20 Ways Attitude Impacts Your Physical and Mental Health and 6 Tips to Improve It

Hey there, everybody, and welcome to this video on 20 ways your attitude impacts your health and mood, and 6 ways to improve your hardiness or your attitude. I'm your host, Dr. Donnelly Snipes. Attitude is all about perception. But optimism and hope can actually be just as toxic as pessimism. When taken to the extreme, when somebody is always optimistic and saying, oh, it'll get better, or are, well, just being optimistic and ignoring what is actually happening, it can be just as toxic. Unfortunately, as humans, we tend to notice the negative and need to train ourselves to also embrace the positive. And this is called tragic optimism. It recognizes that there's the tragic part, this is the part that sucks. And there's this part over here as I'm thinking, I'm thinking of some biscuits I made the other day and tragic optimism. I burned the bottom of them to an absolute crisp, but the upper five, six of them was just fine. So I cut off the bottom crust and, you know, it was good. Was it as pretty? Not quite. But that's tragic optimism. I embrace the fact that, hey, I burned the bottom and the rest of them, the rest of the biscuit tastes just fine. So think about that, embracing it and recognizing it. Another example I usually give is my animals love my animals, love my animals to death, and I wouldn't want to be living in a house without them. But they're dander, and the dust and the hair is exhausting to keep clean. So am I going to be negative about the fact that, oh, my gosh, these animals make a mess all the time, or am I going to embrace that and say, yeah, but if I had a perfectly clean house, I wouldn't have the love of these creatures. I wouldn't have these creatures, because you can't have one without the other. So I need to embrace the dialectics. I need to be tragically optimistic. Around our house, we kind of laugh and say, cleaning with animals in the house is kind of like eating Oreos and brushing your teeth at the same time you're brushing your teeth. But, you know, it's hard to actually get the job done. Hardiness is an attitude, and it's kind of like tragic optimism. But hardiness was a term that was coined back in the 70s by Kabasa. A hearty attitude means a commitment to using our energy to control or nurture what's important in our lives and recognizing problems as challenges and. And opportunities to grow. Now, there's a lot there, but basically it's commitment, control, and challenge. And having that attitude is so important. Hearty attitudes are associated with lower blood pressure. When you view life, you're, you see all of the things in your life that you're committed to. You recognize, okay, this stuff over here may be going kind of crappy, but I've got all this that I'm committed to and I'm focusing on and realizing the power I have to address the things that are within my control. Then it's less draining, less triggering on the stress response system. When you approach something with curiosity, seeing it as a challenge or a puzzle, instead of seeing it as a barrier that is going to prevent you from having a meaningful life, you know, you can see how the different attitude would reduce the stress response. When we have a lower stress response, when that HPA axis isn't completely pegged out, we have improved sleep. When our HPA axis does its normal, you know, it triggers for stress and it downregulates when the stress is gone, you know, it's a well functioning system. Then we have reduced inflammation, we have reduced pain because serotonin stays higher. We have improved immunity because cortisol is able to do its job and it's not causing overactivity or dysregulation of the immune system. We have improved energy. You know, think about how draining it is when you are pessimistic, when you are approaching life and seeing life as through a negative lens and everywhere you look you see threats. That is exhausting. So we have improved energy when we start recognizing, okay, you know, yeah, there are some things in this world that I cannot control, but there are some things I can cool, let me focus on those. What parts can I control? And hearty attitudes are also associated, interestingly enough, but probably not surprising, with nutrition and weight management. When people are stressed, they tend to gravitate toward high fat, high sugar foods for long energy from fat as well as short bursts of energy from sugar and the bursts of dopamine. Because high fat, high sugar foods tend to tend to be what we call feelgood foods anyway. When people are feeling hearty, they tend to be less anxious, less distressed, so they're doing less self medicating. Which actually does have a significant impact on food selection and consequent weight management. Hearty attitudes are associated with improved emotional regulation. When you are not already completely pegged out. When that pressure cooker is not always at all always at max pressure and you're just waiting for one more thing to blow the top off or you know, you're all already at max load and you're waiting for that one straw that's going to break the camel's back, whatever metaphor you want to use, then it's easier to regulate your emotions. When your HPA axis, your stress response system is working appropriately, then when there's a stressor, there is a equivalent or representative amount of cortisol released. When your HPA axis is not working well, then when when there's a stressor, most of the time there's either none or a tsunami of of stress hormones released. So keeping that HPA axis is one of the main benefits overall of of hardiness. It helps us avoid unnecessary distress. People who are hearty also have increased happiness and hope because they are recognizing the stuff that sucks. We're not ignoring that, we're not minimizing it. But they're also recognizing the things that are going right, the things that they do have, the security that they do have. They're recognizing that