Books, podcasts, social media, and wellness influencers all seem to have their own formula for finding happiness. Most people have heard, more than once, to practice gratitude, meditate, exercise more, eat better, start a morning routine, or spend time in nature. None of this advice is bad. In fact, it’s backed by numerous studies that show these practices can make a positive difference. But these answers begin with the same assumption: that happiness is an individual pursuit. A new international study suggests the communities we live in matter a whole lot, too. Researchers analyzed responses from 97,220 people across 66 countries and identified five broad factors associated with happier societies. Friends enjoy a festival. Photo credit: Canva Creating a happy society involves more than personal happiness The study, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, examined more than 200 social and psychological variables before narrowing its focus to 56 that were associated with happiness. One of the study’s biggest takeaways was that a society’s well-being can’t be explained simply by adding up the happiness of the people who live there. Lead author Ewa Palikot, a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Psychology at the Polish Academy of Sciences, told PsyPost: “Meeting basic needs and having the freedom to work on personal goals are important, but so is the social environment in which we live. Societies are happier when they create conditions that benefit everyone, for example, by promoting equality, freedom of choice, trust, human rights, and institutions that work for the common good.” Happy Tiv drummers. Photo credit: Zasan Doshiyak/Wikimedia Commons 5 drivers of happiness The researchers grouped their findings into five drivers of happiness: individual emancipation, Enlightenment ideas and institutions, satisfying basic human needs, effective governing and security institutions, and community connectedness. Individual emancipation means the community advocates for equal rights, gender equality, acceptance of minority groups, and freedom for individuals to make autonomous choices. Interestingly, the researchers found that these values don’t necessarily make a person happy. Instead, inclusive societies raise happiness across the population. The second driver focused on Enlightenment ideas and institutions. A community that supports science, education, human rights, democracy, and critical thinking tended to score higher on both individual well-being and societal happiness. The third driver, meeting basic human needs, probably sounds familiar. Having access to food, housing, healthcare, and financial security remained one of the strongest predictors of personal happiness. The researchers noted that improving one person’s circumstances doesn’t automatically create a happier society for everyone else. The fourth driver involved effective governing and security institutions. When a community trusts the courts, police, and banks, people generally feel more secure in their daily lives. Again, the researchers found the benefit primarily operated at the individual level rather than across society as a whole. The fifth finding could be the most surprising. People who felt closely connected to their own neighborhoods and local communities tended to be happier. However, countries that placed stronger overall emphasis on close in-group ties actually reported lower societal happiness. Basically, having people you can count on is good for well-being. But when trust stops with family and immediate social circles and doesn’t extend to the wider community, trust in strangers declines, and the entire country may become less cohesive. A man on a solo climb. Photo credit: Canva Why do people believe happiness is an individual pursuit? If community plays an important role in our well-being, why does the pursuit of happiness so often focus on the individual? Mary McLaughlin, a psychotherapist in Virginia, told Upworthy it’s often easier to focus on ourselves than on the community around us. “We live in a culture that encourages and rewards independence, personal achievement and self-reliance,” said McLaughlin. “And let’s face it, it’s easier to do breathing exercises or write in a gratitude journal than it is to address food insecurity or affordable housing issues.” Dr. Suzi White, an assistant professor of education at the University of Cincinnati who researches happiness and social connection, says that belief is reinforced by the culture we’re surrounded by every day. “We live in a consumer society, where brands tell us that our happiness will improve when we buy their product. We receive messages daily that happiness is within our grasp,” White explained to Upworthy. “It then makes sense that we believe that through self-care, grit, extra effort (and maybe a purchase), we, too, can be happy.” Friends around a campfire. Photo credit: Canva What do these findings look like in real life for the average person? The good news is, building a happier community doesn’t require sweeping change. Sara Lichstein, a psychotherapist in California, shared with Upworthy, “For the average person, getting to know the people around you such as neighbors, people at your local stores or coffee shops, and feeling connected to a community, can all be wonderful ways to feel more connected and increase happiness.” She warns that when people focus on self-improvement, those efforts don’t necessarily diminish emotional distress and loneliness. “Research consistently demonstrates the importance of social support and its impacts on our overall health and well-being. Having social support helps manage stress, increase resilience, and contribute to an overall happier state,” Lichstein explained. White encourages investing time in your community as a pathway to happiness. “Anyone can help create a society where people’s basic needs are met by volunteering at organizations that provide services, voting, and advocating for policies that prioritize everyone’s well-being,” she said. “Investing your time in community is not a distraction from your happiness. It is a pathway to happiness.” The researchers are not arguing that individual happiness doesn’t matter. Basic needs, maintaining good health, and a sense of control over your own life remain essential to well-being. But the study suggests that creating conditions that benefit everyone may help explain why some societies are happier than others. Maybe happiness isn’t something we have to pursue alone. As White beautifully put it, “Consider how large your circle of care is, then widen it.” The post A study across 66 countries identified 5 things the happiest communities have in common appeared first on Upworthy.

