BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM When anxiety starts creeping in, many people instinctively reach for music. A calming playlist, a pair of headphones, and a few quiet minutes can make a noticeable difference. Science increasingly backs up that instinct, with new research suggesting that the length of time you listen may matter as much as the music itself. Recent studies indicate that roughly 24 minutes of music may provide the most meaningful relief for anxiety symptoms. Even more interesting, music paired with a technique known as auditory beat stimulation (ABS), sometimes called binaural beats, appears to amplify those calming effects. Together, the findings offer a simple, accessible tool for anyone looking to support their mental well-being. What the research says about music and anxiety relief A 2025 study published in PLOS Mental Health explored whether the amount of time spent listening to music influences how much anxiety decreases. Researchers recruited 144 participants who reported moderate levels of anxiety and were already taking medication to manage their symptoms. Participants were divided into four groups. One group listened to pink noise for 24 minutes, serving as the control condition. The other groups listened to music embedded with auditory beat stimulation for 12, 24, or 36 minutes. All three music groups reported greater reductions in anxiety compared with the pink noise group. However, the most notable improvement came from the 24-minute listening session. That length produced stronger results than the 12-minute version and performed just as well as the longer 36-minute session. These findings build on a 2022 study published in PLOS ONE, which included 163 participants also taking medication for anxiety. That research found that music combined with ABS helped reduce both physical symptoms of anxiety such as a racing heart, and the mental cycle of worry often described as cognitive anxiety. Together, the studies suggest that music can be a powerful support tool on its own, but combining it with auditory beat stimulation may offer even greater benefits. What is auditory beat stimulation? Auditory beat stimulation may sound technical, but the concept is relatively straightforward. The technique layers specific sound frequencies into music to influence the brain’s electrical activity. Instead of simply playing relaxing music, ABS introduces two slightly different frequencies that play in each ear. When the brain processes these sounds, it perceives a third rhythmic pulse that reflects the difference between the two frequencies. This process, known as brainwave entrainment, can encourage brain activity to shift toward calmer patterns. The earlier 2022 study used theta-range frequencies between four and seven hertz, which are often associated with deep relaxation and drowsiness. The 2025 study used alpha frequencies around ten hertz, which tend to support a calm but alert mental state. Both approaches showed benefits for anxiety, suggesting the method works across different frequency ranges. Why 24 minutes may be the ideal listening window The idea that exactly 24 minutes works best may sound oddly specific, but researchers believe there are a few practical reasons behind it. First, the brain typically needs a few minutes to settle into the listening experience. Much like meditation, the early moments often involve adjusting to the quiet and letting racing thoughts slow down. By the time that initial adjustment passes, the brain is more receptive to the calming frequencies embedded in the audio. The remaining listening time allows the brain to stay in that relaxed state long enough for the effects to build. Researchers also noted that 24 minutes offers a useful balance between effectiveness and convenience. While 36 minutes showed similar benefits, the shorter duration is easier for most people to fit into a daily routine. It is also worth remembering that participants in both studies were already receiving treatment for anxiety. This suggests that music with ABS works best as a complementary strategy rather than a replacement for therapy or medication. How to try this in everyday life Turning this research into a practical habit is fairly simple. A few small adjustments can make the experience more effective. Aim for about 24 minutes of listening.  If you can carve out that amount of time, research suggests it may offer the strongest benefit. Longer sessions can work as well, but even shorter listening periods may still help. Search for binaural beats or ABS tracks.  Streaming services and wellness apps often label these as “binaural beats” or “auditory beat stimulation.” Many playlists are specifically designed for relaxation or stress relief. Use headphones.  Because the technique relies on delivering slightly different frequencies to each ear, headphones are essential for the effect to work properly. Choose a calm moment in your day.  Many people find it helpful to listen during a commute, before bedtime, or as a midday reset when stress begins to build. A simple tool for everyday calm Music has long been a reliable companion during stressful moments, and this research offers clearer guidance on how to use it more intentionally. It is not a substitute for professional care when that is needed, but since most people are already reaching for a playlist when things feel heavy, a small adjustment in how you listen could make that habit more effective.     