Inspiring: Healing Our Relationships News Articles
We believe in the creative, redemptive, and collaborative potential of humanity. Below are key excerpts of inspiring news articles on healing social division and polarization. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.
For further exploration, delve into our Inspiration Center.
Crosswalks don’t work. According to various studies, only between five and fifteen percent of drivers slow down at pedestrian crossings. The vast majority of drivers simply don’t pay attention to them. America’s deadly streetscape is the subject of The Street Project, a new PBS documentary about citizen-led efforts to make streets safer. When filmmaker Jennifer Boyd started making it, she assumed distracted driving must be behind the alarming rise in pedestrian deaths. But as she soon learned, digital screens are less of a culprit than most people realize. “Less than one percent of pedestrian deaths involved portable electronic devices,” she found. Instead, she discovered that two of the biggest factors are speeding and bigger cars. If speeding and visibility are the problem and crosswalks can’t stop it, color might. The Asphalt Art Initiative, a program funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, provides grants to create art to modify dangerous streets. One of these projects is in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where artists and residents transformed a high-traffic commercial thoroughfare with a block-long asphalt mural, while students marked safe walking paths in the area with stencils and wheat paste. Overall, according to the Initiative, “the data showed a 50 percent drop in crashes involving pedestrians or cyclists and a 37 percent drop in crashes leading to injuries. Intersections with asphalt art saw a 17 percent reduction in total accidents.”
Note: Don't miss the great pictures and video of public art available at the link above. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Amid a crush of heavy news from around the world, who couldn't use some sage advice right now? Call a new hotline, and you'll get just that — encouraging words from a resilient group of kindergartners. Kids' voices will prompt you with a menu of options: If you're feeling mad, frustrated or nervous, press 1. If you need words of encouragement and life advice, press 2. If you need a pep talk from kindergartners, press 3. If you need to hear kids laughing with delight, press 4. For encouragement in Spanish, press 5. Pressing 3 leads to a chorus of kids sounding off a series of uplifting mantras: "Be grateful for yourself," offers one student. "If you're feeling up high and unbalanced, think of groundhogs," another chimes in. Peptoc, as the free hotline is called, is a project from the students of West Side Elementary, a small school in the town of Healdsburg, Calif. It was put together with the help of teachers Jessica Martin and Asherah Weiss. Martin, who teaches the arts program at the school, says she was inspired by her students' positive attitudes, despite all they've been through — the pandemic, wildfires in the region and just the everyday challenges of being a kid. "I thought, you know, with this world being as it is, we all really needed to hear from them — their extraordinary advice and their continual joy," she said. Martin says she hopes the hotline will give callers a little respite from whatever it is they're going through, which — judging from the thousands of calls the hotline gets each day — is quite a lot. So the next time you need a little boost, dial Peptoc at 707-998-8410.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
In a remote part of Maine shrouded by trees, 14- and 15-year-olds from the Middle East, Asia, Europe and the U.S, many of whom have long considered one another "the enemy," spend three weeks side-by-side united by one goal: to open their minds and their ears. At the Seeds of Peace camp, the teens eat, interact and engage in dialogue with people from countries some of them are banned from visiting. Seeds of Peace campers are identified by only their first names because, for some, the release of their full identity could put them in danger. Broken up into groups of about 15, campers aren't only asked to share their own narrative. It's also time spent listening and engaging in conversations with people whose opinions are often contrasting and even offensive. They're also placed together for a physical group challenge. Habeeba [a 22-year-old Egyptian] found herself paired with the Israeli, who in dialogue group was so vocal and resolute, she couldn't establish one piece of common ground. Blindfolded, she had a single choice: to depend on someone she couldn't trust or risk falling. As he guided her through each step of the course, she felt a shift in herself, finding an ability to care about a person she never imagined was possible. "He is just as human as me. He's also 14 or 15. I am him and he is me," she realized. "Up on the high ropes, I didn't care that he was Israeli; I cared that we wouldn't fall." What Seeds of Peace does have are the tools needed for these teenagers to break out of a world that wants to force people into one ideological box. "I connected it to the culture that seems to be growing in the United States in universities today of needing a safe space and being triggered very easily," Adaya [22-year-old Israeli] said. "If you're not able to engage someone that you disagree with, how are you going to grow? You have to challenge yourself from different directions in order to know that your opinion stands."
Note: War destroys, yet these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world.