Teaching is a career that can start young. New graduates are often tasked with leading a classroom in their very first year out of school. For high school, that means 21- or 22-year-olds are often teaching teenagers barely a few years younger than themselves. There’s an uncomfortable tension in these situations where boundaries can get blurry. All teachers, but especially younger teachers, have to learn quickly how to deal with students who get too chummy, or worse, overly flirtatious. High school teacher reveals mistake she made the first time a student hit on her Baylee Bretzing, a high school teacher and popular content creator, is 26 years old, married, and a mom. But that hasn’t stopped boys in her class from trying to flirt with her, especially back in her first year teaching. “I started teaching 17-year-olds as a 22-year-old,” she says in a recent TikTok video. “The first time it happened to me, I was shocked. I didn’t know what to do, so I just [laughed] and left the situation. Looking back, I wish I would have stood up for myself.” @baybretzing I’m definitely late to talking about this but I wanted to share some thoughts #teachersoftiktok #teachertok #haleybeck #boundaries #highschoolteacher ♬ original sound – Baylee Bretzing Setting boundaries as a young teacher She then offered some advice for the young teachers out there, admitting that it’s a reality that sometimes “high school boys try to hit on their teachers.” “You need to be loud and set your boundary in front of everybody,” Bretzing advises. “You stop in your tracks and you say loudly and seriously, ‘You say that one more time and I will kick you out of my class.'” Why not handle it privately or simply brush it off? Bretzing says that not only is the boundary important, setting the example of how to set it is a valuable lesson for her other students. “First of all, it sets a boundary. Second of all, it’s an example for the girls in your class of how not to be talked to.” Of course, it’s not just female teachers and male students. This is a problematic dynamic that defies gender, age, and even physical appearance. Megan Rotar, a psychologist, told Metro Parent, “Teachers, to students, are almost like celebrities. They are there to be supportive and help the students in learning and facilitate their growth. Sometimes the teachers will fulfill a need the student has, and that can lead to a crush.” Whether it’s a crush, trolling, teasing, or flirting for fun, teachers like Bretzing have to be ironclad in the boundaries they set, or the consequences can be disastrous. Teachers and experts are split on how to handle inappropriate comments Attraction, crushes, or flirting from students toward teachers is an inevitability, but there’s no one consensus on the best way to handle it. Bretzing has made her position clear: shut it down loudly, clearly, and, ideally, publicly. Her approach prevents others from trying anything inappropriate in the future and sets an example on how to hold personal boundaries. Many commenters on the now-viral video agreed: “I remember my first year of teaching at 21 and a senior boy invited me to his 18th birthday and all the kids in the class stared going ‘oooh’ and laughing. I didn’t smile or laugh, I immediately said ‘I’m not your peer or your bro, I’m your teacher and I expect to be treated that way.’ Never happened again in that class. Just don’t entertain it AT ALL” “Setting examples for the girls is so important! You’re a rockstar” “As a young high school teacher you have to set such strong boundaries. I told them straight off the bat that I am a mother and I see them as kids. I will parent them if I need too and yes they’re older high schoolers 16-18. The girls saw me at first as their bff and the guys were trying to be all nice and I was [like]… I’m Mom in this classroom I’m not the cool young teacher.” “This is the best take I’ve seen so far. That’s EXACTLY right. We are the adults, we have to set the boundaries and be firm. They are children and will push but we are responsible for teaching them NO. You’re amazing!” Other experts prefer to operate more delicately, either by ignoring the behavior, pulling a student aside for a one-on-one chat, or involving the parents and administrators if gentler approaches don’t work. They say humiliating a student can be really damaging. Ultimately, it’s a delicate situation that’s context-dependent. In Bretzing’s example, comments that are sexual, rude, or attention-seeking deserve a harsher response than mild fawning, for example. Every teacher will have to draw their own line. View this post on Instagram It’s a delicate scenario One thing a lot of teachers agree on is that education and training simply don’t prepare them for the uncomfortable reality of students being attracted to teachers close to their age. Education degrees cover academic and classroom management, but don’t often tackle the crucial topic of personal boundaries with students. It’s a tricky subject made fraught by bad stories in the news, but the unwillingness to talk about it makes things even more difficult for the well-meaning teachers who are struggling. One young teacher recently went viral because too many of her students were developing crushes and making her uncomfortable, so much so that she was considering leaving the profession. Unfortunately, it is part of the job, but it’s also a great opportunity to teach kids about boundaries. One day, they will need to know how to respect and enforce their own. The post Young high school teacher’s response to getting hit on by students sets a brilliant example appeared first on Upworthy.

Imagine yourself on Cape Cod on a bright summer afternoon. The water looks perfect: glassy, blue, reflecting the clouds like it’s a computer screensaver. Suddenly, a dozen or so women burst onto the scene. Not one is a day under 65, and they’re zipping themselves into wetsuits and spitting into their masks (to prevent fogging) before slipping beneath that pretty blue surface to retrieve all the secrets the pond’s been hiding: beer cans, golf balls, a car tire, and once, an 80-pound toilet. Who are these silver-haired, litter-busting sirens?  Meet the elite squad known as the “Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage” (OLAUG), a Cape Cod nonprofit made up of senior women who kayak, free-dive, and pull submerged trash out of freshwater ponds. They’re really good at it, too: By their own estimation, OLAUG has removed roughly 6,000 pounds of waste since the group’s founding in 2017. There are requirements to join, of course: Be a woman. Be at least 64 years old. Pass a swim test. (Tryouts are held in the spring, and members must be able to swim half a mile in under 30 minutes and free-dive to a minimum depth of 8 feet.) The magic lies within the first two prerequisites. Many of the group’s members arrive at OLAUG in search of something: identity, friends, purpose, excitement, joie de vivre. Rarely, trash. “By the time a woman is in her late 60s, she has experienced loss. People in our group have lost breasts, homes, husbands, and wealth,” says OLAUG’s 85-year-old founder, Susan Baur. “They are in the age of gratitude.” It started with turtles, not trash Baur is a retired psychologist who settled on Cape Cod in her early sixties and learned to love its ponds after deciding the open Atlantic was too dangerous  to swim in. She got attached to the ponds’ snapping turtles, giving them names like “Mr. Spot” and “Silver Patches.” This was strictly for practical reasons, she assures, claiming she needed a way to “distinguish them” in her mind. As more visitors arrived at the turtle pond, she tried everything