Plastic has been taking over our world for a while now.
You may not think too much about it, but plastic is a global crisis. A recent rundown in The National Review reveals that more than 8 million tons of plastic is regularly deposited in the ocean. It’s killing sea life, endangering coral reefs, and affecting the fish we eat because of the toxins they ingest.
So much for a happy, carefree day, right?
But there’s some good news on the horizon: Scientists have found a mutant bacteria that eats plastic.
Of course, this mutant bacteria isn’t exactly like the kind of mutants you see in movies and comic books. Although, I’ll admit I initially thought, “Good! Someone’s finally getting Storm to handle this whole climate change business.” How cool would that be?
The plastic-eating bacteria was first discovered in 2016 in Japan. Researchers studying plastic pollution — specifically polyethylene terephthalate or PET — discovered a colony of bacteria that fed on the plastic, breaking down strong chemical bonds as a means of survival. The bacteria back then, though, was eating through highly crystallized PET — the material plastic bottles are made of — at a slow rate. Researchers knew it would take a while for the bacteria to evolve into the environmental savior we need.
Scientists started studying the bacteria’s evolution and discovered they’d unintentionally made it stronger.
“It’s alive! It’s alive!” they screamed. That’s how I imagine the discovery of this mutated bacteria enzyme went, with all the blinking lights and klaxons of a superhero movie. That’s what happens in labs, right?
Well, that’s how it should have gone. Because this is exciting! After viewing a 3D model of the bacteria, scientists discovered that small modifications could make its enzymes much more effective. The BBC reports that PET takes “hundreds of years” to break down on its own, but with the modified enzyme, called PETase, the same process begins within a matter of days. The enzyme breaks down PET to its original building blocks, meaning that the plastic can be reused again without losing quality.A large blocked cube made up of plastic bottles. Image via Pixabay.
Here’s why this is important: You may think plastic bottles are recycled into new plastic bottles and that every bottle you drink from had a rich and beautiful life before it came to you, but that’s not true. In 2017, BuzzFeed reported that Coca-Cola sourced only 7% of its plastic from recycled material and only 6% of Nestle’s bottles were made from recycled plastic. The rest of all that single-use plastic being dumped is turned into other fibers like carpet and clothing.
This is because plastics degrade as they’re recycled. “Bottles become fleeces, then carpets, after which they often end up in landfill,” the BBC notes.
But PETase makes it possible to use PET in its original form over and over again.
We’re only at the beginning of this development.
On one hand, PETase could bring us closer to true recycling (producing much less plastic and using much less fossil fuel) than ever before. But the research has only started. The breaking down process still needs to be made faster, so it could be years before PETase or anything like it is used on an industrial scale.
While scientists keep working to make PETase a worldwide plastic problem-solver, we can all do our part by reducing our reliance on plastic. Little things — like a reusable bottle for the gym, keeping metal utensils at work, and reusable bags and totes for trips to the store — can help keep the Earth clean, save animals, and make us a little less reliant on mutants (er, mutant enzymes) to save the day.
From Pakistan to Tanzania, the most effective education solutions are community-led. Here’s how local leaders, in partnership with Malala Fund and supported by Pura, are mobilizing entire communities.
When asked to describe what Tanzania smells like, Grace Isekore closes her eyes and breathes in deep. For a moment, she’s somewhere else entirely. Tanzania is a rich tapestry of sights and scents, from the smell of sea mist that permeates the coastline to the earthy cardamom and cloves she cooks with in her kitchen. But when Grace emerges from her reverie, her answer is unexpected.
“Tanzania smells like peace,” she says, her eyes still closed. “I see a beautiful country where we are free to move, free to speak. And there is peace within the community.”
For Grace, that sense of peace isn’t just something she smells; it’s something she works toward every day. As a project coordinator with Pastoral Women’s Council (PWC), a women-led organization that empowers pastoralist communities in northern Tanzania, she has seen firsthand how girls flourish when they have the opportunity to attend school. Like scent, education not only connects girls to their own culture, but also helps broaden their horizons, realizing new possibilities for themselves and others. That transformation reshapes entire communities and ripples outward, with the potential to change countries and transform the world for the better.
Different scents, different approaches, and communities driving change
Spices in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
For Grace and others around the world, education is freedom, as well as a pathway to a stronger community. Rooted in that shared belief, Pura, a home fragrance company, was inspired to build on their four-year partnership with Malala Fund to create something truly unique: a fragrance collection that connects people through scent to communities in Tanzania, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Brazil, where barriers to girls’ education are among the highest.
Using ingredients from each region, the new Pura x Malala Fund Collection uses scent to transport people to these regions directly. “Future in Bloom,” for example, invokes Pakistan’s lush valleys through notes of jasmine, cedarwood, and mango; while Tanzania’s fragrance, “Heart on Fire,” evokes the spirit and joyfulness of the girls who live there through cardamom, lemon, and green tea.
The new Collection honors the work Malala Fund does every day, partnering with locally-led organizations in these four countries to ensure every girl can access and complete 12 years of education. Each scent celebrates the joy, tenacity, and courage of the women and girls driving change on the ground, while also augmenting Pura’s annual grant to Malala Fund by donating eight percent of net revenue from the Pura x Malala Fund Collection to Malala Fund directly.
Just as each country’s scent is unique, so too are their needs related to education. But with support from Malala Fund and Pura, local leaders are coming up with creative ways to mobilize entire communities (parents, teachers, elders, and the students themselves, in their pursuit of solutions, understanding that educating girls helps everyone thrive. Here’s how their efforts are creating real, durable impact in Tanzania and Pakistan, and creating a ripple effect that changes the world for the better.
