Optimism about Optimism

01/10/2007

I tell my students, 'When you get these jobs that you have been so brilliantly trained for, just remember that your real job is that if you are free, you need to free somebody else. If you have some power, then your job is to empower somebody else.'
Toni Morrison

Optimistic men are less likely to die from cardiovascular disease than men who are less hopeful. A study of 545 Dutch men over a 15 year period reported in The Archives of Internal Medicine and summarized in Work & Family Life (December 2006; [email protected]) found that the most optimistic men in the study had a 50% lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease over the 15 years than the least optimistic men.

Several explanations for this phenomena were offered: The researchers noted, for example, that people who are optimistic are also better able to cope with problems, to reach out for help from others when they need it, and to follow their medical treatments. Another explanation offered was that optimistic men may be prone to nostalgia. Apparently, thinking of good memories for just 20 minutes a day can make people more cheerful than they were the week before.

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