Today’s Solutions: October 28, 2026

“If you can see it, you can do it,” an old cliché that describes envisioning your goals. A new study conducted at Ohio University has taken that saying to the next level, and found that mental visions of exercise possibly play as critical of a roll in muscle growth as actually exercising. The study put casts around participants’ wrists and divided them into two groups. One group would spend five days a week doing mental exercises—imagining their wrists were going curls when they were really still in the cast—the other group did nothing. When the study was over both groups had weaker wrists but the group that did the mental exercises wrists had degenerated less—just 25 percent compared to 40 percent of the non-exercisers. So I guess it is all in your head, or at least around 15 percent.

Solutions News Source Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

Student Makers, a deeper dive: bringing free STEM to students on three contin...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM This article kicks off The Optimist Daily's Local Changemakers 2026 series, spotlighting changemakers 30 and under. It was ...

Read More

Meet Vivian Ho: the 17-year-old who built a supply network around dignity, no...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM This article is part of The Optimist Daily's Local Changemakers 2026 series, spotlighting changemakers 30 and under. Most ...

Read More

Sperm-sorting tech identifies strongest swimmers to help couples conceive

In-vitro fertilization is certainly a potential avenue for couples who are having problems conceiving a child due to low-quality sperm. However, the unfortunate fact of the matter is that ...

Read More

How one Maine school is helping students heal in nature

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM At Morse High School in Bath, Maine, detention doesn’t always mean fluorescent lights and silent classrooms. Thanks to ...

Read More