Is it natural for humans to make war? Is organised violence between rival political groups an inevitable outcome of the human condition? New research suggests not. A study of tribal societies that live by hunting and foraging has found that war is an alien concept and not, as some academics have suggested, an innate feature of so-called primitive people. Douglas Fry and Patrik Sderberg of Abo Akademi University in Vasa, Finland, studied 148 violently lethal incidents documented by anthropologists working among 21 mobile bands of hunter-gatherer societies, which some scholars have suggested as a template for studying how humans lived for more than 99.9 per cent of human history, before the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. They found that only a tiny minority of violent deaths come close to being defined as acts of war. Most the violence was perpetrated by one individual against another and usually involved personal grudges involving women or stealing. Only a tiny minority of cases involved more organised killing between rival bands of people, which could fall into the definition of war-like behaviour. Most of these involved only one of the 21 groups included in the study. In short they found that some of the most primitive peoples on Earth were actually quite peaceful compared to modern, developed nations. These findings imply that warfare was probably not very common before the advent of agriculture, when most if not all humans lived as nomadic foragers, Kirk Endicott, an anthropologist at Dartmouth College told the journal Science, where the study is published.
Note: For a treasure trove of great news articles which will inspire you to make a difference, click here.
Michigan is a battleground state, in every sense of the word. Here, purple doesn't mean moderate; it means the 50-50, Red/Blue split is a chasm. On a recent Saturday in Traverse City, Mich., people gathered – half of them Red, the other half Blue – brought together by Braver Angels, a not-for-profit attempting to narrow the divide. "I'm here out of concern for our country, and our democracy," said one attendee, Jane. Started in 2016, Braver Angels now holds sessions nationwide. It was shaped by Bill Doherty, who teaches relationships at the University of Minnesota. He's also a marriage counselor. Correspondent Martha Teichner asked Doherty, "Is it a proper analogy: Reds and Blues in America, and couples on the brink of divorce?" "There is an analogy to couples on the brink," Doherty replied. "A big difference is that divorce is not possible in America." In Traverse City, participants arrived uneasy at first, defensive. Task #1 at a Red/Blue workshop: stereotypes. Reds and Blues, seated in separate rooms, are asked to list what "they" call "you." Facilitators then ask each side if there's is a kernel of truth in those stereotypes. Tim said, "The passion for the pro-life cause sometimes seems not to hear women." And so it goes, for three hours, peeling back the onion of opinion, looking for common ground. No trying to change anybody's mind. Divided they were, but they showed up, because they wanted to know each other not by label, but by name. Braver Angels has held more than 2,000 workshops and is growing.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
As a kid growing up in 1960s Chicago, Daryl Davis was shocked when his parents explained that White children were throwing rocks at him during a Cub Scouts parade because he was Black. This ... left a burning question in Davis’ mind: “How can you hate me if you do not know me?” A blues pianist, whose energetic style led him to perform with the likes of Chuck Berry, B.B. King, and Jerry Lee Lewis, Davis would commit his life to seeking out answers to that question, often with his music and his Christian faith as equalizers. But a performance ... in 1983 would leave its mark. He had been approached, after a set, by a member of the audience who told him he had never seen a Black man who could play like Jerry Lee Lewis. That began a conversation that would reveal a surprising truth: The man making the comment was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. This revelation sparked the beginning of a 30-year journey that for Davis involved sitting down with members of the Klan and other White supremacists, attending their rallies and cross burnings—all in a search for answers. By tackling prejudices head-on, Davis believes he succeeded in persuading more than 200 KKK members and other white supremacists to disavow their allegiances. Many became friends, including Scott Shepherd, a former Grand Dragon of the KKK in Tennessee. The two regularly travel together to help shine a light on white supremacy and address the spread of racism through dialogue and education.