to protect their habitat, from signs to homemade “turtle housing,” but nothing worked. Frustrated, Baur headed to the pond in 2017 and waved down a man in a yellow kayak, dropped a laundry basket between his legs, and the two of them—plus a couple of friends—fished out a haul of golf balls, cans, and bottles. Someone in the group joked they were “a bunch of old ladies against underwater garbage.” The name stuck. This is a serious operation (that refuses to take itself seriously) Yes, the group has a goofy name. But don’t underestimate them: the Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage mean serious business. Before each dive, ponds are systematically scouted and assessed, then verified with local pond coalitions to ensure they’re ready to be cleaned. Waters are tested for harmful blue-green algae and the toxins produced by its blooms, which can harm people, pets, and wildlife. On dive day, the roles are assigned, with each diver covering an area of expertise. Walkie-talkies are passed out, and safety protocols are carefully reviewed. A “beach boss” is at the helm of the operation, handling logistics and checking swimmers in and out of the water. The women gear up for battle, donning swimsuits, water shoes, swim caps, and wetsuits. Sunscreen and hats are in no short supply. View this post on Instagram Then the ladies get to work. “It’s kind of a treasure hunt for stuff that’s not supposed to be there,” Baur told WBZ-TV. A wildlife lookout swims point, steering everyone around snapping turtles. Divers plunge; kayakers collect. OLAUG cleans around 20 ponds a season, which runs from May through early October, and the water is cold enough that swimmers surface “mottled blue,” teeth chattering, grinning anyway. These women are as tough as the nails they extract from the ponds’ depths. “It’s just the best thing in the world, it really is,” said Susan Dropo, a member from Sandwich, Massachusetts. “[OLAUG] what we all didn’t know we needed, and every time we get together, it’s a blast.” Men can be helpful, but not in the water. As Baur put it, OLAUG’s male volunteers are welcome to “run the kayaks or bake cookies,” but they are not invited to swim. (They’re “too competitive,” she said.) Which brings up how the group gets paid: When pond associations offer to pay for OLAUG’s cleaning services, the group refuses cash but will happily work for cookies and hot chocolate. The ‘Old Ladies’ hit a flow state Somewhere in the pond’s blue waters, the women of OLAUG reach a flow state. “We’re addicted to vitality. We’re addicted to putting our finger in the socket of life,” said Baur. “The more ponds we clean up, the more enthusiastic we get, the happier we get, and it just revitalizes us every dive.”  For a few members, these expeditions have caused them to think differently about nature and their relationship to it. In an interview with the Cape Cod Times, Robin Melavalin recalls her first plunge into the pond and how she was struck by a “natural connection and desire” to keep this freshwater environment clean. “I have seen trash at ponds, but I was enveloped by the whole underwater experience as I became aware of the trash beneath the surface and saw it for myself,” she remembers. A pond in Massachusetts. Photo credit: Aldon Hynes/Flickr When the divers put on their masks, “there’s not one woman who’s thinking about what she’s making for dinner that night,” explained Baur. “You are totally out of your own head, immersed in the experience.” In a way, this form of free-diving acts as a spiritual practice: “We wade out of the water wetter, kinder, happier, and more empowered women,” she continued. “It’s the Zen of trash picking.” There are about 30 members in OLAUG now, ranging in age from 64 to 85. Everyone seems to want a spot, too. Its waitlist has grown so long that recent joiners admitted to begging their way in. Why it actually matters Cape Cod is home to nearly 900 freshwater ponds, and pollution in them is a problem. Baur describes hauls that include hazardous waste—”spent fireworks that are leaking perchlorates and car batteries”—and, in general, a lot of stuff that “really shouldn’t be there.” Golf balls pose a unique problem, too: Research teams at the Danish Golf Union discovered that it takes between 100 and 1,000 years for a golf ball to decompose naturally. When submerged underwater, it releases a “high quantity of heavy metals” and “dangerous levels of zinc” while breaking down. A basket of golf balls. Photo credit: Jocelyn Naubert/Flickr For our ladies in wetsuits, it’s difficult to measure the impact of OLAUG’s trash expeditions. But that’s almost beside the point. One member, Maggie Megaw, put it this way to The New York Times: “We are surrounded by so many really intractable problems. The water quality issues on Cape Cod are really serious, and the solutions have such a far horizon… [OLAUG’s work] is so tangible and immediate. We show up at the pond and swim, and we bring back a big pile of trash.” The psychology hiding in a snorkel Baur spent her career as a psychologist, so it’s only fitting that her “retirement project”—for which she’s earned a climate resiliency hero award from the American Red Cross of Massachusetts and was named to the 2025 class of the Explorers Club 50 (which honors people changing the world)—reads like an accidental study in aging well. She didn’t set out to build a wellness program. But anyone in her profession would recognize the importance of an organization like OLAUG, particularly for women over 65.  In 2022, Marci Johnson found her way to the group amid a year marked by trauma. She had recently lost her husband, then discovered she had developed breast cancer. “I had tried other volunteer things,” Johnson explained on NPR’s Morning Edition. From stuffing envelopes to planting trees to picking up trash on the side of the road, “None of them gave me that sense of adventure,” she said. View this post on Instagram OLAUG was different. Suddenly, she found herself surrounded by strong women, similar in age, who understood her grief. The baby snapping turtles gave her a renewed sense of purpose. “As I aged, I had the feeling of being invisible. When you get to be in your 60s, 70s, 80s, you just kind of fade into the background,” said Johnson. Then she laughs. “But with the work that we’re doing, I’m not in the background anymore.” Lisa Weiss, a retired high school math teacher, shared a similar sentiment. “I don’t quilt, I don’t crochet, that’s not how I’m going to fit in as I age,” she said. “This feeds you in a different way.” Finding your own pond The Old Ladies Against Underwater Garbage didn’t wait for permission, funding, or approval from anyone but themselves. Baur and her crew of divers looked at their little corner of the world and asked, “How can we make this better?” When they found the answer, they slapped on a snorkel, hopped in the water, and went diving. And now, as the group grows larger, its members are starting to discover, one pond at a time, that the trash was never the point—not fully. With every bucket of balls, pound of garbage, and bright blue toilet unearthed from the depths, they’re also pulling up proof: that you can be strong, still be useful, and surprise yourself, no matter what age you are. Your pond is out there. It’s filled with your version of snapping turtles. Whatever your version of freshly baked cookies is on the other side, waiting to reward you. So whatever you’ve been telling yourself you’re too old to start, first consider: What would OLAUG think? The post ‘Old Ladies’ are free-diving on Cape Cod. They’ve excavated 6,000 pounds of trash. appeared first on Upworthy.