Parent-teacher associations help Maasai girls and their communities in Tanzania problem-solve
A girl’s school in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
Northern Tanzania, Grace’s home, is home to pastoralist communities like the Maasai, a nomadic people who have moved with the seasons to nurture the land and care for their livestock for centuries. The nomadic nature of this lifestyle creates significant and unique barriers to girls’ education. Longstanding gender roles have enabled Maasai to survive in the harsh environment and have placed great value on both women and men. Over time, as nomadic life has been threatened by the privatization of land and stationary education models have been implemented, the reality of pastoralist livelihood has shifted and introduced new complexities. Now, the sheer distance to schools is both a practical challenge and one that often comes with danger from the landscape, predators, and potential exposure to assault along the journey. Girls shoulder the responsibility of household chores and there is often cultural pressure around early marriage – both leading to boys’ education being prioritized over girls’.
“There are very, very good [pastoralist] cultural practices, which are passed from generation to generation,” says Janet Kimori, an English teacher at Lekule Girls Secondary School in Longido, Tanzania. But when cultural practices act as educational barriers, “you have to sit down and look for where you are going to assist. As a school, as an individual, the school administration—all of us will chip in and know how we are going to deal with this problem.”
PWC works to ensure girls are able to exercise their right to an education while also preserving pastoralist culture. One successful approach, the organization found, has been the formation of Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), created with help from Malala Fund. In PTA meetings, students, parents, teachers, elders, and government officials meet, discuss educational barriers, and come up with community-led solutions that preserve and honor their culture while advancing educational outcomes.
PTA meeting in Tanzania. Captured by James Roh for Pura
One recent PTA meeting highlights how these community-led solutions are often the most effective. At Lekule Girls Secondary School, the lack of fresh water forces girls to walk long distances to collect water for the school’s kitchen during the school day, and these long journeys not only disrupt class time but can leave girls vulnerable to sexual assault in isolated areas. Through facilitated discussion, PTA members landed on a solution: installing a borehole to pipe in fresh water to the school. Reliable access to water creates a better learning environment for the girls, but it also benefits the community at large, as local governments are then more likely to invest in health clinics and other community resources nearby.
With a solution in place, the PTA was then able to discuss ideas and map out a course of action. The women would raise money for the cost of the borehole, while the men would recruit workers to dig the hole and lay the pipe. Together, they would ask government officials to match their investment.
The benefits of PTA meetings within the pastoralist communities are undeniable. “The girls are talking and addressing issues in a confident way, and parents feel they are part of the resource team to solve challenges happening at school,” Grace says. One unexpected benefit: The larger cultural impact these PTA meetings have created. Thanks to the success of PTAs within pastoralist communities, the models are now being endorsed on a national level, and schools across Tanzania are starting to use them to solve problems in their own communities. When a community creates opportunities for girls to learn, everyone benefits.
Safe spaces in rural Pakistan help students and their parents connect, then drive change
Safe space for girls meeting in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed.
A continent away in Pakistan, the country’s northernmost region of Gilgit-Baltistan seems like a land untouched by time. The region’s looming mountains, snow-capped peaks, lush valleys and crystalline lakes draw nature lovers and landscape photographers from around the world, but living among this kind of breathtaking scenery has its drawbacks. Schools in the region are few and far between, and the area’s harsh climate often makes roads inaccessible for travel. Poverty and gender-based discrimination are additional obstacles, making school even further out of reach, and girls are affected disproportionately. Going up against these barriers requires a persistent, quiet strength that’s found in the women who live there and reflected in Pakistan’s signature scent.
Saheli Circles are how local leaders in Gilgit-Baltistan are bridging the gap between girls and education. An Urdu term for “female friend,” Saheli Circles are after-school safe spaces where girls explore subjects like art and climate change, while also developing skills that help them manage emotions, set goals, and build positive relationships. Girls study in groups, visit the library, play sports, and tackle filmmaking and photography projects, all designed to develop self confidence and teach the girls how to advocate for issues that matter to them. But the work doesn’t stop there.
“What we’re trying to achieve here will only be impactful if it trickles down to the home environment and the school environment,” says Marvi Sumro, founder and program director of Innovate, Educate, and Inspire Pakistan (IEI), the local organization that developed the Saheli Circles model and partnered with Malala Fund in 2021 to make it a reality. Ever since, Saheli Circles have grown to involve teachers, elders, and parents to encourage relationship building that’s essential for young girls and adolescents. “Our spaces can give mothers and daughters an opportunity to interact a little differently—do an art activity, or have a cup of tea together, or some good conversation,” Marvi says.
The relationship building is what makes the biggest positive impact throughout the community. Recently, one Saheli Circle was able to bring together parents, teachers, and administrators to advocate for better education at their local school, and together they convinced the department of education to hire a science teacher. Another Saheli Circle organized a fund where members of the community can contribute monthly to pay for uniforms, books, and other school expenses for the girls in their village, eliminating those small, hidden costs that are often a barrier to education for many. A third Saheli Circle was able to produce a short film about how gender-based household chores can take away valuable study time from girls, leaving them at a disadvantage. “The girls put the film together and showed it to the mothers, and the response from the mothers was just beautiful,” Marvi says.
Girls smiling in Pakistan. Captured by Insiya Syed.
The education and relationship building that the girls receive in Saheli Circles connects them to larger opportunities and economic freedom that are not possible in their hometown. “For girls in Gilgit-Baltistan, education is extremely important because of the fact that we’re so far away from where the economy is, where the opportunity is. Education becomes this bridge for us, for our girls, to access all the opportunity and economy that exists in [larger cities].”
From rural Tanzania to remote Pakistan, local organizations prove every day that prioritizing girls’ education benefits everyone. Communities that lift up girls are able to secure resources like clean water and well-staffed schools, as well as build stronger relationships.