Note: Davis' work reforming white supremacists is the subject of an inspiring documentary. Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
A small Wisconsin city has just notched a big win in its fight against a proposed data center, thanks to grassroots community organizing and support from a growing statewide coalition. And to help guide other communities facing similar challenges, organizers in Menomonie have helped develop a toolkit for taking on hyperscale data centers. As of last October, there were about 3,000 new data centers being built or planned nationwide. Soon, a wave of data center projects was washing over Wisconsin towns. Data centers bring few permanent jobs and can drain municipal water resources, drive up electric bills, rob cities of tax revenues, and cause damaging noise, light and air pollution. Residents in Port Washington have complained about the disruption caused by around-the-clock construction at the new data center. Families near the construction in Beaver Dam have reported that their wells have run dry. Menomonie residents took to social media and the streets to raise the alarm about the data center proposal and organize community members. They met to share information, staged demonstrations and began attending city council meetings in growing numbers. By September 2025, there were over 10,000 Menomonie residents and allies in a Stop the Menomonie Data Center Facebook group — more than half the town’s population. Pressure from local campaigners was so great that Mayor Randy Knaack announced at a September 22 city council meeting that he had notified Balloonist that the city would not be moving forward with a development agreement. More good news came in January when the Menomonie City Council voted unanimously to place additional regulations on data center projects. One of the statewide coalition’s greatest achievements is the Big Tech Unchecked Toolkit. Published in December 2025 by Healthy Climate Wisconsin and other coalition partners, the toolkit includes information on what data centers are, their impacts on communities and success stories from struggles across Wisconsin, including Menomonie’s.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and reimagining the economy.
Known as the Night of Controversies, the Paris-based event featured about a dozen different sessions including debates ... as well as workshops on the art of the argument and non-violent communication. Run by the Institute of Desirable Futures, an organization working on corporate innovation and leadership, the project aims to “enrich us from our disagreements” and to “joyfully cast doubt on our certainties” in an era of growing polarization. The Night of Controversies was the institute’s first all-out, multi-session event dedicated to disagreement, with more than 600 Parisians attending. The initiative is part of a wider movement that sees finding common ground and learning to “disagree well” as a potent remedy to many of today’s societal and political woes. A study by researchers at the University of Cambridge in February 2026 found that divisions on social and political issues in the U.S. have increased by 64 percent since 1988, with most polarization after 2008. Julia Minson, a Harvard Kennedy School professor and behavioral scientist [said:] “When it comes to the U.S., people on the other side of the political spectrum are seen as unmoral, untrustworthy, not worthy of debate.” The French institute has run “controversy” events for over a decade, predominantly as part of its work with small and large companies and even politicians. More than 2,000 people have participated in the institute’s trainings on disagreement to date, spanning topics such as food production, climate change, AI, biomimetics and governance. The training might be intensively over a week or spread over several months of sessions. “I don’t think we are fundamentally in disagreement,” said one man. “Where we differ is our understanding of the political context.” As a society, we have three choices when confronted with different opinions. First, we can withdraw from interaction and keep to our inner circle. Second, we can try to dominate and impose our beliefs on others. Or thirdly, we can learn to live and grow with them. “Listening to opposing opinions can enrich us,” [Jean-Luc Verreaux, director-general of the institute] elaborates. “A diversity of perspectives can only improve how we build the world of tomorrow.”
Note: Our Substack, The Social Media Platform Transforming Division Into Common Ground, spotlights a game-changing social platform that's using technology for good and bringing people together across differences. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
Being hurt by others is common and can be deeply painful. Which raises the question of forgiveness. In the last few decades, researchers have helped us better understand how people experience forgiveness and how it influences our lives. The Global Flourishing Study seeks to enrich this knowledge from a more global perspective. Launched in 2021, the study follows people over time to understand what a good life looks like in different parts of the world – including health, happiness, meaning, relationships, character, and financial security. It’s the first study to measure forgiveness in national samples from many different cultures and contexts. In the first wave of data from more than 200,000 participants across 22 countries, my colleagues and I found that about 75% of individuals reported they had “often” or “always” forgiven those who had hurt them. Percentages varied across countries, ranging from 41% in Turkey to 92% in Nigeria. We looked at whether people who reported being more forgiving tended to report better well-being about a year later. We found that forgiveness predicted somewhat higher well-being on many of the 56 outcomes, including mental health, purpose in life, relationship satisfaction and hope. Decades of research have pointed to similar links. The hopeful news is that forgiveness isn’t a rare quality that some of us have and others lack. Studies have shown that forgiveness is like a muscle we can strengthen.
Note: For people who find forgiveness especially challenging, this project produced a forgiveness workbook that can be completed in about three hours. In the face of the brutal war machine, these powerful real-life stories show that we can heal, reimagine better alternatives, and plant the seeds of a global shift in consciousness to transform our world. Explore more powerful stories like this on healing social division.