they are not totally powerless, that they do have control over some aspects of every situation. And they are recognizing things that come their way as challenges. They're starting to be able to look at those and go, okay, well I've been through harder things in the past and survived or I've been through similar things in the past and made it through. How can I address this instead of looking at something going I don't know what to do with this. They are a more able to call on those older schema because they're not in perpetual fight orf flight. They're able to activate that executive control center, the higher order thinking and figure out how to problem solve. How awesome. And they have improved motivation when you think you can do something. When you think that using energy is going to have a positive effect, you tend to be more motivated. Help us continue to make practical tools available to everybody by supporting the channel. You can donate any amount and any amount helps@docsnipes.com donate or on cash app Snipes Become a member of the YouTube channel and get perks@doc snipes.com join purchase a super thanks on any video that is helpful or if you need continuing education, you can get ceus@allce.com Cognitively hearty attitudes are associated with improved problem solving. Remember I said you're not in fight or flee, you're actually in your wise mind, which means you're going to be able to use that wisdom. Imagine that improved creativity and cognitive flexibility. Think about when you're stressed or when you're in a negative state of mind. How creative are you? I know I'm not very creative. I I feel very stuck. I Get stuck in that box. I have difficulty imagining or thinking of alternative ways to approach things. My cognitive flexibility is, is almost nil. I become much more rigid. This is, this is a nail needs to be hit with a hammer. There's nothing else to do. When I'm being more cognitively flexible, I may see a nail, but if I don't have a hammer, I say, okay, what could I use instead? And I can be really creative out here on the farm. You know, a lot of times things like that do happen and I improvise, and that's cognitive flexibility. But if you're feeling negative, if you're feeling distressed or in fight or flight, you're not going to have that luxury. People who are hearty have improved concentration. They're not hyper vigilant. They're not scanning for threats all over the place because they feel safe and empowered. They recognize their ability to control certain things. They recognize that everything is not all bad, which helps them stay in their wise mind and focus on what's right in front of them. There's improved frustration tolerance. I encourage you to think again of times that you've been distressed. Whether you're sick or you're exhausted, or you're just distressed for some reason. How long was your patience fused versus times when things were going well? Most people, when they are feeling overwhelmed, when they are feeling negative or pessimistic, hopeless, helpless, unsafe, have very little frustration tolerance. They may try something for half a second and if it doesn't immediately work for them, it's like, fine, forget it. Don't have the energy, don't have the desire. Okay, well that's actually the body saying, this is not the time to focus on learning a new task. Energy and desire is to fight or flee. So it makes sense they would have that reaction. But we do need to recognize that and embrace it. And people who have a hearty outlook tend to have fewer intrusive thoughts and ruminations. We know that as sleep quality goes down, intrusive thoughts and ruminations go up. It's actually harder to control our thoughts and our cognitive autopilot when we are sleep deprived. So when people are feeling empowered, when they are feeling safe, they, their inner watchdog or inner risk manager isn't constantly knocking on their door going, don't forget about this. Be on the lookout for that. Don't forget about this. You know, that little area of your brain that the amygdala can settle down a little bit and they can focus on what's, what is in the moment, environmentally hearty. Attitudes are associated with a greater awareness of the positive aspects of the situation and the environment. Again, there can be. There's almost always something that's not a hundred percent perfect. But hearty attitudes say, okay, that's not a hundred percent perfect, but let's look at everything else that went really well. Or let's look at how things went well, despite the fact that it wasn't a hundred percent perfect. If you've gotten married, you know, that's a great example for a lot of people. Most people's weddings or their receptions do not go off a hundred percent perfect. It is not that hallmark storybook wedding that you anticipate or you hope for. Something's going to happen, you're going to break a heel, you're going to stain your dress, the car is going to break down, I don't know, whatever it is that's going to happen. But people with hearty attitudes are able to say, okay, well, this sucks, let's drop back and punt. Let's look at everything else that's going well. And in the big scheme of things, this isn't that big of a deal, you know, or in the big scheme of things, this turned out 90% awesome. Well, if you look at a grading scale, 90 is still an A, you know, so overall it was a success. Relationally, hearty attitudes are associated with increased relationship satisfaction, improved social support, and improved self esteem. When people have a hearty attitude, it's similar to looking outside at the things that you have in your life and the things that you have in your job that are going well versus going crappy. Self esteem. You can evaluate yourself and say, all right, I haven't achieved 100 self actualization. These are the things I'm still working on, but these are the things about myself that are awesome. You can look at people that you're in relationships with or your children, you know, nobody's perfect and you