Police have a difficult job to do. They’re usually the first to be called, even when the caller isn’t sure what is needed. This means that some calls require a more specialized approach than a typical crime response. In Salt Lake City, Utah, police officers found themselves in need of that specialized approach. Luckily for them and the people involved, the officers who arrived had been training for this day. The Salt Lake City Police Department received a call saying there was an assault against an elderly woman in progress. This turned out to be true, sort of. The body camera video was uploaded to the police department’s Instagram account. In it, you see an officer running to a parked SUV where a teen is grabbing at an elderly woman and seemingly resisting police commands. In most cases, this would result in a more forceful approach, but the officers on the scene noticed something other officers may miss. Training is key A police officer in front of a patrol car. Photo credit: Canva The woman, who may be the child’s grandmother or caregiver, is pleading with the officers not to separate her from the boy. She admits that the child is kicking her, as the boy screams he doesn’t care. Something about the interaction helps the police recognize that the child may be autistic. SLC Police Department’s caption says in part, “Officers responded to what was reported as an assault involving an elderly woman. Within moments of arriving, they recognized they were witnessing something very different. It was actually an autistic child in crisis. Because of their training, they immediately adjusted their approach by slowing the situation down. They worked to calmly de-escalate while also ensuring everyone remained safe.” Sensory Inclusive® training Every year, this particular police department receives training from KultureCity®, an all-volunteer nonprofit. Their goal is to advocate for inclusion and acceptance, and one of the services they offer is a Sensory Inclusive® First Responder Certification program. This is the very same program the SLC Police Department uses. Thanks to this training, the officers on the scene were able to identify the child’s need for a different approach. A boy outside playing. Photo credit: Canva “Not every emergency is what it first appears to be. Recognizing that difference can change the outcome,” the police department writes. “SLCPD officers receive specialized training to recognize and safely respond to individuals experiencing mental health and developmental crises. Patrol officers also carry sensory kits in their vehicles, giving them additional tools to communicate effectively and help reduce sensory overload during stressful situations.” This training is what kept the boy and his caregiver safe. One officer tries to take the woman to the side as they reassure her that they’re not going to hurt the child. Before they could successfully separate the two, the child hops out of the car and begins grabbing at the woman again as he repeats, “I don’t want to calm down.” Once the pair is successfully separated, an officer calls out to see if the approaching officers have a sensory bag. ‘We not tantrum anymore’ View this post on Instagram This bag has different types of sensory items in it, including fidget toys. The woman explains that she was trying to get the boy calm enough to drive home, but she’s never seen him this bad. While the boy repeatedly says he doesn’t want to calm down, his voice begins to lower as he interacts with one of the sensory items. The police officers remain calm, speak slowly, and offer him different items out of the bag. Eventually, he starts interacting kindly with the officers. He even gives a high five to one of the officers who offered him the sensory toys. “We not tantrum anymore,” he says. The officer confirms, “No tantrum. Smiley face.” A job well done Viewers of the video are impressed by the officer’s actions that kept everyone safe. One person says, “As an Autism Mother, this hits heartstrings I can’t explain. The way they treat him, allow mom to catch her breath. As special needs parent, we’ve all been here and feel the weight of feeling like we are the only ones who can calm them down. This is amazing! Well done!” A female police officer standing in front of a patrol car. Photo credit: Canva Another writes, “The fact that your agency has sensory bags in the units and officers recognized the situation is commendable.” Someone else shares, “THANK HEAVEN for that male officer who requested the sensory bag and for that female officer. This breaks my heart knowing this could end up SO wrong for so many of our babies. This video needs to be used for training immediately. All they need is help regulating.” The post Utah police officers respond to an assault call with a sensory bag. The result speaks volumes. appeared first on Upworthy.

