How might optimism work to make people less vulnerable and pessimism to make people more vulnerable to cardiovascular disease? The possibilities divide into three large categories:
1. Optimists take action and have healthier lifestyles. Even more generally, people with high life satisfaction (which correlates highly with optimism) are much more likely to diet, not to smoke, and to exercise regularly than people with lower life satisfaction. According to one study, happy people also sleep better than unhappy people.
2. Social support. The more friends and the more love in your life, the less illness. It has been found that lonely people are markedly less healthy than sociable people. Happy people have richer social networks than unhappy people, and social connectedness also contributes to a lack of disability as we age. Misery may love company, but company does not love misery, and the ensuing loneliness of pessimists may be a path to illness.
3. Biology: the immune system and stress. It has been demonstrated that the blood of optimists has a feistier response to threat (more infection-fighting white blood cells called T lymphocytes produced) than the pessimists. Another possibility is common genetics: optimistic and happy people might have genes that ward off cardiovascular disease or cancer.
Another potential biological path is repeated cycles of stress. Pessimists give up and suffer more stress, whereas optimists cope better with stress. Repeated episodes of stress, particularly when one is helpless, may lead to long lasting inflammation.
Material adapted from Flourish, by Martin Seligman, Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
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