How to help an anxious kid through back-to-school season
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM If you've ever driven away from school while your kid was still crying at the door, you know the horrible feeling. The half-formed urge to turn the car around. The uncertainty about whether going back would help or just make it worse. The guilt riding shotgun Read More...
Rage workouts don't calm you down, research finds. Here's what does.
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Slamming tires with a sledgehammer, pummeling a punching bag, running yourself into the ground when you're furious: the premise behind rage workouts is that intense physical exertion gives anger somewhere to go. A 2024 review of 154 studies covering more than Read More...
5 phrases to teach kids that will serve them for life
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You spend the first few years of your kid's life repeating words back to them, hoping one will stick. "Mama." "Dada." "Ball." And then suddenly you're coaching them through "please" and "thank you" and "sorry," because those are the words that help life run a Read More...
What forest bathing does to your body, and the 5 best places to try it
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You probably already know the feeling, even if you’ve never had a name for it. The way your shoulders drop and relax the moment you step under a canopy of trees. How the breath comes a little easier. The mental noise that slowly melts away, not because of Read More...
New Mexico court orders Meta to pay $942m over child harms
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM New Mexico just became the first state to hold Meta financially liable for harms to children’s mental health. The total bill is now $942m. The new ruling, handed down last week on Thursday, added $567m to the $375m penalty imposed in March, when a jury Read More...
Children learn to be alone through love, not distance
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM There is something that makes adults uneasy about a child playing alone. A kid absorbed in something private at a playground edge, a bedroom door closed for an afternoon. These scenes have a way of triggering concern. Are they OK? Do they need something? Read More...
How to build perspective as a daily practice for resilience
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Picture yourself running late to a dreaded appointment. Your shoulders climb toward your ears, your jaw tightens, and every red light feels like a targeted attack. Now picture driving that same route because you’re about to share wonderful news with close Read More...
The case for clearing your calendar one weekend a month
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Summer has a way of sneaking up on you. In May, you were excited about everything: the outdoor concert, the friend’s rooftop birthday, the weekend trip to the coast. Now it’s the end of July, you’ve been to all of it, and you’re still waking up Monday Read More...
Soft decluttering: the low-pressure method for a tidier home
BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM You know the feeling: you walk toward the hall closet with good intentions, reach for the handle, and stop. The coats are in there, somewhere. So are the shoes that were trendy two seasons ago, a bag you haven’t opened in months, and something that might be Read More...
Podcast Transcript July 24th, 2026— The science of soccer-stress, salsa dancing for depression, and why summer slips away
Episode Description: Watching a tense soccer match nearly doubles cardiac event risk, and cortisol could start rising fourteen hours before kickoff. With Spain just taking the World Cup, a fair portion of the world’s population has basically been running a biological experiment on Read More...