Episode Description: Dolphins fatally swim into fishing nets because the nylon is acoustically too similar to water for their echolocation to pick up. A researcher at Newcastle University wondered if attaching something that does produce an echo might change that. The dolphin-saving solution may surprise you. Ten solutions this week with Arielle and Karissa. Also in the episode: energy storage technologies that sound like science fiction but are getting serious investment, India’s first domestically built hydrogen train, and the garden sign that looks like a win but means your plant is struggling to survive. Stay tuned til the end for a wonderful Emissary Shout-Out that will brighten your day! If you have questions, comments, feedback, suggestions, or just want to say hi, send a message to: podcast@optimistdaily.com. Want to be part of the Optimism Movement? Become an Emissary. Subscribe to our FREE Daily/Weekly Newsletter and follow us on Instagram, X, and Blue Sky. The Optimist Daily is a project of the World Business Academy. Donate link: https://www.optimistdaily.com/donate-to-support-the-optimist-daily/?lsc=41ef528d Theme and all original music by Marvin Lanes Transcript: Karissa:  Hi, everyone. I’m Karissa.  Arielle:  I’m Arielle.  Karissa:  And welcome to The Optimist Daily’s weekly roundup.  Arielle:  Karissa and I are on trips, so we’re in different home studio setups.  Karissa:  Yeah, exactly. I am over here in Idaho. Yeah.  Arielle:  I’m in Sicily for the first time. Um-  Karissa:  Two different places, but-  Arielle:  Yeah. But it is always nice to, like, switch up the surroundings and shake things up in your environment. Karissa:  I’m visiting family right now, but then I’ll be taking a trip later in the week over to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which I’ve never been to. Ooh. And I’ll get to experience Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, which are some national parks I haven’t been to, but of course have been on my list. So  Arielle:  it’s all about beach for me, and chocolate. Um, I’m in a city that is supposedly famous for their chocolate, and that’s perfect ’cause I’m on a girls trip, so it’s all kind of lining up.  Karissa:  Yeah, we’ll be taking a little bit of a break next week while we’re on these trips. And then the week after, we actually have an exciting guest interview with a familiar voice that some of you may remember. Arielle:  If you’re a longtime listener of The Optimist Daily podcast, then you will remember Kristy, who hosted the show with Summers McKay. She will be coming back, updating us on her very fascinating life, and she has quite a lot of words of wisdom and cool life experiences to share. So if you’re into renewable energy or if you’re going through a, mm, let’s say, unexpected life change and you’re needing to show, show up for yourself and others and be resilient, this episode will be for you. So that’ll be coming up in two weeks.  Karissa:  But in the meantime, if you need some solutions while we’re away, you can always get them in our free daily newsletter. We also have a weekly edition if you get too many emails to your inbox already, and that weekly edition just covers all the 10 new solutions from The Optimist Daily that week. Arielle:  The link to sign up for that is in the show notes. Uh, but you can also follow us on socials if that’s how you prefer to get your news. We are @optimistdaily on everything, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, um, everything except for X. There we are @odetooptimism. We’d love for you to come over and say hi. Karissa:  So if there’s any comments, questions, or feedback, you can always email us at podcast@optimistdaily, or reach out to us on any of those social media channels.  Arielle:  We have an Emissary shout-out for the end of this episode, so stay tuned for that. An Emissary shout-out is a perk that all of our Emissaries get. Emissaries are financial supporters of The Optimist Daily, so we have big, big gratitude for them. But we also would love to thank all of our Optimists who are just here supporting us through listening to the podcast, reading our articles, sharing them with friends and family and loved ones, and yeah, interacting with us on social media, rating, subscribing, following, all of those things. Karissa:  So many ways to support The Optimist Daily that don’t have to cost a thing. But if you do wanna financially support The Optimist Daily and get these perks like the Emissary shout-out, the information on how to do that is linked in the show notes as well.  Arielle:  That was quite a bit of housekeeping, but I think we’re ready to jump into this week’s solutions. Karissa:  The first solution we had to share is titled “From molten salt to liquid air: clean energy’s weird storage revolution”. Generating clean energy from sun and wind is mostly a solved problem at this point, but storing it is the problem nobody has fully cracked yet. The solutions getting serious investment right now are genuinely kind of strange. We’re talking about freezing air in Manchester and superheating industrial salt in Nevada, but these really strange solutions might be the ones that finally make the grid work around the clock. The two projects discussed in this article are Highview Power’s Carrington project, where surplus renewable power cools air to -321 degrees Fahrenheit, compressing it to 1/700 of its volume, very small, when the grid needs power, and the liquid warms and spins a turbine. There’s no combustion here. It delivers 300 megawatts per hour of storage, which is enough for nearly half a million homes. The edge that liquid air has over the oh-so-popular lithium ion is duration. Lithium ion handles hours, but liquid air can sit for days or weeks, which means when you hit a stretch of overcast or windless weather, the liquid air can still store this energy. And then the other project mentioned here is Crescent Dunes in Nevada, where 10,000 mirrors focus sunlight on industrial salts heated to 1,040 degrees Fahrenheit, and it holds that heat for up to 10 hours after sunset. You can get more details on that in the full article. Moving on to a lifestyle article we shared this week called “Soft decluttering: the low-pressure method for a tidier home”. I guess first before I dive into this one, Arielle, is there anything that you just, like, haven’t cleaned around your house or life, I guess?  Arielle:  Um, yes. I have… So I think I do soft decluttering already. I, like, just tidy up around the house where I can. It also calms me down. But there are a number of what I call miscellaneous drawers. And I just stuff things in there. If I don’t have the time or the energy to, to actually figure out where they belong or to throw them out even, I just stuff them in the drawer, close the drawer, and then it’s gone. I- Do you have something like that?  