Go Ahead....Smile!
Those that look on the bright side end up healthier and more successful than the rest of us. But guess what? Now researchers have a cheat sheet that can help you become more positive By Jane Meredith Adams
If you're a pessimist, you can vault yourself into aworst-case scenarioin a nanosecond. You get an invitation to dinnerfrom a new neighbor, and you imagine an awkward meal, followed by a lifetime of mutual dislike right on your own block. New clothes are a torment, lying in wait for a ruinous dab of salad dressing. A trip to one of the most beautiful ski resortsin the country? At best, you'll be miserably cold or break an ankle; at worst, you'll wind up snow-blind.
Negativity may appear to be a great defense mechanism: If you keep your expectations low enough, you won't be crushed when things don't work out. But new research has revealed that the tendency to be a wet blanket in just about any situation—a trait the experts call"dispositional pessimism"—doesn't merely ruin a good time and prevent you from making friends. It seems that it's a bad strategy by about every measure. Optimists, it turns out, do better in most avenues of life, whether it's work, school, sports, or relationships. They get depressed less often than pessimists do, make more money, and have happier marriages.
And not only in the short run. There's evidence that optimists live longer, too. A 9-year study of cardiovascular health in more than900 men and women in the Netherlands found that pessimists not only die sooner of heart disease than optimists, but they also die sooner of just about everything. It's enough to drive a pessimist crazy—and sure enough, pessimism has beenlinked to higher odds of developing dementia. (See howoptimism is the happy way to protect your heart .)
Fortunately, a grim outlook doesn't have to be permanent. Leading researcherssay that optimism and pessimism are two ends of a continuum, with about 80% of the US population scattered from mildly to relentlessly optimistic. But research reveals that if you're hunkered down on the other end, you can slide on over—or at least get some of the benefits that usually cluster on the optimistic side of the scale, says Suzanne Segerstrom, PhD, an optimism researcher at the University of Kentucky and author of Breaking Murphy's Law . It takes only a few changes. They're small, gradual—andnot what you'd expect.