These outcomes are only possible because of the women and girls who work tirelessly in these regions to overcome barriers and drive progress. The Pura x Malala Fund Collection is a way to honor them, celebrate their achievements, and unite people the world over around a shared belief that education is freedom. Like scent, that belief can build, travel, and has the possibility to transform the world.
Experience the Pura x Malala Fund Collection here, and connect with the stories of real girls leading change across the globe.
We live in an age of conflict. Sharp political and social divides are everywhere, and while it’s easy to theoretically write off people who disagree with us on fundamental core issues and values, the reality is that we often must co-exist with them and learn to manage our conflicts in a healthy way. Sometimes that means putting aside our differences and “agreeing to disagree.” Something it means hashing them out.
The quickest way to stop having a constructive dialog with someone is when they become defensive. This usually results in them digging in their heels and making you defensive. This can result in a vicious cycle of back-and-forth defensive behavior that can feel impossible to break. Once that happens, the walls go up, the gloves come off and resolving the situation becomes tough.
Ripley is a bestselling author and the co-founder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict. Not surprisingly, she’s in high demand on news programs, conferences, and media summits these days.
How to have a constructive conversation
Let’s say you believe the room should be painted red and your spouse says it should be blue. Instead of saying, “I think blue is ugly,” you can say, “It’s interesting that you say that…” and ask them to explain why they chose blue.
The key phrase is: “It’s interesting that you say that…”
It shows genuine curiosity in their point of view. That’s critical to avoid someone shutting down on you.
Two men shake hands while a woman looks on. Photo credit: Canva
When you show the other person that you genuinely care about their thoughts and appreciate their reasoning, they let down their guard. This makes them feel heard and encourages them to hear your side as well. This approach also encourages the person you disagree with to consider coming up with a collaborative solution instead of arguing to defend their position.
It’s important to assume the other person has the best intentions while listening to them make their case. “To be genuinely curious, we need to refrain from judgment and making negative assumptions about others. Assume the other person didn’t intend to annoy you. Assume they are doing the best they can. Assume the very best about them. You’ll appreciate it when others do it for you,” Kaitlyn Skelly at The Ripple Effect Education writes.
Look out for signs of defensiveness like blaming, criticizing, making excuses, or being passive-aggressive. These are warning signals that your conversation is veering off the rails.
Phrases you can use to avoid an argument
The curiosity approach can also involve affirming the other person’s perspective while adding your own, using a phrase like, “On the one hand, I see what you’re saying. On the other hand…”
Here are some other phrases you can use:
“I wonder if…”
“It’s interesting that you say that because I see it differently…”
“I might be wrong, but…”
“How funny! I had a different reaction…”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that! For me, though, it seems…”
“I think I understand your point, though I look at it a little differently…”
Two men high-fiving one another. Photo credit: Canva
What’s the best way to disagree with people?
A 2016 study from Yale University supports Ripley’s ideas. The study found that when people argue to “win,” they take a hard line and only see one correct answer in the conflict. Whereas those who want to “learn” are more likely to see that there is more than one solution to the problem. At that point, competition magically turns into collaboration.
“Being willing to hear out other perspectives and engage in dialogue that isn’t simply meant to convince the other person you’re right can lead to all sorts of unexpected insights,” psychologist and marketing professor Matthew Fisher at Southern Methodist University tells CNBC.
The key words are “willing” and “genuine.” These phrases aren’t magic bullets designed to help you level your opponents. You have to actually, truly be willing to learn about their perspective and be open to changing your mind.
Let me know in the comments if this data rings true to you and your experience of conflict. And check out danharris.com for more from Amanda Ripley including what she has to say about “conflict entrepreneurs,”people who inflame turmoil to benefit themselves. #conflict#healthyconflict#communication#tenpercenthappier#10percenthappier
Another common tip that usually comes from the world of couple’s counseling is to stop seeing the other person as your adversary. If you can imagine the two of you on the same team versus the problem, your conversations will be more productive.
In a world of strong opinions and differing perspectives, curiosity can be a superpower that helps you have more constructive conversations with those with whom you disagree. All it takes is a little humility and an open mind, and you can turn conflict into collaboration, building bridges instead of walls.
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
Look, let’s just get it out there: It’s uncomfortable any time you have to get fully or partially naked for a medical exam or cosmetic procedure. Right? It’s natural and part of the process, but while you know that the person on the other end is a professional who’s just there to do their job, they’re also a human being. Getting naked in front of them in any other context would be extremely weird, and it’s hard to completely shut that part of your brain off no matter the setting.
It’s amazing how body dysmorphia really knows no bounds. We tend to think of insecurities as focusing on things like the flatness of our stomachs or the size of our noses. But perhaps the thing that people are most self-conscious about is the thing we actually talk about the least.
According to one study, about 30% of men are “dissatisfied” with the size, shape, or appearance of their penis. That number is even higher when it comes to how women feel about their vaginas. A survey done by Refinery29 showed that almost half of women had “concerns” about the appearance of their vulva.
The numbers say anywhere from a third to a half or more of all people think there’s something wrong with the way our private parts look. Which begs the question: If we all think we’re weird, is anybody really weird at all?
A fascinating Reddit thread recently polled experts on this very topic—people who tend to see an awful lot of genitals in their line of work: Waxing technicians or estheticians. The responses were oddly inspiring.
The prompt asked, “Waxers, how often are you surprised by how a clients genitals look?”
Professional waxers chimed in with their stories and observations. As did doctors, nurses, pelvic floor therapists, urologists, and lots of other pros who work closely with people’s unmentionables.