The first time Mike Martin held an AK-47 was after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. “My faith tradition is rooted in peace and non-violence,” he says. Martin took the AK-47 to a nearby blacksmith in Colorado Springs, dismantled it and forged the metal into a shovel and a rake. This moment sparked the beginning of RAWtools (War spelled backwards), a nonprofit Martin now runs full-time, and a movement spanning four states with affiliates in Buffalo, NY; Philadelphia, PA; and Asheville, North Carolina. Since its humble beginnings 14 years ago, RAWtools has destroyed and repurposed more than 6,000 guns, forging them into garden tools and art. Martin now carries the trigger of the first Kalashnikovs he destroyed on a keyring. For Martin, the physical act of destroying a gun can be healing, but often it’s just the beginning of a bigger conversation. “The dominant culture often tells us that we can’t escape the violence, so we should therefore join the violence,” he says. “Instead, this counter-story of turning swords into plows insists that violence is the problem, not the solution.” Anybody can fill out a form on the RAWtools website, or respond to the buyback program “Guns to Gardens,” and arrange to donate their gun. Donors often want to be involved in transforming the weapon into a force for good. RAWtools regularly holds events, especially in front of churches and synagogues, not only to collect and transform guns, but to start conversations.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the war machine.
For 25 years, Jeff Schoep headed America's largest Neo-Nazi organisation, the National Socialist Movement. Now ... he says he is committed to helping deradicalise people who hold the extremist views he used to preach. "Hating people is exhausting. When you can't tolerate other people and other systems of belief ... there's something wrong with you and the way you're looking at things," Mr Schoep said. "Once you have the opportunity to see and understand somebody else's viewpoint, from their perspective of their story in life, that can be life-altering." Mr Schoep said his time at the helm of the National Socialist Movement was like being the leader of a cult. "I felt like I was going to save my race, and I was a patriot for my country ... that was what drove me," he said. A revelation for Mr Schoep occurred in 2016 when he agreed to an interview with Daryl Davis, a prolific African-American jazz musician who worked to deradicalise Neo-Nazi groups. Mr Davis spoke of the impact that racism had on his own life, which began when he was pelted with rocks as a child marching in a Boy Scout parade, asking Mr Schoep, "How could someone hate me when they don't even know me?" "I was told that racism was wrong in school, by my parents, my grandfather, everybody," Mr Schoep said. "But none of that resonated until I sat across from somebody that had experienced it firsthand and how it made them feel. "Daryl never told me how I was wrong; he showed me how I was wrong."
Note: Read more about the powerful anti-racist work of Daryl Davis. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division.
For more than 30 years, Frank Frost worked as a long-distance truck driver. He gained weight and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in his 50s. His doctors put him on insulin injections and told him to lose weight and move more. "When l, like most people, failed, they made me feel weak and worthless," says Frost. Then, Frost met a doctor with a completely different approach — one that changed his life. The doctor ... asked Frost about things he enjoyed doing as a kid and discovered he used to love riding a bike. He gave him a prescription for a 10-week cycling course called Pedal Ready for adults getting back into cycling. "I hadn't been on a bike for almost 50 years until I started cycling again," says Frost. What Frost's doctor had done was give him a social prescription, says journalist Julia Hotz. It's the idea of health professionals "literally prescribing you a community activity or resource the same way they'd prescribe you pills or therapies," she explains. The prescriptions include exercise, art, music, exposure to nature and volunteering, which are known to have enormous benefits to physical and mental health. And it all starts with "flipping the script from what's the matter with you to focusing on what matters to you," Hotz says. "What are your activities that you love? What gets you out of bed?" Frost's prescription helped him make friends after years in a solitary profession. And it helped him lose 100 pounds, get his diabetes under control and go off insulin.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this in our comprehensive healing our bodies and healing social division.
For seven years, I was a white nationalist skinhead and the front man of a neo-Nazi metal band based in Milwaukee. The life I led was toxic to myself and everyone around me. I was drawn in when I was 16. I was an angry, lonely kid, searching for something: identity, purpose, belonging. I found it, or thought I did, in a fantasy: the idea that I was part of a master race under siege. We justified brutal attacks — what we called "boot parties" — on people we saw as enemies: people of color, LGBTQ folks, Jews, punks, anyone who wasn't us. I'd hear a quiet voice inside asking, "What are you doing? This guy didn't do anything to you. You don't even know him," but I didn't have the courage to listen. In early 1994, the mother of my daughter and I broke up, and I found myself a single parent to our 18-month-old. Two months later, a second friend of mine was shot and killed. I'd lost count of how many friends had been incarcerated. It finally hit me that if I didn't leave, prison or death would take me from my daughter. That was the push I needed. I realized something profound: what I had been searching for all along — belonging, joy, connection — wasn't found in hate, it was in community. Today, I work with Parents for Peace, an organization that helps people caught in extremism find a healthier, more connected life. We support individuals on their journey — whether they're questioning, struggling, or still deeply entrenched — and we guide families trying to reach a loved one.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and human interest topics.