Karissa:  I am definitely guilty of that sometimes. I feel like I’m pretty good at the soft decluttering method, which we’ll get into in a second. Um, and I’ll kinda go through, like, big purges every once in a while, and I feel pretty organized right now because I did go through a pretty big purge of, like, my whole life. But one thing I do know is lingering is my craft drawer in my office. It’s just so hard to organize these crafts. Crafting can get chaotic for me, so I do n- it’s something I refuse to open. This method of soft decluttering is taking on small, manageable tasks instead of full clean outs or complete purges, and it’s coined by professional organizers Jane Abrahams and Wendy Troons. I think that’s how you pronounce it.  Soft decluttering is the counter to the all-or-nothing trap, where you think it’s either a massive overhaul or nothing, so you pick nothing. And of course, that’s the perfection paralysis. Small wins can really build real momentum, so daily little habits compound into bigger changes over time. This article gives a lot of great tips on how to incorporate soft decluttering into your life, and some places to start are the entryway of your house where there’s high visibility and there’s immediate payoff because you enter through it every day. The fridge, because you can do a weekly sweep that takes under 10 minutes and also cut your food waste out. Junk drawers, like you mentioned, Arielle, your car, and also digital spaces.  Arielle:  Yeah, it’s, it’s definitely something I could improve upon. Whenever I see the junk drawers or the miscellaneous drawers, I’m just like, “Ooh, I have to really get into it if I, if I start.” But again, kind of like the digital decluttering article that we had a couple weeks ago. Karissa:  Mm-hmm.  Arielle:  You don’t have to do it all at once. I don’t know what that mental block is for me, but reading this article definitely gives me permission to just skip over that and just tell myself it’s okay if I do a little bit. It’s better, actually, if I do a little bit.  Karissa:  Yeah, absolutely. Moving on to the next solution, “The physics of what happens when you suppress a sneeze.” As a researcher at Washington University breaks down, what’s happening to your body when you do that is pretty alarming, and it’s kind of a lot of pressure that happens up in the nose and throughout the body. Have you ever heard of the playground myth that holding in a sneeze can make your eyeballs pop out, Arielle? Arielle:  I don’t think so, but I, I know people who hold in their sneezes. It kind of freaks me out a little bit because I’ve, I don’t even know how you would do that. Like, my sneezes are so present that I don’t think I could hold them back if I tried.  Karissa:  Yeah, exactly. Luckily, I was never taught to keep in a sneeze, and I also don’t know how you can keep in a sneeze. But I mean, people definitely do do it, and it’s not so great because sneezing is an open pressure release system, and it blocks the exits, and the force has to go somewhere. As quoted in this article, it says, “The diaphragm and intercostal muscles function as a gun while air pressure serves as a bullet, and that bullet has to go somewhere.” So all of this pressure can result in possible injuries, which include ruptured eardrums, middle ear barotrauma, damage to the tissue lining in the throat, air trapped under the skin of the neck, and air leaking between the lungs. These are rare, but it’s good to know that these are possibilities, so if you do have the habit of suppressing a sneeze, you can move beyond that. This solution is not meant to scare anyone, but it’s supposed to remind us that the best option here is to sneeze into a tissue if available or your elbow.  Arielle:  Yeah, the gun and bullet metaphor is kind of, um, it does kind of scare me a little bit. But uh, what I think is that if you are, if your body is expelling something, it’s expelling it for a reason. Yes. And you should just let it happen. Just let it go.  Karissa:  Anyways, moving on from the sneezes. The next solution is called “Roadside milkweed is giving monarchs a new migration highway”. Researchers in Florida are turning highway road margins into a migration highway for monarch butterflies, and they’re not waiting for new conservation land to do it. They’ve planted 9,000 milkweed plants so far along roads in six counties, with 6,000 more going in before 2029, and the monarchs are already showing up and traveling along this new highway that has been planted for them. So this is a really cool University of Florida project, and it’s part of a national effort led by University of Illinois in Chicago to turn road margins, power line easements, and rail corridors into pollinator habitats. They have chosen roadsides because protected land isn’t keeping up with habitat loss, but managed land is everywhere and gets maintained on a schedule regardless. So the question here was whether that work can be redirected to include some conservation measures, and it looks like it can. They chose milkweed specifically because if you know anything about monarchs, monarchs, um, love milkweed, and monarch caterpillars evolved to tolerate the plant’s toxic glycosides, but the trade-off is total. They can no longer digest anything else, and when milkweed disappears, monarchs disappear with it. But there’s other insects that benefit from the milkweed as well. Bees, moths, wasps, flies, and ants also feed on milkweed nectar. So being able to plant this along the side of the roads is… It’s kind of, I love the dual imagery here of, like, a road that’s already, you know, providing routes for people, but then also for insects, monarchs, and stuff. Moving on to the last solution that I wanted to talk about today, “Data centers explained: the hidden infrastructure behind your daily digital life”. Every time you stream something, pay a bill, or ask an AI a question, a building you probably don’t think about makes it happen. And now communities all over the US are fighting to stop more of those buildings from going up in their backyards. This article is a full explainer on what data centers are, what they cost to the people who live near them, and why New York just became the first state to ban them outright. Data centers have been coming more into focus, I would say, as the discussion of AI has been much more prevalent, but they’ve been around, they’ve been a thing, and more of them wanna go up, and that’s not always the best thing because they have a lot of negative side effects. But a lot of us, including myself, don’t really know exactly what data centers do. But basically, they are a building, you know, buildings actually, full of servers, storage systems, and networking equipment that run 24 hours a day, every day, to power streaming, banking, AI, search, and everything else digital. So it’s not just AI, but the rise of AI is making data centers more, um, needed. And I mean, the appetite is hard to overstate because a single large AI-era data center can use as much electricity as 100,000 homes and draw up to 5 million gallons of water a day just for cooling it down. It’s just very energy resource intensive. There’s so many issues besides, you know, the using electricity problem, but, um, there’s also of course the water problem, as briefly mentioned there, is because a midsize data center draws as much water as a small town, which that’s a lot of water. And air quality from the construction can run for years with sustained diesel truck traffic. That of course can lead to more health problems for communities with asthma cases and premature deaths on the rise. And there’s also a job promise versus a reality because there’s this promise that more jobs will be created from constructing AI sites, but those aren’t permanent jobs. Um, once they’re done, then all those workers, you know, won’t really be employed. So there’s a lot of information in this article if you wanna find out more behind the scenes about data centers.  