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post Why 24 minutes of music may help reduce anxiety, according to research first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A quick note: this article walks through how water cremation works, including some detail about the process. If you’d prefer to jump straight to the environmental and policy context, feel free to scroll to the subheadings. Scotland is making history in end-of-life care. As of this year, families there now have a third option alongside burial and traditional cremation: alkaline hydrolysis, more commonly known as water cremation. It’s already legal in the Republic of Ireland and across much of the United States, and the company leading its UK introduction is calling it the biggest change to cremation law since the practice was first regulated in 1902. How it works The process begins with the body being wrapped in a biodegradable shroud, typically silk or wool, before being placed in a pressurized chamber with hot water and potassium hydroxide. Heated to 150 degrees Celsius (300 degrees Fahrenheit) for up to 90 minutes, the solution gradually dissolves soft tissue, leaving only the bones. Those are rinsed at 120 degrees Celsius (248 degrees Fahrenheit), dried, and pulverized into a coarse powder using a machine called a cremulator. The remains are then returned to the family in an urn, much like traditional cremation ashes. The environmental case The numbers here are notable. A standard cremation produces the equivalent of roughly 320 kilograms (about 705 pounds) of carbon dioxide. Alkaline hydrolysis emits seven times less. For families weighing their environmental footprint as part of end-of-life planning, that gap is significant. It’s worth noting that water cremation was the method chosen by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the anti-apartheid activist and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, when he died in 2021. Public Health Minister Jenni Minto described the process as “an environmentally friendly alternative” to existing options, adding: “The choices people make about their remains prior to death are deeply personal, shaped by individual values, beliefs and the wishes of their families. The process will be subject to the same assurances and regulatory requirements as existing methods, giving bereaved families confidence that their loved ones are treated with care, dignity and respect.” What comes next Before water cremations can begin in Scotland, hydrolysis equipment will need to be built and approved, a process that will require planning permission and sign-off from Scottish Water. The Scottish government expects the first procedures to take place this summer. Kindly Earth, which holds exclusive UK rights to manufacture the equipment, says it has been in discussions with several Scottish organizations for years. General manager Helen Chandler was measured about its likely uptake. “We know that not everyone will choose hydrolysis — and that’s the point. It’s about giving families more choice,” she said. “Each family has different values and priorities. Some people, particularly those planning ahead for their own funeral, are looking for options that feel more aligned to their own preferences.” Andrew Purves, chief operations director at William Purves funeral directors, welcomed the change. “For me, funerals are all about choice and having a funeral that somebody feels is fitting to them,” he said, noting that some clients have already written water cremation into their future funeral plans. Pricing is expected to be similar to, or slightly above, the cost of a standard cremation. A policy shift worth watching Scotland’s move is likely to be the first of several across the UK. For now, families in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland remain limited to burial or flame cremation. Watching how water cremation is received in Scotland, and whether demand builds, will almost certainly shape what comes next elsewhere. For anyone thinking about their own end-of-life wishes, the arrival of a lower-carbon, fully regulated option is a meaningful shift. The choice, as it should be, is now more personal than ever.     Did this solution stand out? Share it with a friend or support our mission by becoming an Emissary.The post Scotland legalizes water cremation, giving families a greener third option first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.

The ‘90s are often depicted as a golden age. A time of less violence, more money, better music, equal rights, unprecedented technological progress, and Beanie Babies instead of Labubus. A time of peace throughout the land. However, take a quick romp through actual history and we see that when we take the rose-colored glasses off, the ’90s weren’t without its less-that-stellar moments. Furthermore, there was a lot more nuance to it than teens wearing a bunch of flannel and listening to grunge music. Across several Reddit threads, people who actually lived through the ’90s have shared some prime examples of how we get the ’90s wrong and elements we have completely forgotten about, from recalling society’s very unhealthy obsession with thinness, to police brutality, to the questionable hunter green/maroon craze (remember that?). Take a scroll down memory lane with our 15 favorites: 1.”The early 90s and late 90s were two very different times culturally. I can’t stand it when I see a picture of the spice girls with a ‘So 90s!’ caption.” “There’s a HUGE difference between the early 90’s and late 90’s. After 1996 it was more millennial, Pokémon, Britney Spears vs the early 90’s which was more grunge and smooth RnB.” 2. “Not all Gen Xers were disinterested slackers in the 90s.” “I graduated from university in 1991. I spent the 1990s trying to get a decent job, pay rent and generally just getting my shit together. Most other people my age seemed to be doing pretty much the same thing, unless they had rich parents.” 3. “Nobody seems to talk about all the maroon and hunter-green wallpaper strips that were added to the top of the walls in houses. Maroon and hunter-green everywhere. From cars to vacuums and beyond.” “My comforter set for my freshman dorm (Fall 1994) was maroon on one side, hunter green on the other. I realized it was dark and depressing so I got a girlie daisy print bedspread for the rest of college.” View this post on Instagram 4. “Money was tight then, too. People were happy with fewer luxuries, because we could get by. And the very idea of giving a child a device worth hundreds of dollars was ludicrous! I still feel this way.” 5. “A lot of people talk about the 90s like it was a utopian decade. Sure, a lot of stuff was awesome. But there was also the AIDS epidemic, the crack epidemic, the heroin epidemic, lots of police brutality, the sharp uptick in domestic terrorism, etc. plus the casual sexism, racism, & homophobia. The hope for the future that started in late 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the heating up of our economy in the mid-90s only lasted until 2000. It was a very brief window, in retrospect.” 6. “Female celebrities were shrinking to child sizes and getting praised for it. ‘Thinspo’ was a thing. ALL my friends group from high school and college, including myself, had eating disorders — Marlboro Light and Diet Coke for every meal. Our idea of sports was extreme cardio only. We were SO unhealthy. Thank God we were young enough to bounce back to normal without major issues.” 