All photos courtesy of Marie Kondo
—Marie Kondo
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Sheetal Sheth
Says Honesty Helps Kids Through Hard Times Helping kids cope with serious illness, racial differences, and more
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ctress and children’s author, Sheetal Sheth, writes about “real things in a real way.” She says that she doesn’t do abstract stories about “unicorns and dragons.” The “real things” in her children’s books include illness, death, racial differences, and conflicts between the sexes. Her characters—including an Indian American girl in Sheth’s popular Anjali series—deal with these real-life situations. Sheth herself has had her own poignant experiences with these topics. Growing up in small-town America as a first-generation Indian immigrant, she felt uncomfortably different. She understands how important it is for children, including her own, to see book characters who are similar to themselves. “I make a point to curate books and the things that [my kids] watch so that they do see themselves. We’re watching stories of people who are us, and not us, because we want to … create empathetic kids,” she said.
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All photos by Lux Aeterna Photography for Radiant Life
By Tara dos Santos
LIFESTYLE
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Dry LIFESTYLE
Your Own
Herbs
Grow and preserve herbs for myriad benefits including tastier meals
Mint Images / Mint Images RF /Getty Images
By José Rivera
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LIFESTYLE
Shutterstock
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erbs provide quick, versatile, and easy ways to flavor food. From a little oregano and basil in an Italian dish, to dill and thyme in oven-baked salmon, the possibilities are endless. Humans have used herbs from as far back as 60,000 years — long before written records. Archeological discoveries from various burial sites show a history of knowledge and use of herbs medicinally and otherwise. There are cave paintings in France dating back at least 13,000 years that depict various herbs, and by the time of the Greeks, around 700 B.C., the herb industry was thriving. There are many advantages to growing your own herbs. Some have quick growth cycles: basil can begin to germinate after just four days and can be har-
vested when it is 6 to 8 inches tall, cilantro germinates in seven to ten days and can be harvested after three to four weeks. Various herbs can be used for more than just cooking: dried herbs put in cloth satchels around your home can keep mosquitos and flies away, dried lavender placed in closets can repel moths. Herbs have been used medicinally for millennia as well. From steeping certain herbs to make tea for a tummy ache or headache, to burning bay leaves for anxiety reduction. There are several ways to prepare herbs for longterm storage and use. The oldest and easiest method of food preservation is drying. All herbs can be dried to preserve their flavor, and used in cooking and medicinal folk remedies.
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ARTS
Sacramental Symphonies By Pete McGrain
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All photos are public domain
The signature works of Ludwig van Beethoven
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ARTS
Cole’s series continues to captivate audiences with its mastery nearly two centuries later.
ine the impact these paintings would have had on viewers. Serious violence unfolds tragically before our eyes in a scene that is uniquely dense with piles of figures, and an orchestra of details. Cole offers us a glimpse into a chaotic moment in which figures are battling, buildings are burning, and massive clouds of smoke fill the sky, as the sun sets on Cole’s collapsing empire. The painting’s largest figure is a massive, damaged sculpture of a soldier thrusting his chipped shield forward, symbolizing an empire’s aggressive tendencies to seek conquest and to, thereby, praise the means to that end—war. Lost in its own self-indulgence and unquenchable need for more, the empire’s great capitol falls, and its inhabitants pay the price. The blind celebration of the previous painting has devolved into all-out bloodshed, fear, and chaotic disorder. The destructive spirit that built the empire has karmically turned to devour itself.
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