“Gonna chime in as a doctor – and I would imagine it’s the same for professional waxers. WE. DONT. CARE. And in my case I would be surprised if you’d show me something I’ve never seen before.” – feelgoodx
“I use to be very self conscious and insecure about my genitals. I honestly thought I had a weird vagina. But working in this industry has taught me that every one is a snowflake. I’ve seen it all and nothing surprises me. Just clean yourself before coming in.” – Wild-Clementine
Not a waxer but I am a labor and delivery nurse. I see a vulva every single day I work, often multiple, and frequently about 3 feet from my face with a spotlight on it lol. Not much surprises me. Most are out of my memory by the time they’re clothed or covered up. When it comes to genitals you want to be unremarkable.” – tlotd
“Very, very rarely. Shaved, not shaved, lots o’ labia, no labia, etc—it’s all the same to me. I’m just here to work.” – Important-Tackle
“never. i have seen it all. scars, hyperpigmentation, unevenness; none of it surprises me. just please wash yourself before coming to me.” – pastelmorning
“Nothing surprises me, I’m mostly just focusing on the hair, but i do have a client who has a tuft of hair on the underside of his shaft near the tip of his penis we call his downstairs soul patch.” – noorisms
Two big takeaways:
First, outside of obvious mutilations or pathologies, nothing stands out to people who are extremely knowledgeable about genitals. Differences in size, shape, and structure are totally normal and barely even register on the radar!
Second, no matter what you look like down there, good hygiene is always appreciated. A solid tip that extends far beyond the borders of the esthetician’s office!
Being embarrassed, self-conscious, or even ashamed of the way your parts look doesn’t seem like a big deal, but it can be.
It’s bizarre and tragic that unrealistic beauty standards actually affect the way we perceive our own nether regions. Pornography, media, and inconsiderate past partners all play a role in people developing anxiety about the way their genitals look.
Both men and women can have their sex lives negatively impacted by bad self-image and anxiety over the way they look naked. When the shame is really bad, it can hold them back in relationships, or even stop them from seeking them in the first place.
This shame or embarrassment unfortunately extends into the medical arena, as well.
Fear of being judged or humiliated can stop women in particular from not just going in for a wax, but from going to the gynecologist, getting breast exams, or asking potentially-embarrassing but critical and life-saving health questions. For their part, men are prone to skipping prostate exams, testicular exams, or conversations about potentially embarrassing topics like erectile dysfunction or bladder problems. None of these things are fun or comfortable, but they’re critical for our health!
Experts say sharing your vulnerability with your doctor or cosmetic professional can help. Letting them know you’re nervous or embarrassment can signal them to offer you comfort measures. It also helps to be really direct and detailed with what you want or what you want to discuss.
According to Cedars Sinai, “Does sex hurt? Tell your doctor exactly where you feel the pain. Notice that your poop stinks? Try to describe the odor in detail.” If you’re too embarrassed to talk about it, try writing it down. At some point though, you’ll have to get the exam. Just get through it, it gets easier once you build a relationship with your doctor (or waxer!) over time.
If you’ve ever been a little self-conscious, take it from the experts, from the people who have seen hundreds if not thousands of genitals up close and personal, in the most unflattering lighting and from the worst angles possible: You’re totally normal!
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
There’s a nationwide running joke that the food we get from fast-food places isn’t actually food. That doesn’t stop Americans from consuming it. But we do so assuming that this food, which can fossilize in the back of a minivan, is still edible. One man decided to see whether fast food contains enough nutrients to grow vegetables if it’s turned into soil.
Ted Nivison is not a scientist, and does not play one on television. For this experiment, though, he dons a metaphorical lab coat and gloves. After spending time growing his own vegetables, he wanted to see what would happen if he changed up the soil. But instead of adding something practical, like Miracle-Gro, he decided to get innovative.
Nivison set his sights on making his own soil from fast-food scraps. In a YouTube video, he’s seen placing a large box on his kitchen counter.
“This is a Lomi. This is a device that lets you turn food scraps into usable soil, or at least what the company calls ‘Lomi Earth,’” he explains. “Obviously, by food scraps, they mean things like vegetables and fruit, but this device can turn any food scraps into soil. So what would happen if I turned fast food into soil? Could I grow a plant from that?”
Surprisingly, the answer to his question was yes. The curious man went to the nearest McDonald’s and dumped two double cheeseburgers, two large fries, 20 chicken nuggets, and a pack of apple slices into the soil-making device. The small machine takes up to 20 hours to turn food into dirt, so Nivison ran some errands before returning to check on the progress.
“I don’t know what I expected to happen here,” he says before it cuts to a clip of him returning home. “I’ve left the Lomi going and my entire apartment smells like McDonald’s.”
When the video cuts back to the present, Nivison reveals, “I had to open up the windows in my apartment just to filter out the air that I was smelling, and I gotta say, the resulting dirt is a little bit creepy.”
He opens the lid to reveal a bright, reddish-brown, dry, clumpy soil that he says smells like Cheetos. The amateur scientist also describes the soil as greasy. This doesn’t dissuade him, though he muses that a plant might taste the soil and say, “I guess I’m not going to live.”
Unfortunately, the McDonald’s haul didn’t produce enough soil to fill a pot, so he decided to mix things up by creating soil from Taco Bell and KFC, too.
The soil from Taco Bell looks closest to actual potting soil, which he attributes to the food having more vegetables. But the soil from KFC was so incredibly greasy that you could hear it as he moved it around.
To conduct the experiment, he set up a control group, a nod to his high school science education. Then he split the dirt into multiple clay pots with varying levels of traditional potting soil mixed in. One pot contained soil created solely from the fast-food concoction.
It turns out the more Lomi dirt used, the harder the soil became when it was watered. Nivison speculates that this is due to the grease content:
“With 100% Lomi dirt, it looks like the surface of Mars. And I don’t even think the guy in The Martian would’ve been able to grow potatoes from this. This is worse than Mars dirt. It is gross. When I watered it, none of the water would seep into the dirt. It just sat on top, turning into something like a swamp.”
