Practice Optimism to Lead a Healthier Life
The Harvard Men’s Health Watch in its May review is peculating some connection between optimism and better health. Though a series of studies have suggested that optimists lead a better life than pessimists do, the standing verdict is that optimism does lead to a healthier life.
Studies reveal that optimism influences health in a positive way. For example, one study reported that optimistic coronary bypass patients were half the time less likely to be re-hospitalized than those who were pessimist patients. In addition, pessimist patients were 3 times more vulnerable to developing high blood pressure.
People with positive feelings were also said to have normal blood pressure levels. Pessimistic men are considered to be more likely to developing heart diseases says another study. Though all these studies glorify the presence of optimism as the key player in improving the quality of life in people, it works very much the opposite way. For example, healthy people can see things more positively as those who are ill and suffering from fatal diseases.
To neutralize this argument, scientists made other observations with regard to the medical conditions of people. They confirmed that an illness did not destroy the advantages of optimism.
One benefit of optimism has been explained to be “behavioral”. For example, if one is ill and optimistic, he or she leads a healthier and longer life because the person very consciously adapts to healthier lifestyles, establishes better social networks and hence gets better attention and treatment.
Finally, genes or hereditary factors could also play an important role in influencing elements of optimism in people. In the same way, it is genes again which determine health and longevity of a person. The Harvard Men’s Health Watch claim that further studies are required to support the fact that optimism can lead to a healthier life as other mechanisms could be involved in promoting the same.