Science is revealing that ... giving thanks might be more powerful than we ever imagined. Research shows that expressing gratitude doesn’t just make us feel good momentarily — it actually reshapes our brains in ways that enhance our well-being. When you take a moment to count your blessings, your brain releases dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that create feelings of pleasure and contentment. But what’s really fascinating is that this isn’t just a temporary boost — these moments of thankfulness create a positive feedback loop, training your brain to look for more reasons to be grateful. Brain imaging studies have captured this process in action. When people express gratitude, they activate the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s command center for decision-making and emotional regulation. This triggers a cascade of beneficial effects, including sharper attention and increased motivation. Think of it like building a muscle — the more you exercise gratitude, the stronger these neural pathways become, making it progressively easier to access positive emotions. Perhaps even more remarkable is gratitude’s effect on stress. When you focus on appreciation, your brain actually dials down the production of cortisol, your body's primary stress hormone. Research conducted at Indiana University found that practicing gratitude can actually change the structure of your brain, particularly in areas linked to empathy and emotional processing. Even simply pausing throughout the day — my favorite practice — to notice and appreciate positive moments can help reshape your neural circuitry.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division and healing our bodies.
When Marco de Kat starts planning his meals, he doesn’t need to travel far for fresh food. Right outside his house is an 800 square metre plot with all sorts of produce – apples, pears, peppers, basil, beets and cauliflower, to name a few. Oosterwold, where de Kat has lived since 2017, is a 4,300 hectare (10,625 acre) urban experiment located east of Amsterdam, in a suburb of the city of Almere, where de Kat works as a municipal councillor. The area, which has about 5,000 residents and a growing waiting list, is completely self-sufficient. Residents can build houses however they like, and must collaborate with others to figure out things such as street names, waste management, roads, and even schools. But the local government has included one extremely unusual requirement: about half of each plot must be devoted to urban agriculture. Some, like de Kat, have turned their gardens into an Eden of sorts to provide for their own household unit. Other residents just plant a few apple trees or outsource by owning plots of land on site that are tended to by professional farmers. Others, such as Jalil Bekkour, have been able to capitalise on it. “I never had experience gardening my own food or anything like that,” he said. But he taught himself how to garden, and three years ago he opened his own restaurant, Atelier Feddan, where 80% of the food is directly from Oosterwold. His newfound excitement for gardening and agriculture is palpable.
Note: Learn about the community-powered movement that's transforming yards into microfarms in Los Angeles. Explore more positive stories like this on healing social division and healing the Earth.
Public understanding of paedophiles has not improved over the past 30 years, according to the founder of the pioneering charity Circles, which offers support to some of society’s most reviled offenders. While the Rev Harry Nigh says child protection must always be paramount, he stresses the importance of breaking the isolation and shame that often leads people who commit child sexual abuse to reoffend, arguing that “anything that drives people underground even further endangers the community itself”. The Circles programme provides a local network of volunteers who support and hold accountable their “core member”, a child sexual offender who wants to reintegrate into the community after serving their sentence. The core model of grassroots community support – and accountability – has remained the same for the past three decades: “It’s not just about risk management, it has to be about affirmation,” Nigh said. “Just to reinforce the humanity of the person is really important. “That’s a very powerful thing for a person to be able to find a new narrative of his life that can lead him forward. But it’s not all hugs and kisses. There can be some very hard conversations in the Circle and confrontations. But the studies show that men with a Circle are 70 to 80% less likely to reoffend than a control group. The underlying principles of restorative justice are what’s guiding this work, that harm cannot be remedied completely by locking people up.”
Note: For more along these lines, read our concise summaries of news articles on sexual abuse scandals, repairing our criminal justice system, and healing social division.
