Lifestyle
Alongside taking care of other people and the planet, make sure you take good care of yourself. The Lifestyle section at the Optimist Daily has solutions for everyday wellbeing on topics like food, beauty, fashion, and the latest trends. Curious about caring for houseplants, eating plant-based, or parenting tips? It’s all in there.
Reducing microplastic exposure: the four habits we should all be prioritizing
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM In 2025, researchers publishing in Nature Medicine found microplastics in human brain tissue at concentrations considerably higher than in the liver or kidneys. The year before, scientists at Columbia and Rutgers counted hundreds of thousands of nanoplastic Read More...
Africa secures $900 million in new clean cooking commitments
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Nearly one billion people across Africa cook over charcoal or firewood every day. $3.1 billion in commitments is what it’s going to take to change that, and the number keeps climbing. African countries secured $900 million in new financial commitments to Read More...
5 French principles for eating that Americans would do well to borrow
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Think about the last time you ate lunch without also doing something else. Not at your desk, not in the car, not scrolling. Just sitting with food and letting it be the thing. For a lot of Americans, it’s hard to remember. For the French, it’s just Read More...
The 30 percent parenting rule: how to raise securely attached kids
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you're a parent, you've had these moments. Not the big, dramatic parenting failures, the ones easy to identify and easier to learn from. The small ones. You held it together through the checkout meltdown, through the bath time standoff, through the third Read More...
Illinois found a smarter way to close the menopause care gap
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton set up a series of financial wellness conversations with women around the state. She expected to hear about rent, wages, and the cost of groceries. What she kept hearing about was menopause: what it was doing to their work, Read More...
Using eucalyptus oil to repel household pests: what the experts say
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You might already have eucalyptus oil at home, maybe for the diffuser or a bundle you hang in the shower. It also happens to be something pests avoid. The scent is sharp and herbal, nothing like what rodents or crawling insects encounter in the wild, and that Read More...
7 simple rituals that help you feel like yourself again
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There’s a specific kind of "off" that’s difficult to capture or express in words. No, you're not feeling sick or sad. You're not stressed exactly. Just... off. A little irritable, a little flat, carrying something you can’t quite put your finger on. Read More...
Digital decluttering tips that work without clearing your whole schedule
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You know that thing where you sit down to find one photo from last summer, and somehow it’s thirty minutes later, and you’re in 2019? Digital clutter does that. A chaotic phone or a laptop full of half-forgotten downloads creates the same low-level stress Read More...
5 grooming habits every man should build into his routine
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Men’s grooming has always occupied a strange middle ground. Too much and you’re vain. Too little and people notice. For most men, the default settled around soap, a razor, and deodorant, and that was that. Dermatologists have been making the case for Read More...
Job instability is pushing people to rethink their lives, not just their resumes
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM For years, the go-to response to career difficulty was optimization. If work felt stagnant, or a job wasn’t coming through, the prescription was the same: update your resume, sharpen your skills, find a better angle. The assumption was that the system was Read More...