After seeing the progress of the plant grown in 10% fast-food dirt, he decided to increase the amount, making sure not to exceed 50%. Seeds planted in 50% to 100% fast-food dirt molded, but so did the seeds planted in 15% Lomi dirt. Unexpectedly, the arugula planted in 20% fast-food dirt sprouted, though it eventually stopped growing.
If you thought the control plant grew the best, you’d be just as shocked as Nivison. The control plant never got beyond the small initial sprouts. It was the plant soaking up that 10% mixture of greasy fast food that outgrew them all. All that experimenting made for a fairly hungry scientist, so he made an arugula salad.
Most self-help advice gets one major aspect wrong: the habits that actually change your life aren’t the dramatic ones. They’re not 5 a.m. cold plunges or 75-day fitness challenges. They’re much more subtle, and almost embarrassingly ordinary. But that’s the point.
The ideas are simple: create bite-sized routines that fit seamlessly into your day, and build different versions of those systems for different days, whether good or chaotic. The goal is to stick with these practices, daily or weekly, even on turbulent days when nothing seems to go right. They write:
“Traditional productivity advice assumes perfect conditions. This system assumes chaos is inevitable and builds protocols for bad days. You’re not trying to be perfect. You’re trying to be unbreakable.”
Here are 14 deceptively simple habits worth trying, courtesy of Ideas to Thrive:
Jump-starting a healthier lifestyle doesn’t require a gym membership. You don’t need a plan, a new playlist, or special gear. You just need a dedicated block during the day to move: a short walk, five squats while the coffee brews in the morning, or committing to taking the stairs instead of the elevator.
A 10-minute workout done three times a week has been shown to boost endurance by nearly 20%. Importantly, it’s the intensity, not the duration, that drives measurable health benefits. You don’t need an hour per week, just minutes.
2. Drink water before anything else
Before your morning coffee, juice, or that special loose-leaf tea your father-in-law got you (thanks, Perry!), drink a glass of water. Then have another about 30 minutes before your first meal.
This one’s tricky. What about your morning alarm? (Buy one. It’s good to know the time without constantly checking your phone.) What about that nightly Sudoku game you have to do? (Try a book of puzzles, or the one printed in the newspaper.) The research on this topic is extensive and clear: smartphones in the bedroom disrupt sleep. By removing your phone, you eliminate both the temptation to scroll and the device lighting up with notifications during the night.
According to the Indian Journal of Medical Research, 87% of Americans sleep with their phones in the bedroom, despite consistent evidence linking the habit to poorer sleep outcomes. A randomized controlled trial found that restricting bedtime phone use improved sleep quality, shortened sleep onset, and enhanced mood. Luckily, the fix isn’t a fancy gadget. It’s as simple as leaving your phone on the kitchen counter.
4. While you’re at it, write down tomorrow’s one task before bed
Before you sleep, jot down the single most important thing you need to do the next day. That’s it: one thing. Psychologists call the anxiety caused by unfinished tasks the Zeigarnik Effect, first identified by Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik in 1927. It explains how unfinished tasks stay active in our working memory, using up mental energy and potentially disrupting sleep.
Writing down a plan to complete them can help ease these restless thoughts, reassuring your brain that it’s okay to let go because a clear plan is in place. Further research shows that having a written plan boosts productivity, as the act of planning helps lighten your mental load.
The takeaway? Your brain can’t file away a task until it trusts there’s a plan. Give it one sentence tonight.
5. Take a 10-minute walk after lunch
That 2 p.m. slump? It’s not just because of the family-style Jersey Mike’s hoagie you wolfed down (no judgment, though it didn’t help). Afternoon sleepiness is real, but a short walk can actually help tremendously.
A study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that taking a few moments to jot down a quick to-do list before bed can help you fall asleep faster. Gratitude journaling, done specifically before bed, has also been shown to improve sleep onset and reduce nighttime disturbances. Your brain wasn’t designed to hold everything. Three sentences are enough to start letting go.
7. Track your habits with color
Find a visual tracker that works for you, whether on paper or in a digital app, and assign yourself colors:
Green for done
Yellow for partially complete
Red for skipped
Yes, it may sound like an elementary school exercise (what’s next, a pizza party for finishing your books?), but there’s real science behind it. Research on digital behavior change interventions shows that visual tools illustrating the gap between current behavior and a goal, such as a green bar for steps completed and a red line for the daily target, can boost motivation through clear, visual feedback. The idea is that color-coded systems tap into these feedback loops, with the brain processing color patterns faster than text or numbers.
Visual feedback can be powerful. Soon, you’ll start noticing patterns you didn’t even realize were there.
8. Set aside 20 minutes on Sunday for a quick self-review
No one’s under fire; this isn’t a productivity audit. You are not in trouble. But a little self-reflection never hurt, did it?
Without deliberate reflection, it’s easy to stay on autopilot. Reviews create the feedback loop necessary for intentional progress. During these sessions, ask yourself:
What went well this week?
What didn’t?
What does next week look like?
Should I adjust my self-improvement expectations?
Reviewing the week allows you to “bank” wins, process setbacks, and make small, purposeful improvements (a strategy shown to reduce burnout). David Allen, the productivity researcher behind Getting Things Done, notes that the weekly review “will sharpen your intuitive focus on your important projects as you deal with the flood of new input and potential distractions coming at you the rest of the week.”
By spending 20 minutes looking back each week, you can avoid going 20 weeks in the wrong direction.
9. Close all your browser tabs at the end of the day
Every open tab is an unfinished thought. Research from Princeton University and the University of California, Los Angeles shows that visual clutter—digital or physical—overloads the brain and elevates stress. Closing your tabs at the same time each day creates a shutdown ritual that helps separate work from rest, a clear boundary that prevents lingering anxiety during off-hours. This distinction is especially important for those who work from home. Productivity experts also note that fewer digital distractions means fewer choices and less noise, which in turn reduces decision fatigue and increases the likelihood that tasks get done.
