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.
Pope Francis joins celebration of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation
Five hundred years Christianity experienced a painful schism when the Protestant Reformation was born. Catholicism and Protestantism have been struggling ever since and its leaders—more often than not—have been unable to present a joint spiritual leadership to the masses. So it’s remarkable Read More...
What Silicon Valley can learn from Buddha’s diet
As we walk, Dan Zigmond pulls on a black baseball cap. The sun is high, and the trees give little shade. It’s a big park—stretching across a good nine acres of grass, mulch, shrubs, and gravel paths—but from where we are, it looks much bigger. Beyond the nine acres, all we can see are more Read More...
Fire, the wheel and the other Top 18 greatest inventions of all time
Yes, antibiotics and the car are also on the list. But here’s a test: Write your own list on a piece of paper before you click, and, possibly even more important, take a moment to consider how creativity can further improve the human experience. Technology is a core component of our existence. We Read More...
Swiss railway ticket machines to sell Bitcoin digital currency
From next week railway travelers in Switzerland will be able to trade Swiss francs for Bitcoins using ticket machines. The Swiss railway services SBB says it has been testing customer demand for Bitcoin across the country and had decided to launch a two-year pilot project. “There have been few Read More...
Try stealing this bike while not vomiting
The Optimist Daily also has roots in the Netherlands, a country with more bikes than people. A country too with low crime rates. However, stealing bikes happens all the time. As far as we know, the Dutch haven’t figured out this very effective solution: A lock that emits chemicals that make Read More...
Why real peace in Colombia matters to the U.S. and the rest of the Americas
In Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novel The General in His Labyrinth, the Columbian Nobel Prize laureate imagines General Simon Bolivar musing as he tries to liberate South America in the 19th century: “I go to seek a great perhaps.” This moody sentiment has distinct echoes in Colombia Read More...
Regular meditation more beneficial than vacation
As mindfulness meditation and yoga have become mainstream and more extensively studied, growing evidence suggests multiple psychological and physical benefits of these mindfulness exercises, as well as for similar practices like tai chi and qi gong. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses analyzing Read More...
Training in your sleep leads to better physical performance
What if you could use the hours you sleep at night to train yourself physically? It’s long been known that when you picture yourself performing a sport, the same neurons are fired up as if you were actually playing it. This act strengthens your motor connections between the brain and the body, Read More...
South Sudan artists paint for peace in Juba
After nearly three years of devastating civil conflict, South Sudanese artists have come together to try and get the country thinking and talking about peace, by launching a public art project in the capital Juba. Having spread its message over many of the walls in Juba, the team now plans to Read More...
Crowdfunding: the new buzzword for academics needing research money
When Professor Dave Goulson decided to study the impact of pesticides on bees, he didn’t rate his chances of getting funding from one of the big research councils. The University of Sussex biologist turned to the public, raising almost £8,000 through crowdfunding for the screening for Read More...