Arielle:  All right. Well, I am going to take it from here. The first solution that I’m going to share today is called “Three signs your garden is overheating and what to do about each one”. So if you’ve ever walked outside in July or just in the thick of summer and found your garden drooping and then immediately reached for the hose, then this story is for you. I don’t have a garden, but I can imagine that Often when you see your plant suffering, you feel like you wanna give them a drink, um, but that could be the wrong call it turns out. Pro gardeners share what they do when a plant is heat stressed, and the most important move happens before you even pick up that watering can or hose. There’s a bunch of heat stress signs, wilting that sticks around into morning or evening, so not just the mid-afternoon droop, uh, leaves curling or rolling inward, browning or scorching at the edges, and the one that I thought was super counterintuitive was premature flowering. I think if I were tending a garden and then the flowers came early, I’d be like, “Oh my gosh, I’m such a good gardener.” Karissa:  Uh-huh.  Arielle:  But that is actually a sign that, uh, your plant is stressed out. The plant is redirecting energy towards reproduction because it’s struggling to survive. The article goes through a bunch of tips that you can use, uh, before watering anything, like sticking your finger in the top inch or two of soil, see if it’s wet, because if it is wet, then more water will likely make things worse. So overwatering, underwatering, compacted soil, and root rot can all look the same from the outside, and the soil check helps narrow down what the actual problem is. Prevention does beat rescue. General guidelines to follow, uh, are to water deeply in the early morning and direct it to the soil around the roots, not onto leaves or stems. And it’s important to note that even full sun plants can benefit from temporary shade on extreme heat days, and we’re getting a lot more of extreme heat days, uh, now. So a shade cloth or even old bed sheets draped over them during peak afternoon hours can help them out. The next article had a very surprising title to me. It’s called “The Newcastle researcher turning ocean plastic into a dolphin rescue strategy”. Ocean plastic is usually the villain in marine wildlife stories, and for good reason. But this one is different. A researcher at Newcastle University is attaching empty plastic bottles to fishing nets, and it’s actually helping dolphins survive them. The mechanism is pretty weird, pretty fascinating. Just to explain how this works, there are gill nets that hang vertically in the water, and they are nearly invisible to dolphin echolocation. Um, the nylon is too sparse and acoustically too similar to water to produce a return signal, so dolphins won’t detect any danger and will swim into them. And of course, that, that injures them, or worst case scenario, will even kill them. Current numbers say that around 1,000 porpoises and hundreds of dolphins, including 250 common dolphins, die in UK gill nets every year alone. Professor Per Berggren at Newcastle University asked the question, what if you gave the net something that does produce an echo? Plastic bottles are what he decided to use. The air inside reflects echolocation clicks, giving dolphins a strong return signal that they can read and respond to. And then there’s also glass bottles, uh, with metal bolts inside that create a clinking sound as they move in the water, and that passive noise cue works alongside or instead of echolocation. There have been a few trials across 1,600 nets in Zanzibar, Peru, and Brazil, and the study or the results were published in Fisheries Research and Marine Mammal Science. There were a lot of really positive results, but the Peru results were mixed, and for nets set near the surface, bottles didn’t reduce dolphin bycatch, but did increase target fish catch. So yeah, it also increased shark bycatch. So I guess this is still being studied and developed as a solution. But overall, it seems that attaching plastic bottles can rescue dolphin bycatch globally. And honestly, it’s a solution that every fisher can afford to do.  Karissa:  Hmm. Yeah, that’s the important part here is that, you know, it’s a low-cost solution, and it’s more accessible than these, you know, really fancy, expensive technologies that not, not all fishers can afford. Arielle:  Yeah, I think it’s particularly optimistic to know that the source of the problem can also be part of the solution. Um, and in case you’re wondering, no plastic bottles were lost during the trial, so it, this study did not contribute more to ocean plastic. The next solution is titled: “What India’s hydrogen train launch means for its vast railway network”. So India just launched a hydrogen-powered train, and the interesting part isn’t just that it runs on hydrogen, it’s that it was built locally. It was built in India. This is a country of 1.4 billion people with one of the world’s largest rail networks, and this is the first step toward cleaning up the diesel routes. So this domestically built hydrogen-powered train launched in July, um, I think it was the 18th of July. Um, and it was named the Namo Green Rail, which Namo is a common abbreviation of the Prime Minister Modi’s name, so his name is Narendra Modi, Namo. Um, just for people who are unfamiliar, hydrogen fuel cells combine hydrogen and oxygen to generate electricity, and the only direct emission is water vapor. This pilot train also includes hydrogen storage and refueling infrastructure, and they’re kind of testing the whole system, not just the train itself. India’s net zero target is 2070, and this is part of a national push to develop green hydrogen domestically and cut transport emissions. Several other countries have already developed hydrogen trains, um, but India’s version stands out because it was built in country. Karissa:  The self-reliant India here shows that it’s not just a clean energy story, it’s an industrial capability story of India and other countries being able to produce this inside their own countries.  