7. “That Nirvana ruled the 90s, and killed off all other forms of hard rock. They hit hard for about two and a half years, and then we were stuck with Tonic and the goddamn Spin Doctors.” “A lot of people mention grunge and gangsta rap, but country was very hot too. Country line dancing became a big thing, Branson, Missouri became a big tourist destination with its theaters, and artists like Garth Brooks and Shania Twain made tons of money.” “I don’t think the Riot Grrrl movement gets enough recognition and acknowledgment as an extremely significant 90s cultural event.” 8. “I think one idea that’s misrepresented is that we were already online, all the time.” “I mean, I was STOKED when I got into the dorm with LAN connections in 1993, but I was an outlier. Lots of kids at my college barely understood using computers, much less anything internet-related beyond maybe an AOL/AIM. Obviously this was an evolution of ten very fast moving years.” 9. “That mom Jeans were cool. No one under 35 wore them.” 10. “Not everyone wore Doc Martens back in the 1990s. Many people wore military boots as a fashion statement that were often mistaken for Doc Martens, while others wore sneakers every day, even in venues where they should have been wearing more formal shoes.” 11. “Cellphones were considered tacky and unnecessary unless you were a doctor.” 12 .”Not everyone got around on rollerblades.” 13. “Property was cheaper, not cheap as in affordable to all.” 14. “If your family lived in a rural area and wasn’t rich enough to immediately buy a computer, you could be lonely in a way that people can’t even comprehend now. I spent the last two years of high school doing nothing, watching TV and playing 16-bit RPGs repeatedly because I couldn’t get anywhere or do anything.” 15. “Drunk driving didn’t have the stigma it does today. It took a long campaign waged by MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) to shift public perception on how dangerous drunk driving is.” This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.The post Adults who lived through the 90s share 15 things we all misremember about the decade appeared first on Upworthy.

Generation X occupies an interesting time in history, for those who care to recognize that they actually exist. They were born between 1965 and 1980 and came into this world at an interesting inflection point: women were becoming a larger part of the workplace and divorce was at the highest point in history. This left Gen X to be the least parented generation in recent history. Gen X was overlooked in their domestic lives and culturally were overshadowed by Baby Boomers with their overpowering nostalgia for Woodstock, The Beatles, and every cultural moment celebrated in Forest Gump. Once Boomer navel-gazing nostalgia began to wane, a much larger and over-parented generation, the Millennials, came on the scene. “Whereas Boomers were the ‘me generation’ and millennials were the ‘me me me generation,’ Gen X has become the ‘meh’ generation,” Emily Stewart writes at Business Insider. But even if Gen X is a little aloof, that doesn’t mean they aren’t totally rad, awesome, trippindicular, and that it’d be bogus to define them any other way. To explain the unique history of Gen X and why they’re often overlooked, history teacher Lauren Cella created a timeline on TikTok to explain them to her Gen Z students. @laurencella92 A love letter to Gen X from your millennial cousin? Gen X didn’t start the fire, so after this I will just leave them alone because they do not care ? But seriously for a generation that sometimes gets “forgotten” and stuck between the larger boomer or millennial cohorts, the genres they created paved the way for pop culture as we know it. I’m still not sure who let kids watch “The Day After” on TV or play on those hot metal playgrounds, but Gen X survived to tell the tale. Today, the so called “latchkey” kids, born 1965-1980 are actually super involved as parents, aunts, uncles, teachers (or maybe even grandparents)?. Kids today want to say they are “built different” but I think Gen X is the one holding down that title because they grew up tough, they saw too much, they made it out, and they know exactly who they are and wouldn’t have it any other way. g#genx ♬ original sound – laurencella In Cella’s video, she divides Gen X into three distinct phases. Phase 1: 1970s stagflation and changing families “Gas shortages meant stagflation. So parents either both had to work or maybe they were divorced. So that meant microwave TV dinners and kids that sort of raised themselves,” Cella explains. “There was no parenting blogs, there was no after-school travel sports, emailing. Like, none of that existed. Bored? Go outside.”     Phase 2: The neon ‘80s “But then came the 1980s, where everything was big and loud. The hair, the bangs, the Reaganomics, mass consumerism (because now we can trade with China). The whole media just exploded,” Cella says. “But now we have TV, we have movies, we have TV, movies, home movies, TV movies, favorite TV movies, music, music, Videos, music, video, television. All these different genres and all these different cliques and all these different ways that you can express yourself.”     Phase 3: 1990s post-Cold War Skepticism “Gen X sort of comes into the 1990s more sarcastic and skeptical,” Cella continues. “The Cold War ending meant that they rejected the excess of the eighties. And there’s the shift. Grunge, indie, alternative, flannels, Docs [Doc Martins]. At this point, the technology is also exploding, but not like fun home media, but like corporate media. So there’s this resistance to sell-out culture.”     Cella has a theory on why Gen X seems forgotten, and it’s not just because CBS News famously denied its existence. She believes that it comes down to Gen X’s inability to call attention to itself. “So Gen X is a bridge between these two larger, more storied generations. So it’s not necessarily that they get forgotten. They don’t really want the attention. They’re kind of fine to just like, fly under the radar like they always have, because honestly, it’s whatever.” This article originally appeared last year. It has been updated.The post Millennial history teacher explains the 3 phases of Gen X and why they were ‘forgotten’ appeared first on Upworthy.