In the city of Nanchang, in an alleyway near a cancer hospital, two senior citizens run a “community cancer kitchen” to support those caring for their loved ones. Wan Zuocheng and Hong Gengxiang have been doing this charity work for two decades. “No matter what life throws at you, you must eat good food,” Mr. Wan told South China Morning Post. For just 3 RMB, the equivalent of around $0.32, anyone can use the kitchen spaces they’ve set up in the alleyway to cook meals. Sometimes it’s for the patients so they can eat something familiar rather than hospital food, while sometimes it’s for the people who care for the patients. “There was a couple who came to us with their child,” Wan said, talking about the day in 2003 they decided to start their charity kitchen. “They said he didn’t want treatment, he just wanted a meal cooked by his mom. So we let them use our kitchen.” As time passed they added more utensils, appliances, stoves, and ovens to their stall. This came with gradually increasing use of water, electricity, and coal, but as the costs rose, so too did the community, supporting the couple and their efforts to provide the invaluable service they relied on. Donations began to outpace expenditures, and now nearly 10,000 people come to cook in the cancer kitchen. It’s been thoroughly observed in medicine that the odds of beating cancer can be improved with positivity, and what could be more positive than a loved one bringing you a home-cooked meal?
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing social division.
Akeela Shaikh is a natural carer. But the care jobs she loved so much started to tax her physically. She tried antidepressants, then counselling although neither worked for her. But then a nurse gave Shaikh a different kind of medicine: "She gave me a card that read 'social prescribing'." The card led to a phone call with Joanne Gavin, at the time a link worker with Bolton Community and Voluntary Services. Instead of asking "what's the matter with you", link workers ask patients "what matters to you" and find suitable community activities that fit their answer. It was clear what mattered to Shaikh was really another chance to take care of someone. Gavin intuited this. And when she asked Shaikh what she thought might help her feel better, she honoured her answer: "a job". Gavin prescribed the perfect gig for Shaikh: a shift at the office of Lagan's Foundation, a non-profit providing caregiving to children with complex needs. After Gavin intervened, Shaikh says she started feeling more like herself. "It was a way for Akeela to still be involved with the care inside, without the heavy lifting." The power of social prescribing – helping patients to improve their health and wellbeing by connecting them to community resources and activities – is increasingly backed by scientific studies. Prescriptions can cover everything from art classes and cycling groups to food and heating bills. One particularly surprising 2019 study of nearly 7,000 older Americans found that life purpose was significantly inversely linked with all-cause mortality. In other words, having a high sense of life-purpose could help you live longer than those who lack one. "My approach is to listen to someone's story and look at not just what's going on now but what they were like before they started to feel depressed or anxious," says Gavin.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this on healing our bodies and healing social division.
A practice called social prescribing is being explored in the United States, after being adopted in more than 20 other countries. Social prescriptions generally aim to improve health and well-being by connecting people with nonclinical activities that address underlying problems, such as isolation, social stress and lack of nutritious food, which have been shown to play a crucial role in influencing who stays well and for how long. For Ms. Washington, who is among thousands of patients who have received social prescriptions from the nonprofit Open Source Wellness, the experience was transformative. She found a less stressful job, began eating more healthfully and ... was able to stop taking blood pressure medication. At the Cleveland Clinic, doctors are prescribing nature walks, volunteering and ballroom dancing. In Newark, an insurance provider has teamed up with the New Jersey Performing Arts Center to offer patients glassblowing workshops, concerts and museum exhibitions. A nonprofit in Utah is connecting mental health patients with community gardens and helping them participate in other activities that bring them a sense of meaning. Universities have started referring students to arts and cultural activities like comedy shows and concerts. Research on social prescribing suggests that it can improve mental health and quality of life and that it might reduce doctor visits and hospital admissions.
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing our bodies and healing social division.
The issue of abortion has neatly cleaved the Polish political class, yet researchers find that Poles themselves feel much more empathy around it than their elected leaders. And the idea that people hold compassion around many divisive issues presents an opportunity to bridge a societal divide, says Zofia Wodarczyk, a researcher at the social science think tank More in Common, which published a study. “We basically only talk [in politics] about abortion – are you for, or are you against, but there’s so much in between that’s gray,” she says. And when she and her colleagues interviewed voters of all stripes, they saw the gray. Even among the most staunchly conservative, religious group – about 6% of those surveyed – about a third of men and women surveyed would support someone close to them getting an abortion. The vast majority of Polish men and women of all persuasions oppose punishing women who choose abortion. Anna Wójcik, a legal scholar ... says people are ready to move past what she calls “civil war conditions,” after eight years in which the conservative majority questioned loyalty to country for simply expressing divergent views. “I feel that Polish people are tired of this polarizing political scene and division,” says Ms. Wójcik. “Basically people want to move forward, to be able to discuss topics in democracy that we have conflicting views on, like energy transition and education and stuff like that.”
Note: Explore more positive stories like this about healing social division.
Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.