Your browser is not a filing cabinet. Close those tabs. Start fresh tomorrow.
10. Read 10 pages per day
That’s it: 10 pages. That’s about 15 minutes of active reading. Do that every day, and you’ll finish between 12 and 18 books a year (unless you’re working your way through the Dune series. Those books are seriously hefty). It’s good for you, too: a landmark study in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin found that just six minutes of reading can reduce stress levels by up to 68%.
Ten pages a day is more than just a light reading habit; it’s an insurance policy for your brain’s health.
Despite the wisdom in Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, treating “no” as a weekly maintenance habit isn’t an act of selfishness; it’s an act of self-preservation. Chronic people-pleasing drains the same mental and emotional resources that support creativity, focus, and recovery. Research consistently shows that excessive stress—the kind caused by overcommitting—is a major trigger for depression, anxiety disorders, and burnout.
Psychology Todaynotes that saying no “can create more mental health stability by helping with self-care and building your self-esteem and confidence by setting boundaries.” This is a deliberate practice. Decline at least one request, invitation, or obligation each week that doesn’t align with your priorities. When you set limits on what drains you, you create space for restorative activities.
12. Send one thoughtful message a week
Every week, send one intentional message to someone in your life—a text, email, or note that’s personal, specific, and sincere. Social connection is one of the strongest predictors of health and longevity. A landmark study cited by Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education found that a lack of social connection is more harmful to health than obesity, smoking, and high blood pressure.
A study published in Communication Research, involving 900 participants across five university campuses, found that even a single intentional outreach to a friend or loved one on any given day can significantly improve well-being, reduce stress, enhance connection, and lessen loneliness. Importantly, the research showed that no particular type of message—whether catching up, showing care, joking, or giving a compliment—was more effective than another. The key factor was the act of reaching out with intention.
Dishes in the sink. Clothes on the chair. Scattered envelopes on the dining room table. Spend two minutes before bed restoring basic order to your space: reset surfaces, return items to their places, and clear clutter.
Research conducted by UCLA, involving 32 dual-income families, found that individuals who described their homes as cluttered or full of unfinished projects showed elevated cortisol patterns linked to chronic stress, especially among women.
Allen’s Getting Things Done methodology helps explain why the two-minute rule works so well. As he explains, any task that can be completed in under two minutes should be done immediately rather than delayed, preventing small messes from building into overwhelming chaos.
One small step at a time
None of these habits will change your life overnight. You won’t wake up with a different bank account. Your apartment won’t magically become more organized; you’ll probably still lose focus around 3:33 p.m. each day. But that’s not really how change works, is it? It happens in the small, consistent moments that may not look impressive on paper but add up to real momentum.
You don’t need to overhaul your entire life. Ideas to Thrive recommends starting with a handful of habits, then slowly adding more. Pick a few and see where they take you.
But how far did they go, exactly? We can look at the historic number of miles the Orion flew from Earth—approximately 252,756—but that distance is a little tough for us to visualize. Thankfully, Professor Anu Ojha’s scientific demonstration at The Royal Institution makes it a lot easier.
The Moon is farther away from Earth than many people imagine
First, Ojha explained that the distance between the Earth and Moon varies because the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical. But very roughly speaking, he said, the Moon’s orbital distance from the Earth is equal to 10 circumferences of the Earth.
He held up an inflatable globe to represent Earth and explained that he had wrapped a piece of string around it 10 times. At the end of the string, he attached a ball that was the correct scale compared to the Earth.
“It’s about the same size as Australia or Canada or China,” he explained. “About a quarter of the diameter of the Earth.”
He showed a graphic that depicted the Earth and Moon in proper scale, but with a totally inaccurate distance between them. Then, holding the globe, he asked a student to take the Moon ball at the end of the string and start walking away from him.
Photo from the ISS of the moon “rising” over the Earth’s atmosphere (Photo credit: NASA)
After the string unwound about six or seven feet, he asked the student to stop. “That’s the sort of visualization we get from this image,” he explained. “But, you know, there’s a lot of string left here.”
Ojha had the student keep walking, and keep walking, and keep walking until he had fully unwound the string. We can barely see the student as he walked up a flight of stairs into a darkened area of the classroom, but it’s clear the distance between the Earth and Moon is much farther than we are used to picturing it.
The International Space Station’s location compared to the Moon drives the point home
After showing how far the Moon—”our nearest naturally occurring neighbor in space”—is from Earth, Ojha put it into even clearer perspective.
“How far away did I say the international boundary of space was?” he asked the students, who responded, “100 kilometers.”
“That’s 1 millimeter on this scale,” Ojha said. “International Space Station (ISS) 400km—a finger width. The Moon is a thousand times the distance to the orbit of the International Space Station.”
But he wasn’t done. He also said that if we go to the next nearest planet, Venus, we are talking about a distance more than 100 times the distance between the Earth and the Moon.
“So we start to see the challenges that we are facing in directly exploring even our own solar system, let alone the universe,” he said.
This demonstration also makes it clearer why space missions to the Moon haven’t been a regular occurrence. Many of us had no idea how much further the Moon was than the ISS. They’re not even close to comparable trips.
Physical science demonstrations for the win
People appreciated the old-school science lesson:
“There is no substitute for physical demonstration in a room.”
“A lot of people just don’t realise the sheer scale of astronomical units, there’s too much ‘space’ out there to wrap their heads around it.”
“Most people can only understand what they can GRASP. This kind of physical demo is the most efficient.”
“I used to do that thing with my elementary school students where we go out to the football field and lay down planets showing how far away everything is from the sun. Blew their minds every time.”