It’s hard to say what makes every woman happy or what every woman wants, and as a woman myself, I’m not a fan of sweeping generalizations based on gender. However, there are certain elements of walking through the world as a woman that are fairly universal, which makes me feel confident in saying this: If you ever want to see pure, spontaneous joy, watch a woman put on a dress and suddenly realize it has pockets! Happy Fashion GIF by Rosanna Pansino Giphy Women’s clothes are notorious for having either no pockets (most dresses) or pockets that are barely usable (most jeans and dress pants). And this isn’t just a perception—a 2018 study by The Pudding found that, on average, the front pockets on women’s jeans are 48% shorter and 6.5% narrower than they are on men’s jeans. I have pants in my wardrobe that look like they have both front and back pockets, but they don’t; where the pocket opening would be is sewn shut. Faux pockets may sound dumb—because they are—but they’re not uncommon. And some pockets are so small you can’t even fit a ChapStick into them. To test whether women’s pockets really are as bad as they (we) say they are, popular vlogger Nick Wilkins tried on a pair of women’s jeans. The fit was great and they looked fine. But the moment he held up the items he usually puts in his own pockets, women collectively let out a loud “HA!” Sure enough, when he tried to put his phone and wallet in the pockets, his reaction reflected what women have said countless times ourselves: “Are you serious? That’s all it does?” @n1ckwilkins ♬ original sound – Nick Wilkins Yep, that’s really all they do, and yes, they really are that bad. “Now I know why you guys wear purses,” Wilkins said before having an epiphany. “You guys don’t have pockets with dresses, too!” Exactly. Hence the “It has pockets!” elation described above. “Um, people who make women pants,” Wilkins said, “let’s start putting some depth in there, why don’t we.” Seriously, though, why don’t we? What’s up with women’s clothing and the dearth of pockets? @technically.a.tech Why are our pockets so shallow?! #pockets #pantspockets #womeninstem #womenonconstruction #womenintrades #giveuspockets #workwear #womensworkwear #ppe ♬ original sound – Constanza As it turns out, the history of women’s clothing and pockets goes way back, and, of course, there have been various trends and shifts over time. Some people have posited that companies don’t put usable pockets into women’s clothing so that they can sell more purses and handbags. However, according to a deep dive in FASHION Magazine, that’s not quite the whole story. Believe it or not, we’re still living with leftover, outdated notions of men being active and women being passive, with men’s clothing needing to be functional and women’s clothing desiring form over function. “Essentially: Men are required to act and therefore need practical clothing,” writes Annika Lautens. Women are expected to simply appear and be watched—their beauty prioritized above all else. And these outdated gender ideals are still being sewn directly into our clothing.” The irony, of course, is that women tend to carry more things than men. Sure, sometimes that necessitates a purse, but sometimes you don’t want to carry something extra. Pockets are nice. They’re convenient, helpful, and functional. We want them. We need them. What in the name of patriarchy is the problem here? @ericdalessandro #GiveWomenPockets #fyp #fy #foryoupage #foryou ♬ original sound – Eric D’Alessandro It can’t be that hard to make normal pants for women with decent pockets. Jeans with decent pockets. Dress pants with decent pockets. And yes, dresses with pockets, too. We are seeing more independent and female-led clothing makers providing pockets, and clearly the awareness about it is finally kicking in pretty universally. But as most women can attest, it remains an issue. Maybe women would simply be too powerful if we all had pockets. Maybe this will be our ultimate last stand. Pockets or bust, ladies. Pockets or bust. This article originally appeared [time-difference] ago. It has been updated.The post ‘Are you serious?’ Man tries on women’s jeans to see if the pockets are ‘really that bad’ appeared first on Upworthy.