If you’ve ever told your child to look on the bright side, or taught them to see the glass as half full, you might wonder if there are real benefits to positive thinking.
As it turns out, people who are more optimistic about their future actually tend to be significantly healthier. Many studies show that optimistic adults have better cardiovascular health, less disease and can even live longer than their less optimistic peers. As scientists interested in personality and health across the lifespan, we were curious about whether these same benefits are found for kids and teenagers. The answer from our new review study? Keep the positive thinking coming!
To address our research question, we did a deep dive into the published research on optimism and health in youth. Using a structured approach, we narrowed more than 5,000 search results down to 60 relevant studies. These papers were published across more than three decades and sampled kids and teenagers with and without pre-existing health conditions such as diabetes or cancer.
We learned that across studies, associations between optimism and physical health tended to be positive — meaning that young people who were more optimistic or less pessimistic were healthier. Specifically, we found that optimistic youth had better diets, exercised more often, and used alcohol and drugs less frequently. They also tended to consider themselves to be physically healthier, had better cardiovascular health and experienced less pain.
Why optimists feel better and live longer
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You can probably think of two friends (or children) in your life: one who is relatively more optimistic and the other relatively more pessimistic. Imagine these two people experiencing the same stressful event, such as failing a test. Odds are they will probably experience and handle the situation in very different ways. And this is precisely how optimism is thought to influence our health.
Optimistic people tend to cope with stress more effectively, working to confront challenges head-on and positively reframing their feelings. Meanwhile, more pessimistic people tend to withdraw from the problem and their emotions. Optimistic thinking has also been related to better mental health in children. In much the same way, research shows that optimistic and pessimistic children and adults engage with their physical health in different ways.
A person who expects positive outcomes is more likely to proactively protect their health through better diet and exercise and reduced smoking. Similarly, when confronted with a health scare like cancer, more optimistic people tend to lead healthier lifestyles that can slow the disease or promote recovery.
More optimistic thinking can also protect people from the physiological effects of stress. For example, some experimental research has found that when more optimistic people are put through a stressful laboratory task, they have a healthier cardiovascular response. Optimistic thinking can also protect people from elevations in the stress-related hormone cortisol, which can have long-term consequences for physical health.
While our review found that optimistic youth behaved in healthier ways and had healthier physical functioning, more research is needed to understand whether and how these could explain decreased rates of disease or illness over time.
Can people become more optimistic?
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Like most personality traits, optimism is typically viewed as a stable characteristic that is determined partly by genetics and family environment. However, some research suggests that optimism can change when people experience important life events or transitions. For instance, levels of optimism were more amenable to change as university students graduated and entered the workforce.
If you’re looking to boost you or your child’s optimistic thinking, one promising line of research has found that a simple writing exercise can have noticeable effects. When people wrote about their “best possible self” in an imagined future where they have reached all their goals, they reported increased optimism. Some early experimental research indicates that boosting optimism through this intervention can help adults better manage pain.
Is optimism a cure-all?
So, is encouraging optimistic thinking the answer to keeping our kids from catching the common cold, stopping our teens from vaping or ensuring they’re protected from harms?
Sadly, although it appears to be an important ingredient to happier and healthier living, optimism isn’t a magic cure. Working on how we think about and navigate stressful situations is certainly important and forms the basis of interventions like cognitive behavioural therapy. However, if you and your kids or teens are setting a goal of increasing your optimistic thinking, make sure you’re balancing those efforts with healthy lifestyle choices.