“Everything I learn about space tends to come with the subtext of ‘It’s big. No, not the scale you’re thinking, bigger.’”
“Crazy how even with such a distance and small mass the Moon can still have such a massive effect on our water (and other such things).”
Our understanding of the cosmos is always growing and evolving, of course. But the math that tells us the scale of the objects in space has been around a long time and still has the power to boggle our minds. The universe is awesome, literally. Isn’t it wonderful how the awe that space exploration inspires in us is a reminder of everything that makes us human?
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare: Taking your child to the doctor and receiving a life-changing diagnosis. It only adds to the heartbreak when they find out there may be no effective treatment at all, and that all they can do is hope for the best.
Few diagnoses strike fear in the heart of parents and doctors more than a cancer called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG. Primarily found in children, DIPG is a highly aggressive brain tumor that is uniformly fatal, with less than 10 percent of children surviving longer than two years after diagnosis. The tumors grow fast and on extremely vital areas like the spine and brain stem, making them exceptionally hard to remove. Though young patients have been treated with radiation, chemotherapy, and surgeries, no one had ever been cured of the fatal cancer.
But for the first time ever, a 13-year-old boy from Belgium named Lucas Jemeljanova has beaten the odds.
Various brain scans. Photo credit:
Diagnosed with DIPG at age six, Lucas’ doctor Jacques Grill told Lucas’ parents, Cedric and Olesja, that he was unlikely to live very long. Instead of giving up hope, Cedric and Olesja flew Lucas to France to participate in a clinical trial called BIOMEDE, which tested new potential drugs against DIPG.
Lucas was randomly assigned a medication called everolimus in the clinical trial, a chemotherapy drug that works by blocking a protein called mTOR. mTOR helps cancer cells divide and grow new blood vessels, while everolimus decreases blood supply to the tumor cells and stops cancer cells from reproducing. Everolimus, a tablet that’s taken once per day, has been approved in the UK and the US to treat cancers in the breast, kidneys, stomach, pancreas, and others—but until the BIOMEDE clinical trial, it had never before been used to treat DIPG.
Lucas Jemeljanova poses with his mother. Photo credit: Lesja Jemeljanova via Facebook
Though doctors weren’t sure how Lucas would react to the medication, it quickly became clear that the results were good.
“Over a series of MRI scans, I watched as the tumor completely disappeared,” Grill said in an interview. Even more remarkably, the tumor has not returned since. Lucas, who is now thirteen, is considered officially cured of DIPG.
Even after the tumor was gone, Grill, who is the head of the Brain Tumor Program in the Department of Child and Teenage Oncology at Gustave Roussy cancer research hospital in Paris, was reluctant to stop Lucas’ treatments. Until about a year and a half ago, Lucas was still taking everolimus once every day.
“I didn’t know when to stop, or how, because there was no other reference in the world,” Grill said.
While Lucas is the only one in the clinical trial whose tumor has completely disappeared, seven other children have been considered “long responders” to everolimus, meaning their tumors have not progressed for more than three years after starting treatment.
Lucas with his mother. Photo credit: Lesja Jemeljanova via Facebook
So why did everolimus work so well for Lucas? Doctors think that an extremely rare genetic mutation in Lucas’ tumor “made its cells far more sensitive to the drug,” Grill said, while the drug worked well in other children because of the “biological peculiarities” of their tumors.
While everolimus is by no means a cure, the trial has provided real hope for parents and families of children diagnosed with DIPG. Doctors must now work to better understand why Lucas’ tumor responded so well to the drug and how they can replicate those results in tumor “organoids”—artificially-grown cells that resemble an organ. After that, said Marie-Anne Debily, a researcher in the BIOMEDE trial, “the next step will be to find a drug that works as well on tumor cells.”
A more recent clinical trial tested a new immunotherapy treatment on young DIPG patients and showed promising results. Many of the patients’ tumors shrank and several participants saw functional improvements in their symptoms and day-to-day lives. But only one of the 11 patients has seen success that rivals Lucas’ — a young man identified only as Drew, who has been thriving tumor-free for over four years after receiving treatment.
Once considered a definitive death sentence, there is real hope for the first time. But there’s much more research and work to be done. Until then, however, Lucas’ doctors are thrilled.
“Lucas’ case offers real hope,” said Debily.
Lucas with his parents and sister. Photo credit: Lesja Jemeljanova via Facebook
This article originally appeared two years ago. It has been updated.
Towards the end of The Beatles’ illustrious but brief career, Paul McCartney wrote Let it Be, a song about finding peace by letting events take their natural course. It was a sentiment that seemed to mirror the feeling of resignation the band had with its imminent demise.
The bittersweet song has had an appeal that has lasted generations, and that may be because it reflects an essential psychological concept: the locus of control. “It’s about understanding where our influence ends and accepting that some things are beyond our control,” Jennifer Chappell Marsh, a marriage and family therapist, told The Huffington Post. “We can’t control others, so instead, we should focus on our own actions and responses.”
The ‘Let Them’ theory, explained
This idea of giving up control (or the illusion of it) when it does us no good was perfectly distilled into two words that everyone can understand: “Let Them.” This is officially known as the “Let Them” theory. Podcast host, author, motivational speaker and former lawyer Mel Robbins explained this theory perfectly in a vial Instagram video posted in May 2023.
“I just heard about this thing called the ‘Let Them Theory,’ I freaking love this,” Robbins starts the video.
“If your friends are not inviting you out to brunch this weekend, let them. If the person that you’re really attracted to is not interested in a commitment, let them. If your kids do not want to get up and go to that thing with you this week, let them.” Robbins says in the clip. “So much time and energy is wasted on forcing other people to match our expectations.”