Arielle:  The next solution is more of a lifestyle one, and it kind of links to a solution that we talked about last week, Karissa. It’s titled: “The case for clearing your calendar one weekend a month”. Most of us have spent the summer going to things we were excited about basically all summer, and now it might feel like we’re just getting through it. This story is about the empty weekend or, like, the one weekend a month with nothing on the calendar, and why it might be the most restorative thing you can do for the rest of the summer. Now, last week, Karissa and I were talking about why summer days feel like they’re going so fast and why the summer season feels like it just disappears, and part of that reason is because we’re not taking enough time just to relax and enjoy and kind of do nothing but appreciate what’s right in front of you. So this article is kind of a complement to that, and it goes deeper into this, um, one empty weekend a month idea, which started with parents who were done with the nonstop churn of kids’ weekend activities. And then in response to that, they canceled everything and had some of the best days they’d had in months. I don’t know about you, Karissa, but I’m guilty of filling my weekends by reflex. So it just feels like I should be doing something, and an open Saturday can feel almost suspicious, like you must be forgetting something that you scheduled. Hmm. Or, like, you feel the guilt, the sunshine guilt of, like, needing to do something with the good weather. Karissa:  I feel like I’m definitely guilty of that as well. I mean, it’s kind of this big trap of treating an empty weekend like it can just be a productive weekend instead. And so it’s important to resist, you know, the urge to tackle some home projects and stuff, so.  Arielle: Yeah, you make a good point, that even when you do have a weekend day with nothing planned, you end up being, like, quote, unquote, productive ’cause you feel like you have to do something with it. So yeah, I, I feel like I would struggle with this, but I am gonna try and have, like, one weekend for the rest of the summer. I mean, it’s August, so- … I only have basically one more month to do this. Um- I know. Me too … but I’m gonna try to just have that one weekend where I don’t do anything. Um-  Karissa:  Yeah, exactly. And of course, the solution extends past summer as well. It’s, uh, good to keep in mind just year-round that it’s okay to take a weekend to actually just rest and restore.  Arielle:  The last solution that I’m going to share this week is called “Oakland kids can now borrow sports gear for free at this special library”. Youth sports in the US now cost the average family over 1,000 a year per child, and that number is still climbing. A park supervisor in East Oakland had a little budget left at the end of the year and an idea. This is the story of the sports equipment lending library she built for a neighborhood that’s been making do without enough for a long time. As I mentioned, youth sports cost the average US family $1,016 a year per child, and that’s up 46% since 2019. And in Oakland, just 14% of kids get the recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity, compared to the 23% nationally. So this Park Play Lending Library opened early in July, July 11th, at the Larry E. Reid Sports Center in Brookfield Village, East Oakland, in case you’re familiar with the area. And there you can check out a soccer ball, a football, volleyball, yoga mat, or tennis equipment, and then take it to the park, have your fun, and bring it right back. There’s actually also board games, too, because the community asked for that, so those are now available. And basically the goal is anything that gets people outside and moving.  Karissa:  Mm-hmm.  Arielle:  This idea, it’s based on Oakland and Berkeley’s long-running Tool Lending Libraries. So it’s just the same logic applied to sports.  Karissa:  This is a pilot, but if it holds, the plan is adding one lending library per Oakland district, stocked based on what each community requests. And also, um, they wanna partner with local sports organizations so they can make this equipment more accessible to more people. And this is a model that’s easily able to be replicated in other communities, so I think it’s very interesting. And yeah, I mean, sports are very expensive. I remember as a child, um, when I was in youth sports, like I did cheerleading, for instance, and every year that’s like a $500 bill for my parents, and that was like 20 years ago. But I mean, it’s even more now. It was expensive having to get all the uniforms and the stuff we needed, and pay for, like, the coaches and stuff. So it’s really expensive and can be unaccessible for a lot of people.  Arielle:  Yeah, and that’s just not fair because there’s so many benefits to playing team sports. I wouldn’t really know them ’cause I didn’t do that. I was so not coordinated as a kid, and, like, very shy and insecure about joining anything team-related. Um-  Karissa:  Mm-hmm …  Arielle:  but my sisters played sports, and they still do, and I know that they gained a lot of, uh, you know, leadership and teamwork, and all- Yeah … of these things that can help you later on in your life. So if money is the barrier, then we should do everything we can to tear that barrier down.  Karissa:  Mm-hmm. Absolutely.  Arielle:  Those were all the solutions that we had on The Optimist Daily this week, but we do have an Emissary shout-out from Marc and Lena-Maria.  Karissa:  Yeah. Thank you, Marc and Lena-Maria, for supporting The Optimist Daily. They wanted to shout out James Arbib and Tony Seba’s RethinkX. RethinkX is a fully independent, not-for-profit organization, and they produce impartial research on global technology disruptions to accurately predict system change and guide humanity to an age of super abundance and freedom. Their research is freely available to everyone everywhere, and you can find all that on rethinkx.com. So a really cool nonprofit that is investigating all these technologies.  Arielle:  Mm-hmm. And emphasis on impartial. We really need that, um, objective kind of look at things. So yeah, this seems really great. We are going to link it in the show notes as always. And once again, a huge thank you to Marc and Lena-Maria for being a part of this, um, solutions-minded mission that we are trying to encourage the world to come along with us on. If you are an Emissary and you want to send a shout-out over to us, like Marc and Lena-Maria did, then that link should be in your inbox somewhere. Um, but Karissa and I will send it out again sometime soon, or you can email us at podcast@optimistdaily.com to find that link again. And we’ll just send it to you directly. If you’re not an Emissary yet and you want to be, again, you can find out how to do that in the show notes.  Karissa:  Well, before we sign off for this time, we have a positive quote to share with you.  Arielle:  So this is from Cora Coralina, and she was a Brazilian writer and poet. “Recreate your life, always. Remove the stones. Plant rose bushes and make sweets. Begin again.”  Karissa:  I love that one. There’s always time to recreate your life, so.  Arielle:  Hmm. It’s never too late to restart. Well, Karissa, I hope you enjoy your trip.  Karissa:  Yeah. And I hope you enjoy your trip as well, Arielle. It’ll be a great time to refresh, restore, and adventure a bit. But I’ll be looking forward to sharing the solutions on The Optimist Daily again when we return.  Arielle:  All right. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in, and we wish you a wonderful weekend.The post Podcast Transcript July 31st, 2026— Liquid air batteries, dolphins saved by plastic bottles, and an empty weekend a month first appeared on The Optimist Daily: Making Solutions the News.