William Atkins
Monday, 09 March 2009 19:14
Science -
Health
Page 2 of 4
Optimism is defined as the tendency to expect the best from one’s life—to believe, hope, and expect that life will turn out well.
Pessimism is just the opposite. It is defined as the tendency to expect the worst from one’s life—to only see the negatives and worst things in life and only to expect and believe that unpleasant and bad things will happen.
In the common analogy, optimists see a glass of water half filled, while pessimists see that same glass of water half empty.
The data analyzed by the research team came from the Women’s Health Initiative, a larger study that is spearheaded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The U.S.-based data began to be collected in 1994 on such topics as hormone therapy.
Optimistic women were found by the Tindle team to be 30% less likely to die from coronary heart disease then pessimistic women. And, overall, optimism in women resulted in a decreased rate of death or pessimism in women.
The research also compared the women on attitudes they had about other people—that is, whether they generally trusted people or distrusted people.
They found the distrusting women, those that were even hostile towards others, were 23% more likely to die from cancer-related causes than the women who were more trusting. Distrusting women also had a generally higher rate of death than the trusting women.
Page three talks about one group of women at even greater risk from death and disease when they are pessimistic and/or hostile toward others.
