Life Hacks

The “name your brain” hack sounds ridiculous until it works

It sounds a little unhinged and might change how you deal with negative thoughts.

We are often our own worst critics, but silencing that little voice in your head that berates you for spilling a cup of coffee is tough. You can tell someone else to back off or watch their tone. But your own mind? How would you even do that?

In this story by Mark Wales, Faye Plunkett offers a surprisingly simple answer. Name your brain. She named hers Becky. Whenever a dark or intrusive thought shows up, she talks to Becky directly. Calmly. Kindly. With boundaries. “Becky, not today,” she says. Or, “That’s unfair to say before I’ve even gotten out of bed.”

Plunkett says it works, and neuroscience backs her up. Psychiatrists call it labeling or observing your thoughts. So maybe the question isn’t whether your brain has intrusive thoughts. It’s whether you have to believe everything Becky says. Because sometimes, Becky is just the worst.

Science

When life gives you lemon-shaped planets, make better science

2,000 light-years away, NASA found something that doesn’t play by the rules.

What I love about science is how it reacts to being wrong. Science loves to be wrong because that is how you move from wrong to right. And right now, the James Webb Space Telescope is doing a lot of humbling.

Since reaching its space parking spot, Webb has been quietly collecting data that keeps forcing scientists to say some version of: wait, that is not supposed to happen.

That brings us to PSR J2322-2650b. As Mark Wales reports, NASA researchers using Webb have spotted an exoplanet so strange it barely makes sense on paper. It is Jupiter-sized, lemon-shaped, and orbiting a pulsar every 7.8 hours with an atmosphere packed with molecular carbon. Astronomers were not looking for this. They did not even think it was possible.

Blasted by gamma rays, heated to thousands of degrees, and warped by gravity so intense it squeezes the planet into a cosmic citrus shape, PSR J2322-2650b is now forcing scientists to rethink how planets form, what atmospheres can survive, and what else might be lurking out there waiting to surprise us.

Yesterday’s Results

Yesterday, we shared research that says swearing might be the key to getting in that last rep at the gym.

I wanted to know where the GOOD community falls on the swearing spectrum. Looks like you’re a strategic bunch when it comes to strong language, and I think that’s @#$% great!

• I swear constantly. Basically, I'm a Tarantino character. (21.1%)

• I deploy expletives strategically. Timing is everything. (46.6%)

• Only in emergencies. Stubbed toes... missed flights... (27.8%)

• Never. There is no place for coarse language in polite society. (4.5%)

Reader PQM, speaking for the majority, had one of the few comments I could reprint without censoring! “Mostly when irritated at the situation, I let a few choice words fly.”

Culture

A cheating apology, a world-famous violinist, and one absolutely unhinged final request

It doesn’t hurt to have access to violin-playing megastar Lindsey Stirling.

Breakup texts are bad. Cheating breakup texts are worse. And cheating breakup texts that include the word “technically” are basically begging to be turned into art.

Jax, a TikTok star known for turning awkward life moments into viral songs, received an apology from her ex that included cheating on her with her roommate, lots of self-pity, and zero accountability. Instead of rage texting or screenshotting it for the group chat, she called in a ringer: violin megastar Lindsey Stirling.

Together, they performed a dramatic reading of the text set to the saddest violin imaginable. The excuses escalate. The gaslighting intensifies. And when you think it cannot possibly get more unhinged, the ex drops one final request that sent the internet into orbit.

It is petty. It is theatrical. It is deeply satisfying. And it is exactly the kind of breakup content the internet was built for.

On December 23, 1954, doctors in Boston attempted something that had never worked before: transplanting a human organ.

Richard Herrick was 23 and dying of kidney failure, a diagnosis that was essentially a death sentence at the time. But Richard had one extraordinary advantage. He had an identical twin.

The great unsolved problem of transplantation was rejection. The body simply refused foreign organs. Doctors wondered if a twin’s kidney might be different. Identical enough to slip past the immune system.

Richard’s brother, Ronald, agreed to donate a kidney, a risky and far from routine surgery in 1954. The gamble worked. Richard lived eight more years, long enough to prove the idea and far longer than he otherwise would have.

That Christmas-week experiment didn’t just save one life. It launched modern organ transplantation, teaching medicine not only how to move organs between bodies, but how to convince the body to accept them, a Christmas gift that just keeps giving.

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

I think ‘tumultuous’ would be the word to describe 2025, but let’s keep the good in mind as we look back on this dense year.

Join the Group Text! Send us your social media gold.