Optimism: A Tool for Happiness

Being optimistic pays off in more ways than most people expect. It touches your moods, your body, your willingness to keep going when things fall apart, how much stress you carry, what you manage to accomplish, and even how long you stick around. If a positive, long life is something you want, optimism is a practice you can take up.

Start with emotional steadiness. Cognitive Therapy, used for depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions, has shown better results than medication in treating these problems. People who lean toward optimism can reframe how they think, which helps them absorb future setbacks rather than be flattened by them. Medication tends to patch things over for a while. If you or someone close to you is dealing with a mental health condition, Cognitive Therapy paired with the practice of optimism is worth considering over a prescription alone.

Your physical health shifts too. Pessimists carry a higher burden of disease, die earlier, and are in worse shape overall. One recent study measured cortisol in both optimists and pessimists and found that optimists keep a steadier biochemical balance when life gets stressful. Cortisol does real damage when it runs high: raised blood pressure, more abdominal fat, loss of muscle and bone, weaker immunity, and dulled thinking. So optimists tend to get sick less often, and they tend to be sharper, leaner, and fitter. Healthier people live longer. Happiness is not a chore, and a healthier version of yourself is within reach.

Then there is what you can achieve. Employers go looking for optimists because hiring someone who takes charge and builds success out of uncertainty tends to pay off. Pessimists often get stuck in their own analysis, letting fear of the unknown freeze them instead of pushing through it, and productivity suffers.

Optimists also refuse to quit. Picture someone who goes bankrupt: the optimist is far more likely to get back up, chase something bigger, and pull it off. That persistence feeds right back into achievement.

Stress management comes naturally to optimists, and less stress is one of the real keys to feeling happy. Because they trust themselves, optimists generate more good things in their lives and clear the ordinary hurdles that trip others up. They take more chances precisely because they believe those chances will work out. Instead of stewing over uncertainty and everything that could go wrong, they go to work on making the best of whatever they're handed, and that often lands them somewhere better than they planned.

A longer life follows from all of this. Optimists and pessimists read the same world differently, and that difference shapes how they react to stress and what it does to them. Lose a job, and the pessimist may let it curdle into something draining and defeating, while the optimist moves on expecting to land a better role. Health is the other piece. One study of women with breast cancer found that those who stayed hopeful about beating it had better outcomes than patients who gave in to despair.

So, half full or half empty? A warm, upbeat temperament may turn out to be what keeps you around and well. Here is the short version of what optimism buys you: a mental health condition can grow more stable with Cognitive Therapy, which trains optimism and has outperformed medication; optimism and happiness improve physical health; optimists succeed more often because they build something out of uncertainty; they don't give up, which keeps the achievement coming; and because they believe in themselves, they take the risks that create positive change and keep seeing the glass as half full. What you do with that is up to you. Optimism is the key, and you can build a better life with it. - Erin