Some people think that our emotions and lives are determined entirely by our circumstances. But this is not true. Our thoughts and attitudes are just as important as what happens to us.
Optimists have a tendency to perceive things in a positive way. No matter what happens, they tend to see the bright side of life. Of course, the opposite of this is pessimism and pessimistic people, tend to see negative things in every event. This has been studied by psychologists and it turns out, that it is highly predictive of many things, one of them being how long you are going to live. Optimism, more than anything else, predicts how long a life you are going to have and there are a multitude of studies that support this.
In 1938 and 1940, a study was done in optimism and pessimism with graduates of Yale Law School. They did a personality test where they would ask questions like:
When bad things happen to you, what do you do?
Here are the types of answers the Yale Law School graduates gave:
When bad things happen to me, I try to find the lesson in these things.
Versus . . .
When bad things happen to me, I feel overwhelmed and I don't know what I should do.
The scientists collected all the data and thirty-five years later, looked to see how many of those people were still alive. It turned out that the pessimists who died from all different causes of death, were five times more likely to die during that time period.
Optimism is something you can cultivate and grow within yourself, if you don't already have it. Not only does it make life more enjoyable, it makes life longer!
Take the case of the Nun Study, where scientists looked at a group of nuns who lived together in a convent. They had the same routine and did the same things together every day. They had the same religious beliefs. They were exposed to mostly the same illnesses because if one nun would get it, the others would get it. A variety of things made them a similar group of people in their environment. They were much more similar than other groups of people.
When the nuns entered the convent, they were told to write an essay of what their life was like before they got there. All the scientists did was score how many positive and negative words were used in each of the essays. Words like happy, nice, smiling those would get a +1. Words like sad, crying, got a -1.
They totaled their scores and broke the nuns into four groups: The 25% most optimistic (those using the most positive words in their essay), the next 25%, the next 25%, and the last 25%. Then they looked at how long the nuns lived.
It turns out that more than one-half of the optimists from the most optimistic group, are still alive and are in their mid-90's. The pessimists are all dead. So how long did they extend their lives? Fourteen years and counting because they are still alive.
Centigenarians (people who live to 100 and beyond), have one characteristic in common. They are all optimists and scientists have found this fact to be almost universally true. (It is rare in scientific studies that something is ever almost universally true.) Some of the centigenarians, had health problems and bad habits that should have shortened their lives significantly, such as drinking and smoking. But they didn't.
Here is a true story:
A man named Bradley went to visit his 103-year-old aunt in the hospital. She was a very positive person and had been an optimist all of her life.
While Bradley was sitting next to her bed, holding her wizened old hand, Auntie croaked out, "Bradley, Bradley, Bradley."
"Yes Auntie?" Bradley anxiously inquired.
"Bradley honey, go bring me my pack of cigarettes, will you dear?"
Horrified, Bradley exclaimed, "Why Auntie, I'm surprised at you! Don't you know that cigarettes can kill you?"
Auntie said, "Bradley dear, do you really think it matters at this point?"
Bradley lit her a cigarette and said, "Auntie, do you just want one?"