Greet each day with an outstanding attitude

This study was done a couple of years ago, but I just found out about it. This is the strongest evidence yet of the connection between attitude and health. Here are some excerpts:

Researchers at Yale University found that people with an optimistic outlook lived 7.5 years longer than those with a gloomy view of what lies ahead. In their study, a positive attitude was more important than lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels. How could a positive attitude protect our health and extend our life? A recently published study offers one explanation: People who perceive that they are living in a state of chronic stress have cells that age more rapidly. The difference in the rate of cellular aging was equivalent to shaving a decade off their lives.

What does it mean to have a “positive attitude”? The image of a bubbly, fun-loving individual may spring to mind. But such an outgoing, social person may be inclined to engage in riskier behaviors that cause injury and poor health.

Instead, there are several features of a positive attitude that research has found to be associated with healthier aging. If you have a positive attitude, you see relatively few of life’s challenges as overwhelming. You feel in control most of the time. You believe you can strongly influence, if not completely determine, your health. For example, you believe that your lifestyle choices—healthy eating, regular exercise, and avoiding dangerous habits—really can affect your health. Indeed, you take pleasure in controlling your life through your choices, while understanding that there are no guarantees.

Finally, you are flexible. You know that life will sometimes make it hard to follow your agenda for health, but that if things happen that don’t allow you to follow your exact program, you go with the flow. There is time later that day or the next to get back on track.

I’m reading a very interesting book by this title. The author describes what she terms “defensive pessimism”, a strategy for handling anxiety that comes naturally to many pessimists. They imagine every conceivable thing that can go wrong to help them plan and prepare for challenging situations. The people she describes are generally successful and perform very well.

I don’t think that I am a natural defensive pessimist, and the author does not suggest attempting to become one. She just says that it’s OK if that’s who you are. But I’ve been blindsided by optimism too many times, envisioning that everything is going to go well. Then when it doesn’t, I’m totally unprepared. So I think that I will try to actively use defensive pessimism.

Next time I go shopping, for example, I will imagine that traffic will be horrendous, someone will steal my parking spot at the mall, the store will have the item that I want but not in my size, and the clerk will be rude. I’ll imagine myself gracefully and calmly responding to each obstacle. While this may technically be labeled “negative” thinking, it sounds like a positive approach to me.

From a Prevention magazine article about happiness and optimism. The article can be found here.

Attitude adjustment

The quickest way to get yourself into the positive-feedback loop that keeps optimists going strong (hard work leads to success, which leads to more self-confidence and a willingness to work even harder, which leads to…) is to act like one. What’s more, studies looking at the “fake it till you make it” approach show that it can have a surprisingly strong – and immediate – impact on your emotions. In research at Wake Forest University, for example, scientists asked a group of 50 students to act like extroverts for 15 minutes in a group discussion, even if they didn’t feel like it. The more assertive and energetic the students acted, the happier they were.

What’s best about this kind of cognitive behavioral change is that it doesn’t even require much faith, Segerstrom says. “You don’t have to believe an antibiotic is going to work for it to work.” The same is true of reaping the benefits of adopting a positive mindset.

Attitude was a topic of discussion at work last week. It started when someone emailed a story to the entire company about a woman who lost all her hair and responded with a Pollyanna attitude. It amazes me that many people really do believe that blind optimism is a healthy and desirable attitude. I’m reading a book called “The Resilience Factor” in which the authors make the case that accurately viewing reality is the key to a good attitude.

“Magnifying the positive and minimizing the negative is equally destructive in your personal relationships and your health. Growth and change cannot happen unless you are able to take stock of a situation accurately. The man who is overweight and smokes a pack a day will have no impetus to quit if he minimizes the importance of these health risks. The woman who ignores her husband’s concerns about their relationship and focuses only on the elements of the marriage that are working is going to wake up one morning to find the other side of the bed empty. Resilience rests on an accurate appraisal of one’s life. Extreme pessimists and extreme optimists will suffer equally.”

Replies to my mention (on another goal) of trying to start each day with an outstanding attitude caused me to realize that we don’t all take this to mean the same thing. To some it might mean to always be “positive”. Years ago I read a popular book on positive thinking that advocated what I’d call fantasy – just believe that good things will happen. No, that’s not my definition of an outstanding attitude.

To me, an outstanding attitude is appropriate to the situation. It is realistic. It is also constructive. This attitude is the one that helps me to behave in a way that produces that best outcome in a situation. It’s the one that helps me to do the right thing. So, with this definition, I can face anything with an outstanding attitude. At least theoretically.

for creating this goal. Just having it on my list is causing me to consciously think about it many mornings. I’ve made it one of my top goals that are on the one page in my organizer I look at every day.