Learn to think positive: turn to positive psychology for the skills to live like an optimist, thrive under pressure and find your flow - Mind/Body

Natural Health, Jan, 2004 by Linda Marsa

Every year, prestigious medical journals are filled with studies, showing a connection between your health and your outlook on life. Apparently, people with positive outlooks recover from surgery faster, have less heart disease, suffer less pain when they are ill, catch colds less frequently, and live as much as 10 years longer. Even those who come from potentially negative environments, such as growing up in poverty or with an alcoholic parent, thrive when they choose positive responses and work toward positive outcomes.

These resilient folks are commonly called optimists but if that term conjures up images of carefree Pollyannas, a psychological definition may surprise you. "Optimists are those who see their prospects favorably and thus will continue efforts to meet their goals," write Lisa Aspinwall, Ph.D., and Ursula Staudinger, Ph.D., editors of A Psychology of Human Strengths. In other words, to create positive change you must be persistent, flexible, and open to all information available--the negative as well as the positive.

what positive thinkers know

"People with positive outlooks understand that life is a series of events, all of which are potential opportunities for learning," says Dan Baker, Ph.D., a Tucson, Ariz., psychologist and author of What Happy People Know. "They intuitively grasp that the more profoundly painful the events, the more profound the lessons."

Adversity can build character, or what neuropsychologist Paul Pearsall, Ph.D., author of The Beethoven Factor, calls "stress-related growth" Embracing life's challenges in a positive way lets you develop the stamina to withstand crises and stress. This, in turn, enables you to be more resilient emotionally and physically. And everyone--even the most dogged pessimists--can learn new ways to manage their responses.

practice spin

Learning to be positive requires a deliberate shift in thinking. "You can't just will yourself into a different emotional state," says Barbara Fredrickson, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. "The first step starts with changing your interpretation of events. Step back and see things from a bigger perspective."

Instead of focusing on the negative, look for the positive (or at least the neutral) in a stressful event, she says. Being temporarily unemployed, for example, could prompt you to find a more satisfying job or line of work. The end of a love affair can signal a new beginning in another part of your life. Every time you handle a challenge successfully, no matter how small it is, you gain a sense of mastery and control that will help you be a better problem-solver.

"Good feelings can banish negative emotions," says Fredrickson. In a 1998 study, Fredrickson told volunteers they would have to give a speech (the No. 1 anxiety producer among Americans). They were then shown videos of puppies and beach scenes or an abstract screen saver. The subjects' cardiovascular reactions, which at first quickly climbed, returned to normal upon viewing the videos, while those of the screen-saver group stayed elevated. The message: Focusing on something positive diverts attention from the negative, and this allows you to cope.

find your flow

Whatever your aims are, positive psychologists say that persistence is vital. It helps if your goal is important to you (whether or not it comes with some sort of payoff), and that you have confidence in your ability, despite potential obstacles, to achieve it. Then you can focus all your attention on sustaining the effort required to realize your goal. The feeling of complete absorption and intense concentration that results is called flow.

First described in the 1980s by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, flow is that state when your focus on a task is so strong that you lose your sense of time and place. Athletes feel it when they're "in the zone," and artists often get into a state of flow during the creative process. Flow can be derived from pleasurable pastimes, too: hiking in the woods, playing a musical instrument, doing crossword puzzles,

playing chess, in-line skating, or whipping up a gourmet meal.

Experiencing flow is a characteristic of thrivers, people who continue to grow despite having experienced emotional trauma and physical setbacks. "Their feelings of happiness despite their pain relates to their ability to concentrate and be consciously creative enough to become lost in the present joy of being alive," says Pearsall.

give unto others

Thrivers have the ability to purposely lift their own spirits, and one way they do this is by helping others. Volunteering at a pet rescue center or being a big sister to a wayward teen fosters a sense of what psychologists call uplift or elevation, which promotes well-being. "When someone is doing a really kind act," says Pearsall, "they get this warm feeling where their heart opens."

In the aftermath of 9/11, researchers found greater resilience among those who had taken positive steps to break free from their shock, anger and grief. "They volunteered their time, gave money, donated blood," says Roxane Cohen Silver, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of California, Irvine. "Doing something to help seemed to minimize their ongoing stress."