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In 2014, psychologists at the University of California launched a course with one goal: Help students become happier in eight weeks.

Incredibly, it seemed to work. Thousands of students took the Science of Happiness course (which is still free to audit on edX, a provider of open online courses) and learned about the science of connection, compassion, gratitude, and mindfulness. Perhaps more importantly, they also completed a series of simple activities that research suggests increase happiness. 

Those who fully participated saw their positive feelings increase each week. They reported feeling less sadness, stress, loneliness, anger, and fear, while at the same time experiencing more amusement, enthusiasm, and affection, as well as a greater sense of community. During the course, students’ happiness and life satisfaction increased by about 5%. And that boost remained even four months after the course ended, though it’s difficult to fully untangle that result. It could’ve been from doing the activities, the students’ new understanding of the psychology of happiness, or something totally different. How does this work? Can you really change how happy you are that easily? According to the research, yes. 

The malleability of happiness

“There’s a misconception that happiness is built-in and that we can’t change it,” says Laurie Santos, a professor of psychology at Yale University who teaches a free Coursera class called The Science of Well-Being. 

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The world is their playground — and their teacher.

Adele and Matt Allen are raising their three children with “child autonomy,” allowing their kids to set their own curriculum, bedtimes, menus, meal times, and chore lists.

The Allens, who live in Brighton, UK, fully embrace the “unconventional parenting” style that aligns with their “frugal and natural living” habits.

“We got into natural living before we had our kids, so it just became a natural progression that continued and began to affect all of our decisions after I fell pregnant,” Adele told Caters.

The parents, who are both 39, don’t trust the healthcare or education systems and have allowed their children — Ulysses, 12, Ostara, 8, and Kai, 4 — to make their own choices from a very young age.

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Kai, 4, Ostara, 8, and Ulysses, 12, are encouraged “to take governance of their life, make their own choices and decide what goes on in their life,” their mother explained.Caters News Agency

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You’re reminded of it every time you move: You have too much crap. It piles up in closets, under beds, in storage units, and inside garages. And dealing with all that clutter is bad for your mental health. The psychological weight of hoarder-level clutter and mess is easy to understand, but it can affect you even if you’re not navigating canyons of trash in your house.

Even modest levels of clutter can negatively impact your life for a number of reasons—because you’re often lugging old connections around, preventing you from letting go of past traumas; because you have to expend mental and emotional energy on things that are no longer vital to your everyday life; because you know, deep down, that someone is eventually going to have to deal with all of it after you die. But the practice of “Swedish death cleaning” can help—and you don’t have to wait until you’re near the end to benefit.

What is Swedish death cleaning?

Swedish Death Cleaning is a simple concept with powerful potential. It’s based on a Swedish concept called döstädning (literally “death cleaning”) that was expanded into a book by Margareta Magnusson (The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning). Magnusson was inspired to write the book after she lost her parents and her husband and had to wade through all the stuff they left behind.

The idea behind it is simple: At a certain point in your life, you should stop accumulating more stuff and start dealing with the stuff you’ve already accumulated so your loved ones won’t have to do it after you’re gone. Instead of leaving an enormous chore behind for the future, you can make it a thoughtful project now, while you’re still in control.

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Photo: faithie (Shutterstock)

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A growing share of childless adults in the U.S. don’t expect to ever have children, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center survey. Some people gave specific reasons, like medical conditions or finances, but a lot of people said they just don’t want to.

If that’s you, you might find yourself facing unwanted commentary or questions. Angela L. Harris can relate. She’s child-free by choice, and she says people often question her choice or want to know all the details.

Harris has a doctorate degree in clinical psychology and is the founder of #NoBibsBurpsBottles, an online community for Black women who are child-free. She says, first of all, to remember that you don’t owe anyone an explanation: “If you don’t feel like explaining, don’t explain. Your life is your life.”

Harris tends to share. “I explain my choice all the time, especially if someone’s curious about it,” she says. “That’s the way we’re going to decrease the stigma.” Sometimes Harris’ responses might be more sincere; other times, she opts for levity. “I think there’s a playful and joking way in which you can respond,” she says.

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Ana Galvañ for NPR

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How is Simone Biles like a honeybee? That’s not a riddle. Nor is it a trick question. It’s a profoundly serious inquiry, and the answer is found within an emerging field of neuroscience, one that promises to unlock the secrets of how our brains decide if it’s the right time to quit.

As the world’s premier gymnast, Biles has done many amazing things, but it was the thing she did in Tokyo in 2021 that stunned the world like nothing else in her career ever had: she gave up. So what’s the connection between one of the greatest athletes in history and a flying insect?

“Perseverance, in a biological sense, doesn’t make sense unless it’s working.”

That’s Jerry Coyne, emeritus professor at the University of Chicago, one of the top evolutionary biologists of his generation. I’ve called Coyne to ask him about animals and quitting. I want to know why human beings tend to adhere to the Gospel of Grit—while other creatures on this magnificently diverse earth of ours follow a different strategy. Their lives are marked by purposeful halts, fortuitous side steps, canny retreats, nick‑of‑time recalculations, wily workarounds, and deliberate do‑overs, not to mention loops, pivots, and complete reversals.

