Mental Health
Here you can read the latest news and research studies covering mental health. This is also the place to find out about different strategies on how you can reduce stress and boost happiness, and many other ways to look after your mental wellbeing.
Researchers find companionship may reduce risk of Alzheimer's
Here at The Optimist Daily, we’ve written a great deal about the contributing factors to Alzheimer's disease and what you can do to help avoid it yourself. Exercise, proper diet, even knitting, and nifty nasal sprays can improve your chances, but recent findings suggest that just keeping in Read More...
Stop being so hard on yourself, monkeys choke under pressure too
We’ve all been there: stepped up to do an important presentation or phone call and the words come bumbling out of our mouths in the wrong order or sometimes not at all. These situations can leave us embarrassed and cringing, even though everyone experiences them. New research, from Georgia Read More...
Why love is sometimes hard to take and how to learn to accept it
Love can be passionate and romantic, throwing you off balance in delightful ways. It can be soft and subtle, welcoming as a balmy summer evening. The shared intimacies, humor, and kindnesses can become touchstones in times of disruption: a salve after a day spent wrestling obligations or a couple Read More...
How to have a healthy fight in a relationship
It’s inevitable that you will fight in a relationship. A conflict is an interaction between two people who care, and some psychologists would say that the relationships with no conflict are the ones whose flame has died out. While it is unavoidable, conflict in a relationship doesn’t need Read More...
Understanding the brain through mindful mandala coloring
Mandala coloring is a centuries-old tradition. Coloring in these beautiful geometric configurations has been used by many as a technique for mindfulness, focusing your concentration on a certain task to improve overall mental health and wellbeing. Researchers, from the University of Lancaster, Read More...
Eccentric helmet may be the future of brain scans
We love reporting the latest cutting-edge medical inventions here at The Optimist Daily. In the past few months, we’ve written about an antibiotic-resistant sensor that drastically reduces diagnosis time and a magnetic device for better prosthetic limb control. This time we want to tell you about Read More...
Rethinking “consent” part II—offering a sexy gift
In part one of this two-part series, we discussed the limitations of consent as a concept when applied to sexual engagements. We dove into senior research scholar and philosophy professor at Georgetown University Rebecca Kulka’s essay “Sex Talks” to explore how extending sexual invitations is Read More...
How to break up with your phone
It’s dawning on many of us that the way we engage with our phones simply isn’t healthy. According to data from Moment, a time-tracking app with almost five million users, the average person spends four hours a day on their phone. To make matters worse, according to a recent Pew Research Center Read More...
Best friends, lovers, or both? Relationship experts on defining a romantic relationship
While some people might believe that being best friends with their romantic partner is the relationship ideal, not everyone agrees. To others, a best friend and a romantic partner are and should be two different relationships. However, according to relationship experts, the answer to this question Read More...
Putting the moves on your own self — 6 benefits of masturbation
In light of Valentine’s week, we’re exploring all aspects of intimacy and love here at The Optimist Daily, so of course we had to write a feature on that most important of all love relationships — our relationship with our own self. It is perhaps the first sexual relationship you ever had, Read More...