Look On The Bright Side
Tuesday, November 9 2004I hope this finds you well and feeling optimistic, because the news this week is that optimists live longer than pessimists!
I appreciate this may be blatently obvious to you, but it’s nice to get the scientific data to back it up. Nine years of research found that those who look on the bright side are 55 per cent less likely to die early than their pessimistic counterparts.
About 1,000 men and women aged 65-85 took part in the Dutch study. They were divided into four "optimism" categories as revealed by a questionnaire - then monitored over a nine-year period, during which time 397 of them died. Lead researcher Dr Eric Giltay said analysis showed that those who were highly optimistic had a 55 per cent lower risk of death than deep pessimists. Optimists were also 23 per cent less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.
Commenting on the findings, Dr Mark McDermott, a psychologist at the University of East London, said: "Pessimists have to understand that they are harming themselves by creating a self-fulfilling prophecy."
So, if you ever needed a good reason to reassess your thinking, now you have it. I’ve asked our ever-optimistic Confidence Coach, Mike Blissett to step up and coach us all into thinking optimistically and keeping it that way. He’ll be covering more of this in his upcoming afternoon seminar, Believe & Conquer on Saturday November 27th, which you’ll really enjoy, so do come along.
Before I hand you over to Mike, I’d like to say a Huge Thank-you to everyone who came to my Reinvent Yourself seminar at last week’s Wellbeing Show in London and making it such a great evening. Thanks, in particular, to the website members who came and Helen who sat in the front row and took notes to pass on to Adam, who I coached at length, also in the front row! It was a pleasure to meet you all and don’t lose sight of the clarity and plans that you came up with during our time together. Onwards!
Over to Mike...