can say, all right, these are the things that aren't my favorite about this person, but these are all the things I love about this person. People with a negative attitude focus on, well, yeah, they have all this good stuff over there, but oh, this one thing they do grinds my gears and I'm just going to focus on that. And that detracts from the relationship. That creates a lot of resentment and hostility in relationships. So there's a lot more relationship satisfaction when we can appreciate the other person's strengths when we. Even if they're different. And I've talked before in, in other videos about temperament. My husband and I are very, very different. And some of his temperamental related things are very different than mine. And initially it was bothersome to me because it wasn't my way. But as soon as I let go of that and I started embracing the fact that, okay, he's more spontaneous than I am, well, that's great, because when things go wrong, he's able to think on his feet. When things go wrong, I start spiraling. I'm like, crap, this is not how it was supposed to go. So I appreciate that fact in him. I appreciate the differences in other people. And I look for ways we can synergize. And that's a hearty attitude. A negative attitude would be one of jealousy or judgmentalism. When we appreciate others for who they are instead of trying to change them. When we appreciate others for who they are with their problems or whatever, it increases the strength of our relationship and improves our social support because they feel accepted for who they are, faults and all. And then we can feel accepted for who we are, faults and all. So how do we improve this hardiness thing? Well, the first thing I know, an attitude of gratitude. How many times do people say that and you roll your eyes? Basically what we're talking about here is not prancing around, just telling everybody how grateful you are about stuff, which you can do if you want, but focusing on what you have, not just what you lack. And notice I say not just what you lack because, yeah, you may lack some things that you want. And okay, that's over in the need to work on this column, but also looking at all the other columns of things that are going good so you can recognize what part of the pie you know, how much the pie is actually not going well. Is it a little sliver or is it, you know, three fourths of the pie? Most people are going to find that it's a little sliver. So gratitude can be helpful, focusing on what is going right and what you have. All aspects, and I mentioned this a couple of times already, embrace the dialectics. Yes, people aren't perfect, you know, so embrace them as a whole, not just for their mistakes, or don't dislike them, just for their mistakes. Don't love them only if they're perfect, but embrace them in their totality for who they are. As my mother would say, warts and all. And that's true for jobs, that's true for houses and neighborhoods, that's true for relationships, and that's true for ourselves. Embrace all aspects of the situation. View problems as challenges instead of barriers. Now think about barriers versus obstacles. Obstacles. You run an obstacle course. Obstacles are something you need to get over, under, around, through. They're in your way. They're not ideal, but it's a challenge to figure out how to get past them and they can be overcome. Barriers, not so much. Barriers are there, and they stop you dead in your tracks. So if you see problems as obstacles or challenges, then it can spark that notion of curiosity. How have I solved similar things to this before? Or who do I know? Or who can I think of that solved similar problems and what did they do? E stands for energy on what you can control. Don't focus energy on trying to change other people because you can't change other people. Don't focus energy on being angry that you're having a snowstorm tomorrow and you're supposed to be at work. Can't control the weather, just can't do it. Don't focus energy on the things you can't control because that's just burning up energy. You might as well, you know, go out to your car and start siphoning gas and, you know, giving it to somebody else. Definitely not wasting it, but, you know, that's a waste of energy. You're not benefiting from that energy. And small steps. Think of what is one thing I can do today to move forward. If we set steps that are too big, then we start feeling defeated. We start feeling like it's impossible to reach that goal. So set goals, even little ones. Break them down literally into things that can be accomplished in a day. When I do spring cleaning, I break it down room by room. So one day I'm going to work on the laundry room. Another day or two, I'm gonna work on the garage. Another day I'm gonna work on my bedroom. Instead of saying, I need to get spring cleaning done and then going, I don't know where to start. With those small steps, I can see progress. And if you notice, these all add up to the mnemonic graces, gratitude, all aspects, challenges, energy on what you can control, and small steps. Next time you're faced with a challenge, notice it. What it is, what it is. Instead of getting angry about it, instead of being afraid of it, just notice it and get curious. Notice what is also going well, what resources you have to deal with it and what you can learn from it. Notice and then decide how to proceed. Are you going to accept it because it's something you can't control or don't want to use your energy on, or are you going to embrace the. And are you going to say, this part's ugly, don't like it, and this part's good. So I'm going to embrace it. I'm going to accept that not everything's perfect. Or are you going to proceed with hope and determination? You have hope that you can affect a positive change, and you're determined to make that happen. Life is not always sunshine and roses, but the way you approach adversity can have a significant impact on your health, mental health, and your relationships.