OPTIMISM WHAT IS IT? WHERE DOES IT COME FROM? CAN IT BE LEARNED?

What makes our feelings? External: some effect But how we see the world is the biggest effect.

Three ways of change Look at the past and understand it Freud, insight therapy. Look at the present and change it: Family therapy, encounter groups, humanistic therapy. Look at the future and imagine it: Solution-focused, pseudo-orientation in time

Understand the Past We are driven by impulses and patterns. When we understand the basis, they lose their power over us. Insight does work.

Understand the Present The tendency to blame people and not systems: Medical mistakes: instead of blaming the person, look at the system. I.E.: DNR orders in chart vs unique wristbands. Result: eliminates DNR errors Noticing how you impact and are impacted.

Visualize the Future Milton Erickson and the pseudo-orientation in time: The inner experience of a real solution. “How did you do that?” Erickson induced amnesia for the future experience. Result: Patients would solve their own problems.

If a miracle happened . . . Write a diary entry about you in the future: How should life be if things were how you wish? Who would notice, without you even telling them? How does that help? What is the first small step?

Does Optimism Help?

The Nun Study (Danner et al., 2001) Only positive feelings predicted longevity Age 85: 90% of most cheerful quartile alive; 34% of least cheerful quartile alive. Age 94: 54% of most cheerful quartile alive; 11% of least cheerful quartile alive

“God started my life off well by bestowing upon me grace of inestimable value... The past year which I spent as a candidate studying at Notre Dame has been a very happy one. Now I look forward with eager joy to receiving the Holy Habit of Our Lady and to a life of union with Love Divine.” Celia O’Payne “I was born on September 26, 1909, the eldest of seven children, five girls and two boys... My candidate year was spent in the mother-house, teaching chemistry and second year Latin at Notre Dame Institute. With God’s grace, I intend to do my best for our Order, for the spread of religion and for my personal sanctification.” Marguerite Donnelly Danner, et al, 2002

Optimism Reduces Cancer Risk Optimism in women reduced the risk of breast cancer by 25% 622 women, between 25 and 45 years. Optimists were 25% less likely 2 or more traumatic events raised risk of breast cancer by 62%. "The mechanism in which the central nervous, hormonal and immune systems interact and how behavior and external events modulate these three systems is not fully understood," Peled states. Peled, R. (2008) Breast Cancer, Psychological Distress and Life Events among Young Women. BMC Cancer (8:245)

Optimism and Heart Attacks Erik Giltay et al. in the Netherlands found: - OPTIMISM Top third of men 65-80 had half the heart attacks than men in the bottom third. - Health, eating, activity were controlled for. Giltay, E. et al., (2006). Dispositional Optimism and the Risk of Cardiovascular Death The Zutphen Elderly Study. Archives of Internal Medicine, 166, 431-436.

The Value of Gratitude “You say grace before meals. All right. But I say grace before the concert and the opera, and grace before the play and pantomime, and grace before I open a book, and grace before sketching, painting, swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing, and grace before I dip the pen in the ink.” “Gratitude produced the most purely joyful moments that have been known to man.” G. K. Chesterton

Gratitude and Hassles Diary: 3 good things per day. Result: lasting recovery from depression. Write one irritating incident: How can this be an advantage? How could I learn from it? How might others benefit?

Challenge: Respond in your diary: Am I grateful? How might it help if I were? What are the advantages of keeping a blessings diary? What are the disadvantages?