A negative outlook can subtract 2 years from your life according to this study

Negative attracts negative. So, stop seeing the cup half empty and look at the brighter side of your life and live longer.
negative outlook
A pessimistic outlook will just bring more problems in life. Image courtesy: Shutterstock
Team Health Shots Updated: 7 May 2021, 22:24 pm IST
  • 79

Have you heard about the law of attraction? Well, this simply means if you think positive then you’ll attract positivity in your life. But if you are negatively charged then only negativity will come your way. It would seem that even science is behind positive thinking, because studies claim that a pessimistic outlook towards life will not just scar your mental health but also compromise your physical well-being.

A study, which is published in the journal of Psychological Science, proves that if you have a positive outlook towards life then it can help you stay physically fit. Another research claims that a negative or pessimistic outlook can cut a few years from your life. Shocked? Well read on then…

Pessimist outlook can subtract almost two years from your life
According to the study published in the journal Scientific Reports, people who are strongly pessimistic about the future are at greater risk of dying earlier than those who are not. The study was conducted by the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute.

The researchers also found that being an optimist did not extend life expectancy Lead researcher, Dr John Whitfield from QIMR Berghofer’s Genetic Epidemiology group, said that study participants who scored higher for pessimism in a questionnaire were likely to die on average two years earlier than those with low scores.

“We found people who were strongly pessimistic about the future were more likely to die earlier from cardiovascular diseases and other causes of death, but not from cancer. Optimism scores, on the other hand, did not show a significant relationship with death, either positive or negative,” Dr Whitfield said.

negative outlook
Adopt a positive way of looking at things for the sake of your heart. Image courtesy: Shutterstock

“Less than nine per cent of respondents identified as being strongly pessimistic. There were no significant differences in optimism or pessimism between men and women. On average, an individual’s level of either optimism or pessimism increased with age. We also found depression did not appear to account for the association between pessimism and mortality,” he added.

Saying negative statements also makes a lot of difference
Do you complain about stuff all the time? Then read this. The researchers used data collected from almost 3,000 participants who completed the Life Orientation Test as part of a broader questionnaire that looked at the health of Australians aged over 50 between 1993 and 1995.

The participants were invited to agree or disagree with a number of statements including positive statements such as, ‘I’m always optimistic about my future’ or negative statements such as, ‘If something can go wrong for me, it will’.

The participants’ details were then cross-checked with the Australian National Death Index in October 2017 to find out how many people had died and their cause of death. (More than 1,000 participants had died.)

A pessimistic outlook can also lead to heart diseases
Many previous studies have shown a correlation between optimism and pessimism and specific diseases such as cardiovascular disease or stroke, but most previous studies also put optimism and pessimism on one scale.

Select Topics of your interest and let us customize your feed.

PERSONALISE NOW

This resulted in people who received low scores on the pessimism questions being classed as optimists, but Dr Whitfield said that was not always an accurate reflection of people’s outlooks.

Also, watch:

“Optimism and pessimism are not direct opposites. The key feature of our results is that we used two separate scales to measure pessimism and optimism and their association with all causes of death. That is how we discovered that while strong pessimism was linked with earlier death, those who scored highly on the optimism scale did not have a greater than average life expectancy,” Dr Whitfield said.

“We think it’s unlikely that the disease caused pessimism because we did not find that people who died from cancer had registered a strong pessimism score in their tests. If the illness was leading to higher pessimism scores, it should have applied to cancers as well as to cardiovascular disease,” added Dr Whitfield added.

Dr Whitfield also said that the research findings raised questions about the practical health benefits of training people out of pessimism.

Also, listen:

“Understanding that our long term health can be influenced by whether we’re a cup-half-full or cup-half-empty kind of person might be the prompt we need to try to change the way we face the world, and try to reduce negativity, even in really difficult circumstances,” concluded Dr Whitfield.

So the bottom line is that staying positive is like a chain-reaction. If you think positive, you’ll feel positive and happy which also gives you a long and healthy life.

(With inputs from ANI)

  • 79
About the Author

We are a varied group of Health Shots writers, bringing you the healthiest scoop on wellness in town. ...Read More

Healthshots Wellness Newsletter

Get your Daily Dose of Wellness in your Inbox

Subscribe Now
Next Story