Marie was 64 when she contracted a rare form of cancer in the bile duct. Her prognosis was poor. We tried many interventions and had some success but, alas, only in the short term.
Marie was a teacher and had researched a new therapy based in, of course, California. It seemed to be a hybrid of unproven but promising new medical treatments with some alternative treatments added to the mix.
She had the money and an incredible, even refreshing, faith in this therapeutic cocktail, and wanted to try it while she was still relatively healthy. Tickets were bought and I wished her bonne chance .
She received a call the day before she was to leave to say there’d been a mistake, and she didn’t qualify for their program. Marie died the following week.
While the news about the health impact of optimism isn’t new, it’s a good reminder about the importance of becoming more optimistic.
We recently asked happier.con consultant Dr. Acacia Parks-Sheiner to define optimism from a scientific perspective: “The reason that we often talk in the research about optimism being more important is that… if you’re optimistic, you’re actually going to try, and you make it more likely that what you want to happen will [occur].”
We also asked Martin Seligman, the author of “Learned Optimism” to give an overview of the findings on optimism and physical health. The research shows that those who are optimistic have “much better” cardiovascular health than pessimists, with 1/4 the rate of cardiac deaths as the rest of the population.
Videos are grouped into categories including education, exercises, gratitude, happienss, happier.com, optimism, positive psychology, relationships, resilience, strengths and tests.
Yesterday, Andrew sat down with the team at Zappos.com to talk about using happier.com as a personal trainer for your happiness.
Melissa, who blogs for Zappos, chatted with us about the site and our team. You can watch the full video below. Please leave comments on the Zappos blog if you’re a fan! Thanks!
Check out this exclusive video from Professor Barbara Fredrickson, as she answers questions from happier.com users about her area of expertise: positive emotions.
