When it comes to philanthropy, Kevin Bacon likes to keep things personal. In 2007, he founded SixDegrees.org, a youth-centered social impact organization that takes its title from the popular parlor game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. And now, the nonprofit is launching a new initiative named in honor of the Footloose actor’s late mother. Called […]
From about the age of 3 onward, the typical human being has the capacity to experience the emotional state of another person. That capacity is empathy, and it’s critical to our well-being — both as individuals and as a collective. “In general, empathy is a powerful predictor of things we consider to be positive behaviors
The 3 Types of Empathy and How to Increase Them in Your Relationships Continue Reading »
Happiness is hard to characterize. Is it contentment? Satisfaction? Joy? Ask author Gretchen Rubin, who studies and writes about the subject, and she won’t miss a beat in answering. “I do not define it,” Rubin told Nice News matter-of-factly. “I started my career in law where we spent an entire semester arguing about contracts, and
Most of the time, Nice News reports on the positive goings-on around the world. But sometimes, we make those positive stories happen ourselves. That’s the case with the Cause of the Month initiative, which raised a whopping $26,104 in 2024, just from Nice News readers’ donations. Each month this year, we gave our community the
A Year of Giving, in Review: Nice News Readers Raised Over $26K in 2024 Continue Reading »
The power of journaling to boost well-being has been proven about a million times over, but the studies bearing out its benefits tend to focus on notebooks that are kept to oneself. Pouring your heart out on the page and then passing it around to strangers isn’t commonly recommended by mental health professionals, but thanks
The end of year lends itself to a lot of reviewing. We tend to look back at the past 12 months and quantitatively evaluate them: I visited this many state parks, I binged this many TV shows. But now is also as good a time as any to look back at your life as a
The Transformative Power of a Life Review, Whether You’re 25 or 75 Continue Reading »
Beauty by Jenna’s all-natural lip balms, with their brightly colored packaging and scrumptious flavors, do more than just moisturize — they also provide jobs for people on the autism spectrum. That’s the motivation behind the cosmetics company founded by Jenna Grabow and Anna Lundmark. And the first person for whom the brand helped find employment
Every generation, new philosophies emerge to help parents raise happy, well-adjusted children, from authoritative parenting in the 1960s to attachment parenting in the ’90s and the more recent gentle parenting, practiced by scores of millennial moms and dads. But according to a significant body of research, there’s one aspect of child-rearing that truly sets kids
The Secret to Raising Successful Kids Is All in the Chore Chart, Research Shows Continue Reading »
“It takes a village” is a time-tested proverb that underscores the importance of community when it comes to raising children. But what those villages actually look like is changing for many modern families, according to a recent survey conducted on behalf of The Goddard School, a network of early childhood learning centers. Out of 2,000
Across the United States, people are struggling to find homes they can afford. Also throughout the country, an abundance of retail space is sitting empty. A rising real estate trend could make a dent in both problems: turning abandoned malls and shopping centers into affordable housing. Though plenty of malls still see action (anyone else
