Is Pessimism Bad for Your Heart?

A pessimistic attitude increases the risk for death from heart disease, a new study reports. For 11 years, researchers in Finland followed thousands of men and women ages 52 to 76. They discovered that pessimism toward life events and circumstances doubled the chance of dying of heart disease, and that optimistic persons had few cardiac deaths. To be less pessimistic, don’t focus on stopping pessimistic thinking. Instead, practice optimistic responses to both positive and negative events in your life. Positive thinking may not help you live longer as this study showed, but it may help insulate you from poor cardiac health by giving you better reflexes that improve resilience to life stressors.

Tracy Bussey | 12/25/2016

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