Optimism is a positive health asset that we can use to experience and secure a productive, healthy and happy life.
It is a personal protective armour that can facilitate the achievement of wellbeing through positive thinking and a hopefulness that good things are possible.
When seen as a protective force, optimism plays a significant role in boosting our quality of life by buffering our mindsets from a spectrum of stressors. It is a core component of our psychological well-being.
Protective optimism is a temporally stable trait that acts as a tool for better mental and physical health and can help us all achieve positive outcomes even when faced with seemingly impossible odds.
For example, when it comes to head and neck cancer, optimism was found to be associated with another year of survival regardless of other sociodemographic and clinical variables (Allison et al 2003).
This particular research interests me and the way I have managed my own health as an incurable head and neck cancer patient.
I have used optimism as a shielding and safeguarding psychological tool for better emotional functioning and for managing a number of intense and demanding stressors that are cancer specific.
Holding positive expectancies has certainly improved my post-traumatic resilience so yes, optimism makes a difference because it enables you to make a better future.
Protective optimism helps us remain motivated, resilient, and adaptive in the face of challenges. This type of optimism acts as a mental flak jacket for our functional and emotional well-being and so makes us feel less vulnerable.
It is the quality of being full of hope and believing that a squadron of positives are flying your way ready to parachute parcels of happiness.
If you are lucky, one might just land in a field near you and being an optimist, you actually expect that will be the case anyway so you are always on the lookout.
Upbeat and cheery souls who have an unwarranted degree of optimism tend to expect positive experiences and optimistic expectancies promote persistence, positive reframing, positive reappraisal and a problem-solving approach toward stressful situations.
They deliberately promote and cultivate an internal culture of optimism and keep their narrative positive by adapting their inner dialogue and outlook. They expect they will overcome difficulties, emotionally recover and encounter favourable outcomes.
Protective optimists will steer clear of toxicity and have the mental determination to bat them away should that be unavoidable. They manage or ignore what they cannot change and accentuate the positive.
Adopting protective optimism as a way of being is a key part of dynamic health management, resilient living and spirited survival. It plays a fundamental role in sustaining physical and mental health and in dealing with threats potentially harmful to our welfare.
Optimism is probably the greatest asset we have and that could help us live longer. According to research conducted by Lewina Lee, a a clinical research psychologist at Boston University’s School of Medicine, optimism is a “psychosocial asset that has the potential to extend the human life span.”
Adopting a protective optimism allows you to bend without breaking and bounce back faster and stronger. It is a private optimism that gives you a real sense of control.
Protective optimists are not fireproof but their mindset is resistant to some pretty intense flames and they know how to put out fires.