LET'S CHOOSE OUTRAGEOUS OPTIMISM
It’s day one for humanity. Grok and his buddy, Igbok, are sitting around the fire roasting a woolly mammoth after a long day of hunting when Grok has a revelation:
“The world’s gonna end.”
“You really think so?” asks Igbok.
“Yeah, look at the sky getting dark…I knew this was too good to last.”
“Keep my meat warm Grok, I gotta go stock up on toilet paper.”
And so it goes every day since. A day filled with good friends and good food is ruined by the end of the world. When are we going to learn Grok and his buddies like Nostradamus and the staff of Fox News and CNN, might be wrong? When are we going to do something different, even outrageous, and choose optimism?
MORE THAN POSITIVE THINKING
Living in a state of chronic stress or fear takes a toll on your emotional and physical health. Vast amounts of scientific literature details how negative emotions harm the body and can be tied to heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer. Life is not easy, and we are making it even harder by focusing on the negative.
“Negative emotions are only one-half of the equation,” says Laura Kubzansky, Harvard School of Public Health associate professor of society, human development and health. “It looks like there is a benefit of positive mental health that goes beyond the fact that you’re not depressed.”
A seminal study by Kubzansky found emotional vitality (enthusiasm, hopefulness and engagement with life) appeared to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. The study followed more than 6000 men and women, aged 25 to 74, for 20 years using an adaptation of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey measure for General Well-Being. The results from Kubzansky’s measure of well-being agreed with other research, which found certain personal attributes such as emotional vitality, optimism, a supportive network of friends and family and self-regulation correlate with better health.
HOW TO CHOOSE OPTIMISM
Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky of the University of California, Riverside includes these attributes in her book, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want. Here are five of the key strategies she suggests for more happiness (and good health) in your life:
1. Count your blessings through contemplation, journaling or sharing them with others.
2. Cultivate optimism by writing a journal about the best possible future for yourself.
3. Practice random acts of kindness.
4. Develop nurturing relationships by investing time and energy in them.
5. Do what you love and love what you do (at least, once in a while).
These are trying days, yet you have a choice. Go along with the prevailing malaise or be a rebel, be weird, be outrageous and choose to focus on what’s good.