Health
Finding good health news amidst a pandemic can be quite daunting. That’s not the case with The Optimist Daily, where positive news is in high supply. Our Health section covers the latest good news from the health sector, featuring solutions ranging from mental and physical health to immunity, nutrition, and cutting edge medical research.
20 minutes of this simple breathing technique could lower your inflammation
Ever struggle to keep up with the heavy yoga breathing that everyone around you seems to do effortlessly? Well, it’s time to hone in your skills—in the name of gut health. According to a new study, pranayama—AKA the Ayurvedic breathing technique practiced in Read More...
Doing a stretch: how yoga is cutting stress in South African prisons
Raeez Safar sits in a grassy courtyard, his eyes closed as he lifts his hands to his face. The sleeves of his white top fall past his wrists, revealing a small, neat gang tattoo of the number “26”. Safar is one of more than 250 South African prisoners who regularly do yoga. He says it helps him Read More...
Why being optimistic is good for your health
Being hopeful and confident about the future or the successful outcome of something is actually unnatural to us human beings. Some research shows that people who are pessimistic are in fact more realistic. Evolutionarily, we were programmed to be pessimistic, to imagine the worst-case scenario, Read More...
Researchers restored a colony of microbes in the gut
Last month, Popular Science discussed the state of gut microbiome research and the often overgeneralized claims of many probiotics. As we concluded, the field is still in its infancy and one of the main challenges to creating effective prescription probiotics is that it’s extremely difficult Read More...
An experimental farm on the river Thames is changing the way city-dwellers eat
On a jetty jutting into the River Thames, they’ve founded Farmopolis, a space to explore how this could work. The project forms the beginnings of a social, technological, and agricultural prototype for urban farming. By Johanna Derry VICE Oct 3, 2016 Excerpt: Farmopolis is a project Read More...
Can agroecology feed the world and save the planet?
You wouldn’t necessarily know it, but right now Africa is facing a food crisis. With Brexit, global terror attacks, the war in Syria and the seemingly endless string of sporting fixtures vying for our collective attention in 2016 so far, the fact that up to 50 million people across east and Read More...
This is what people eat in the 5 healthiest countries in the world
In September, a study published by The Lancet compared the health of people in countries around the world. Using data from the Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors research carried out from 1990 to 2015, a Socio-demographic Index found that Iceland, Singapore, Sweden, Andorra, and Read More...
Study: Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s begin with inflammation in your gut
Another study links gut health to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Inflammation in the gut ultimately causes inflammation in the brain. Keeping your colon healthy is a vital investment in your Read More...
Eating less junk food makes you healthier… and saves the environment
More about food and health: It doesn’t serve your health when you consume foods and drinks that don’t provide nutrients to your body. You know. What you may not know is that, according to new research, junk food contributes between 33 and 39 percent of the food-related use of water, land, Read More...
The world doesn't need GMOs to feed Earth's growing population, report says
This is not the first report that debunks the claim of GMO companies like Monsanto that claim that only industrial agriculture can feed the Earth’s swelling population. But this is a message that needs to be repeated again and again: There are healthy and environmentally friendly ways to feed the Read More...