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Credit: Nithya / Adobe Stock

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Graduation season can be one of both opportunity and existential dread. You’re about to embark on a new chapter of your life and have seemingly endless possibilities ahead of you, whether you’re graduating from undergrad, are beginning your career straight out of high school, or have taken a non-traditional path. All that promise and potential can be just as liberating as it is terrifying.

Almost everyone has well-wishes for new college graduates, advice ranging from trite (“Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life!”) to the ill-advised (any platitude with the word “hustle” in it; anyone who recommends you sacrifice sleep to be more productive).

However, professors who actually work with students, financial experts, and people who’ve been at the crossroads of life say otherwise. Their advice for new graduates is all about relationships: your relationship with your job, your money, and yourself. If you’re looking for a little bit of guidance post-graduation, try a tip or two.

Responses have been edited and condensed for clarity.

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Don’t drive when it snows.

Okay, that’s not realistic, so it’s really more like Always check the weather before you go on a four-hour road trip in the dead of winter to see your friend Jen in Bend, Oregon, during the height of the pandemic.

But let’s rewind a bit since there were other ways to die on this long journey to reach Jen. You first flew across the country from New York to Oregon. You could have died then, too, gambling with your life with that five-hour flight, breathing the same stuffy plane air as everyone else.

Remember when you were advised to stay at least six feet away from people, or else risk getting COVID? Then possibly dying? That four-hour car ride on the final leg of your trip, then, was both a foolish and fitting thing to do.

Because it’s on this drive from the coast of Oregon to Bend that your car slips on the snow and crashes into the highway barrier. You find out later — see, this is why you should always check the weather before you drive — that that day was the first heavy snowfall of the season, and you’re in one of many car accidents around town, just half an hour away from Jen and her husband, who put all their belongings in storage and decided to rent an Airbnb in town indefinitely. (People did that during the pandemic, in that uncertain time between the fear of succumbing to the disease and the boredom of staying at home.) 

You have photos of this carnage and general mayhem and, much later — after all this is more or less over — gleefully show them to people who ask, while watching kind of sadistically as they squirm and wince and gravely tell you they’re glad you’re alive.

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Stock art by David Malan/Getty Images. Image by CLR.

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If we were to draw one key lesson about longevity from the centenarians of the Blue Zones regions (places that are home to the longest-living folks on Earth), it would be that it doesn’t come from fad diets or overwrought workout routines, or really any practice that’s bound to fizzle within months. Rather, people with extraordinary longevity “live in environments that nudge them unconsciously toward healthier behaviors, like moving more and eating plants,” says Dan Buettner, author of The Blue Zones Challenge: A 4-Week Plan for a Longer, Better Life. And those environments start within the spaces of their homes, which include elements of design and organization that facilitate healthy habits.

In essence, the set-up of your home can play a role in your longevity because of the often passive ways in which we make everyday lifestyle decisions, like what to eat and when to move. “For example, Cornell found that up to 90 percent of the food choices we make each day are unconscious,” says Buettner. “So, even if I were to convince you to make good conscious decisions about what you eat, and get you to remember to make those decisions for the next 30 years, that would only cover a fraction of the total number of food decisions you’d be making daily.”

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Photo: Getty Images / Westend61

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Over the last few years, you may have noticed that the dairy section at your local grocery store has grown to feature far more than your run-of-the-mill milk selection. Nowadays, there are tons of brands to choose from, and yes, most of them are plant-based.

The move to plant-based milk has been a long time coming, considering an estimated 68 percent of people worldwide are lactose intolerant (30 to 50 million adults in the U.S. alone) and research shows that nearly 1.3 percent of the total carbon emissions produced in the United States—which is one of the main drivers of climate change and a harmful greenhouse gas for our environment—is due to the dairy industry. Comparatively, plant-based milk emits far fewer emissions and requires far less land use than the dairy industry.

Aside from the positive outcomes for the environment, plant-based milk options have been shown to offer tons of health benefits, too. But with so many options to pick from—oat, soy, almond, rice, and the list goes on—which one is the best one, at least in terms of digestion? We recently caught up with Will Bulsie wicz, MD, a gastroenterologist and New York Times bestselling author of The Fiber Fueled Cookbook, who spilled the beans milk on the number-one type of plant-based milk for gut health—his answer may surprise you.

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Photo: Stocksy/ Martí Sans

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This way you’re not stacking one dumbbell on top of another, but stashing just one pair. After all, your living room or garage is meant to have other furniture.

“Before quarantine, I bought so many weights that I basically have a full gym in my spare bedroom — but they take up a ton of space that I don’t have,” says Gerren Liles, CPT, master instructor at Equinox and founding trainer of the Mirror. “Adjustable dumbbells present a great convenience when it comes to smaller workout areas.”

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Most of today’s adjustable dumbbells allow you to change the weight by simply turning a dial. Image Credit: LIVESTRONG.com

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