Always look on the bright side of life! Research has shown that optimistic people live longer and healthier lives than pessimists because they have to deal with fewer stressful situations.
- The researchers interviewed 233 older men under the age of 24.
- The men were asked about their positive and negative mood and stress levels.
- Optimistic men had less negative mood, more positive mood, and fewer stressors.
- While the study focused on older men, the researchers believe the results likely apply to older women as well.
While staying optimistic during these uncertain times can be difficult, it can actually help you live longer, according to a new study.
Boston University researchers have found that optimistic people live longer and healthier lives than pessimists, and they say that’s because they have to deal with fewer stressful situations.
“Stress is known to have a negative impact on our health,” explained Dr. Levina Lee, who led the study.
“By observing how optimistic people deal with daily stressors differently, our findings add to our knowledge of how optimism can contribute to good health as we age.”
Researchers at Boston University have found that optimistic people live longer than pessimists, and they say this is because they have fewer stressful situations to deal with (file image).
Optimism Can Make You LAZY
According to one expert, thinking too positively can prevent you from achieving your goals by causing you to become lazy or complacent.
“There is no doubt that a simplistic view of positive thinking … can be dangerous,” Tim LeBon, a psychologist at City University London, told MailOnline.
“There is plenty of evidence that fantasizing about a positive future can lead to complacency.
“You also set yourself up for shock and disappointment when the future doesn’t go so well.
“An overly simplistic recommendation to avoid thinking positively and thinking negatively instead would be even worse,” Mr. Lebon told MailOnline.
“We need to understand the power of both positive and negative thinking.”
Positive thinking is important because it helps stimulate motivation and keeps us working towards the goals we hope to achieve.
But negative thinking helps us prepare for setbacks or setbacks, so when bad things happen, we are ready to deal with them.
While previous research has found a link between optimism and healthy aging, it has not yet been clear how optimism affects health.
“This study tests one possible explanation by assessing whether more optimistic people deal with daily stress more constructively and therefore enjoy better emotional well-being,” Dr. Li explained.
In the new study, the team followed 233 older men for 24 years.
At the beginning of the study, which began in 1986, the men completed a questionnaire to assess their level of optimism.
Then, from 2002 to 2010, the men were again asked up to three times about their daily stressors and mood over eight consecutive nights.
The results showed that more optimistic men not only reported lower negative mood but also more positive mood.
They also reported that they had fewer stressors, which was not related to their more positive mood but explained their lower levels of negative mood.
In his study, published in Journals of Gerontology: Series BThe researchers wrote: “The results of a sample of older men suggest that optimism may be associated with more favorable emotional well-being later in life due to differences in stressor exposure rather than emotional response to stress.
“Optimism may preserve the emotional well-being of older adults by engaging emotion regulation strategies that emerge relatively early in the process of generating emotion.”
While the study focused on older men, the researchers believe the results likely apply to older women as well.
“Less is known about age differences in the role of optimism in health,” Dr. Li added.
Although previous research has found a link between optimism and healthy aging, it has not yet been clear how optimism affects health.
Unfortunately, the study is carried out shortly after study showed that optimism is not as ingrained in human nature as previously thought.
Researchers at the University of Bath have found that people are not predisposed to optimism, and we don’t walk around with a “pair of rose-colored glasses,” a belief that could skew previous research.
Experts question past research that supports the existence of an “irrational optimism bias” — that people innately feel that everything will be fine.
ARE YOU A DEFENSIVE PESSIMIST? TAKE THE QUIZ TO LEARN
Defensive pessimism is a strategy used by anxious people to help them deal with their anxiety so they can work productively.
They lower their expectations to help prepare themselves for the worst and then imagine all the bad things that could happen.
This can help anxious people take their mind off their emotions so they can plan and act effectively.
On the contrary, strategic optimism is usually used by people who do not worry. People using this strategy have high expectations and then actively avoid thinking too much about what might happen.
Both of these strategies work reasonably well, but both are vulnerable to situations that don’t fit with their strategies.
If defensive pessimists try to raise their expectations or avoid playing out the worst-case scenario, their anxiety rises and their performance suffers.
And if optimistic strategists set lower expectations or play with the worst possible outcomes, their anxiety increases and their performance decreases.
People may use different strategies in different situations, and not everyone is a defensive pessimist or a strategic optimist.
A source: Wellesley College
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