I’ve also been able to build better support systems, because I’ve stopped assuming the worst about every situation I enter. When stressful situations arise, I’m able to reach out to my friends and rely on them to help me through. When you start to see the good in things, you have better relationships and less stress, and you can let go of some of your unnecessary baggage. I think we can all agree that the world could use a few more people who leave their baggage at home.
Positive Thinking is Good for Your Health
I remember one morning in my childhood when I desperately wanted to avoid going to school. I had a brand new Sega Genesis video game system, and school was an obstacle to my short-term happiness. I wanted to be sick so badly that every day I would dramatically cough whenever my parents were around. I would complain about how my throat hurt and then dramatically fall backward onto the floral cushions of our living-room sofa. I was in agony, or so I wanted my parents to think.
Eventually my mother was annoyed by my theatrics and informed me that we would be going to the doctor for a professional opinion. She had called my bluff. I was done for. She was going to find out I was lying and then punish me. Nothing is scarier than a mother who proves you wrong. I remember I was so fearful of impending mom-wrath that I rummaged through our freezer to find a popsicle, downed it, and literally scraped the back of my throat with the popsicle stick in a desperate attempt to create the appearance of an illness that I 100 percent did not have.
As we sat in the doctor’s waiting room, I remember the tension being unbearable. It was one thing to be at the doctor’s (the worst place ever!), but being caught doing the worst thing ever (lying!) at the worst place ever?! I was stress-ball-wrapped in worry, not to mention being dusted with a whole lot of regret. By the time we actually were called in to be seen, I was sweating and unpredictably tired. The doctor swabbed my throat and I awaited my inevitable disastrous fate.
To my surprise, the test came back positive. I had strep. I fervently believe when I look back on that scenario that I worried myself into that sickness. I told a lie, got in too deep, and the sheer fear of being found out broke down my immune system. Now that I’ve learned a bit about how negative thinking can destroy the effectiveness of our immune system, I realize that this isn’t that far-fetched an idea to believe.
Some of the top medical research centers in the US are actively researching how negativity affects our overall health. The Mayo Clinic has found that negative thinking can increase your need for medical care, raise your chances of heart disease, and even lower your ability to fight serious illnesses. To illustrate just how powerfully positive thinking and behaviors can alter your health, here are three studies on how positivity affects health that I find mind-blowing:
As part of a study at the University of Missouri, students did positive journaling once a day, three times a week. At the end of three months, they reported better moods and had fewer health center visits than those who did not journal.
Researchers at John Hopkins University spent twenty-five years keeping track of a group of people with family histories of heart disease. Over that period, participants who lived a positive lifestyle were one-third less likely to have a heart attack or other cardiovascular event.
A study of post-operative breast cancer patients conducted by Indiana University found that those who lived a positive lifestyle saw less of a dip in their levels of natural killer cells, which is a type of white blood cell that can kill tumor cells or cells infected with a virus. These cells are vital to the long-term healing process, meaning that a positive lifestyle left post-op patients with a more robust immune system.
These are just a small sample of the hundreds of articles that I came across that link a cheerful disposition with better long-term health. I learned that optimists experience less pain, have improved heart function, live longer, and have stronger immune systems. I should note that being a positive person doesn’t mean you should obsess over living a perfect healthy lifestyle. In fact, simply choosing to live your life on the sunny side of the street will naturally make you tend toward making healthier life choices.
One major change in my day-to-day life, versus back when I was an angry “Negative Nancy,” is that I smile more. Usually, when my eyes catch a stranger on the street, I flash them a grin. I started doing this because I decided that I wanted to treat the world the way I hoped to eventually be treated. Back then, not many people looked at me and smiled; I was determined to change that.
Now, I didn’t adopt this habit for the purpose of improving my overall physical health, but rather as an attempt for me to try build a better connection with the people around me and, as a result, with the world. However, I have learned that even small positive gestures, like my goofy grin, can make significant impacts on your overall health. A study by the University of Kansas found that smiling—even if it’s a fake, totally forced smile—reduces your heart rate and blood pressure during stressful situations. This is a great example of how resolving to act in a more positive fashion can turn out to be a physically healthy choice, without your even knowing it!
Simple Ways to Boost Your Health with Positivity
1.Keep a daily journal of positive things happening in your life.
2.Take a short walk around your neighborhood and smile at the people you pass.
3.Every time you find yourself in front of a mirror, say something kind to yourself.
4.Call someone you love and tell them how important they are to you.
Positivity Makes You More Resilient
When I was a teenager, a book series called Chicken Soup for the Soul became overwhelming popular. In this series, people could read heartfelt stories of people who overcame struggles in inspiring and tear-jerking ways. You could read about a three-legged, blind dog that saved children from a burning building, a homeless man who became a billionaire by selling tube-tops out of the trunk of his rundown car, or a barren woman who adopted children who then went on to become professional foosball players. Psych! I made those stories up, but these are the kind of mind-blowing, heroic stories you can find in a whole plethora of inspirational books which follow the Chicken Soup model.
The individuals in these beloved stories experienced the same traumas we experience every day, but managed to bounce back even better than before. Many of us crumble when we experience a negative event. Not in these books. We love reading stories of shocking heroism: “Most dogs would run away from the blazing fire! But not you, Rocky the pup with no eyes and all the heart—you just kept going! Wow. Just, wow.” We loved these stories, because they were inspirational; somehow, these people (and animals) beat the odds. We saw their strength at the forefront of their resilience, but if we had only looked a little closer we might have seen something else. Our paperback “chicken soup heroes” were, more often than not, positive people.
Many believe resilience is a personality trait: you’re either born with it or you’re not. However, I believe that it’s actually a dynamic learning process, and the research backs me up. The more optimistic you became about yourself and your life, the more you are able to not sweat the small stuff and the better you’ll make it through the big, scary, heart-pounding stuff. You must learn to logically analyze situations in moments of stress and place whatever crazy incident you’re experiencing in the context of the bigger picture. This will help keep you focused and allows you to understand the actual importance of the whole episode versus the catastrophic story that unmitigated shock automatically tells you is going on.
Plus, even in life’s crummiest, saddest, and most devastating moments, there is usually a silver lining. Drawing on skills such as problem-solving and self-assessment, you have the opportunity to learn and grow from each negative event instead of focusing on how utterly unbearable the situation is making your life in the short-term. When you do this, each stumbling block becomes an opportunity to grow and evolve.
Improved resilience isn’t just as simple as looking on the bright side when bad things happen. Let’s say I am having a really amazing day—one of the best days of the year. I’ll tell my best friends and maybe my parents. Perhaps, I’ll