Well-being

15 sessions, a stubborn brain, and the radical idea of relearning joy

Researchers are targeting something depression can quietly take away.

Depression doesn’t always arrive as crushing sadness. Sometimes it looks more like someone quietly turned down the volume on everything you used to love. That absence of pleasure has a name: anhedonia.

Most treatments understandably try to reduce the bad stuff, from anxiety to spiraling thoughts. But researchers at Southern Methodist University have been testing Positive Affect Treatment, or PAT, with a different goal. Instead of only asking how to hurt less, they’re asking how people might feel good again.

In this story by Mark Wales, a 15-session approach goes straight at the brain’s reward system, encouraging people to notice and engage with meaningful, pleasurable experiences. Think connection, accomplishment, even something as ordinary as sunlight through a window. The premise sounds almost suspiciously simple.

Do you have a GOOD picture to share?

Send us your best images, and we may feature them as the image of the day. Be sure to tell us a bit about your pic.

And what did we learn?

In yesterday’s issue, we celebrated Pop-Tarts' 62nd birthday.

We asked which flavor was NOT in the original Pop-Tarts lineup. Over 60% of you knew that the launch options were sans-chocolate.

• Strawberry (1.9%)

• Blueberry (11.4%)

• Brown sugar cinnamon (22.8%)

• Chocolate fudge (63.9%) ✅

GOOD reader carlastine had the right answer and a great bit of insight to boot. “Chocolate fudge turns the Poptart into a dessert, a thing that didn’t become so overt until the 90s or later.“

Science | Courtesy of Upworthy

Ideas

30 guests watched the bride fall. Then a stranger yelled, “Nobody move!”

Romance, murder, intrigue, and a delicious plot twist the groom never saw coming.

The party had gathered. Candlelight flickered. Old Hollywood glamour draped itself over every table, every glass, every carefully chosen detail. But intrigue had RSVP’d too, and it was about to make an entrance.

Resplendent in a gown worthy of the occasion, 28-year-old bride-to-be Alexandra Lahde rose to speak. She thanked her guests. She smiled. She lifted her glass.

Then she began to cough.

At first, it was nothing. Then it was very much something. The room shifted. She reached for support. Guests froze. And before anyone could decide whether to scream, sprint, or spill their champagne, the night cracked open in a way nobody expected.

As our resident ink-stained scoop hound Adam Albright-Hanna reports, what followed turned a rehearsal dinner into something far stranger, far funnier, and far more theatrical than anyone in the room had bargained for.

On September 15, 1997, google.com was registered, back when Google was still a Stanford research project and its founders were trying to organize the rapidly expanding internet. The name itself came from googol, the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeroes, which felt appropriate for a search engine designed to handle an enormous amount of information.

According to a Stanford account of the naming session, a colleague accidentally typed “google” while checking whether the domain was available. Larry Page liked the misspelling, and within hours they registered it. Twenty-nine years later, that typo has become a verb, a company, and one of the most recognizable names on Earth. 

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…

You silly goose, the etymology of anserine would make its polysemous nature obvious. (ahem)

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