Welcome to Sync & Thrive. You design everything else together. Why not your health? Every Friday, we share how to move, connect, nourish, and recover as a team. New here? Subscribe.
👋 Happy Tuesday, Ladies and Gents,
We hit the ground running this week. In our latest episode, Wellness Meets Marriage, we ask what your marriage would look like if it felt easier. Easier doesn’t mean avoiding hard conversations. It starts with each of you owning what you bring to the relationship, naming what isn’t working, and looking at the environment you’re creating for each other.
We also get into what happens when one of you is making progress with your health and the other feels behind, and how to define success together without comparing your relationship to anyone else’s.
🎙️ Episode 3 of The Couples Lab is live!
A new episode will land in your inbox every Tuesday. Along with it, we'll share a few things we're using, watching, and talking about that week.
Here's what we have for you today.
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Where we went
We have fond memories of watching David Chang make ramen on The Mind of a Chef together. Those episodes come to mind every fall, when it starts getting chilly here in the PNW. The leaves have changed colors, and the cooler evenings have brought proper sweater weather. Before long, the rain will settle in for the season. Nothing warms you up like a hot bowl of soup, and for us, that’s hitting our local ramen shop.
Ramen is a treat for the two of us, and our favorite spot for it is FuddoYama Ramen in Beaverton. They don’t take reservations, so get there early on a weekend and grab a bowl while the weather is cold.
If Paris is on your travel list, add Kodawari Ramen. We ate at the Yokocho location back in 2024, and it lived up to its reputation. Kodawari earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand, and a bowl there costs about the same as one here in Oregon. Go figure.
Name that song
Here is your trivia for the week. This song came out in 1984, and it shares its title with the movie it was written for. A hit Netflix show used it to close its final episode last New Year’s Eve, and the artist’s estate almost never lets anyone use it. After that episode aired, Gen Z streams of the song jumped 577%. We only know the chorus and the whoo whoo whoo part, and our house sings both on repeat.
What we are using
How do the two of you feel when you get into bed at night, and how easily does each of you fall asleep? On the nights we need some help getting to sleep, we reach for MaryRuth’s L-Theanine. We like it because it helps our minds settle so we can fall asleep on our own.
L-theanine is an amino acid found in tea leaves. Your body absorbs it through the gut, and it crosses into the blood-brain barrier, where it may increase alpha waves, the brain activity linked to a calm, relaxed state. In a randomized controlled trial, 30 healthy adults took 200 mg of L-theanine a day for four weeks. Compared with a placebo, they fell asleep more easily, had fewer sleep disturbances, and relied less on sleep medication. The one we take has the same 200 mg per serving, and we can vouch that it works for us. (We may earn a small commission from affiliate links.)
We hope you enjoy this weeks pod. Have a wonderful rest of your week.
💛 Jaylene & Aaron, Sync & Thrive Team
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P.S. If you're new here, welcome. 👋 We're glad you found us. Everything we write is designed to help you and your partner build your health together, on your terms. The best place to start is with the Sync Quiz™.
P.P.S. If there’s a dynamic in your relationship you’d like us to explore, send us a note at [email protected]. Many of our best topics start with reader conversations.
🖊️ Most of what we write about lives inside four everyday areas of life together: how we move, eat, connect, and reset.