“If they’re not showing up how you want them to show up, do not try to force them to change; let them be themselves because they are revealing who they are to you. Just let them – and then you get to choose what you do next,” she continued.
Put the ‘Let Them’ theory into practice
The phrase is a great one to keep in your mental health tool kit because it’s a reminder that, for the most part, we can’t control other people. And if we can, is it worth wasting the emotional energy? Especially when we can allow people to behave as they wish and then we can react to them however we choose?
Stop wasting energy on trying to get other people to meet YOUR expectations. Instead, try using the “Let Them Theory.” 💥 Listen now on the melrobbinspodcast!! “The “Let Them Theory”: A Life Changing Mindset Hack That 15 Million People Can’t Stop Talking About” 🔗 in bio #melrobbins#letthemtheory#letgo#lettinggo#podcast#podcastepisode
How you respond to their behavior can significantly impact how they treat you in the future.
It’s also incredibly freeing to relieve yourself of the responsibility of changing people or feeling responsible for their actions. As the old Polish proverb goes, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
“Yes! It’s much like a concept propelled by the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F**k. Save your energy and set your boundaries accordingly. It’s realizing that we only have “control” over ourselves and it’s so freeing,” one viewer wrote.
Finding Peace Through Acceptance
“Let It Be” brought Paul McCartney solace as he dealt with losing his band in a very public breakup. The same state of mind can help all of us, whether it’s dealing with parents living in the past, friends who change and you don’t feel like you know them anymore, or someone who cuts you off in traffic because they’re in a huge rush to go who knows where.
The moment someone gets on your nerves and you feel a jolt of anxiety run up your back, take a big breath and say, “Let them.”
This article originally appeared two years ago.It has been updated.
Like it or not, AI technology is almost certainly here to stay. While that might bring new conveniences we never thought possible, it still causes many to stress out over range of topics from our careers to existential level threats.
In a segment for New Normal entitled, “Is Human Connection the New Job Security?” for BBC Global, journalist Katty Kay delves into the idea of job security in this new age. She first recalls a chat she had in 2023 with her old pal, Dermalogica Skincare founder Jane Wurwand.
High touch vs. high tech
In just two words, the corporate mogul had the antidote to “high tech,” and it was really quite simple. She told Kay, “The equal and opposite reaction to ‘high tech’ is ‘high touch.’” She explains that it’s “service-oriented businesses where humans are doing things that humans do best. Cooking. Caring. Touching. Kindness. Compassion. Talking. I’m not just in the business of skincare products. I’m in the business of human connection.”
Kay reconnects with Wurwand over a video chat a few years later to find out if she still feels the “high touch” concept is possible now that AI has advanced. “It’s not confined to physical touch, your concept of high tech/high touch. It’s also about this broader idea of just having a human voice when you call.” (Kay gives the example of having to call tech support if your Wi-Fi has gone out.)
The human being industry
Kay then asks, “Give us some tangible thoughts on which are the high-touch jobs and areas of employment you think survive this rapidly growing technology that may take other jobs away?”
Wurwand replies confidently, “The jobs that I see that are going to be booming…and really can’t be replaced. Hospitality. Travel. Anything in the human being industry.”
She discusses the importance of true empathy, something that can’t be substituted by a robot. “If you are receiving a cancer diagnosis, goodness forbid, an AI bot might have found or detected that rogue cell, but you certainly don’t want that bot talking to you or giving you that diagnosis. You want someone with kindness, empathy, and to hold your hand and literally say, ‘We’ve got a plan. We’re going to execute on it.’”
A doctor consults with his patient. Photo credit: Unsplash
Wurwand gives other examples, as well, essentially suggesting “high touch” can be applied anywhere, including tech jobs. “Whether you’re working in retail, whether you’re working in an industry that is full of technology, what we can bring as humans that makes the workplace, that business, that space kind, empathetic, that you feel seen, you feel heard, that you matter, that somebody knows a little bit about your life so that you can chat and talk.
A new social contract
Kay brings up the insightful point that many, especially younger people in today’s society, feel threatened and disillusioned. “Many felt there was this kind of social contract, where you get educated, you pay an enormous amount of money to go to a university or tertiary education, and then you come out and actually there aren’t jobs because the jobs have been taken.”
She also points out the frustration some might feel from having been told if they’d only learned to “code” they’d be fine. They then entered the workforce to find out lots of those jobs have been taken over, as well. Kay asks, “What do you say to the graduate who has a degree in accounting or coding?”
Wurwand reiterates that “high touch” is still important, even in accounting or coding jobs. “You’re not gonna compete with a robot. We don’t have those same skills. We don’t have that ‘code’ in our head. You have everything else that is needed by other humans. So we have to take the strength and move with it.”
She points out that we shouldn’t be so quick to label. “We shouldn’t box things into that’s ‘tech’ and this is ‘human.’ There has to be this connection.”
Genuine empathy
They both agree that those interpersonal skills—the ones that only human beings can truly have—must be nurtured in order to survive this AI flux. Wurwand gives the example: “Your first message of branding is that voice that answers the phone. And it doesn’t have to be in an office at a desk. It can be obviously remote. However, it has to be a double-down, delicious sort of person who sounds great and is kind and genuinely has empathy because we can hear or spot a fake in 30 seconds.”
Of course, the idea of good customer service isn’t exactly new. But it seems extra important right now given it’s seemingly being forgotten by so many major corporations.
In the article “9 Examples of High Touch,” for Simplicable, writer and IT tech John Spacey writes that it comes down to simply being human: “High touch is any business process that requires extensive human attention. These are typically areas where automation reduces the value of a process because humans add significant value to it.”
Aside from the aforementioned client services, Spacey also discusses the importance of having “personalized attention with every customer.” This includes, of course, listening to their needs and tailoring the experience directly to them when possible.
