Nuns with the most positive emotions in their early writings had 97% survival to age 85, versus 52% for those with the least. Martin Seligman estimates optimism's cardiovascular benefit equals not smoking two packs a day. Brian Johnson explores how optimism extends your life.
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Not smoking two packs of cigarettes daily (i.e., equivalent beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk).
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Optimize plus one. In our last plus one, we talked about some nuns and crazy stats. Recall nones check in for service. They created entry statements average age 22 decades later, researchers analyzed those entries and coded them for positive content. By age 85, an astonishing 97% of the nuns whose entries contained the most positive wording and emotional content were still alive. 97%. In contrast, only 52% of those with the least positive entries were still alive at 85. Crazy 97. 52. At 93 years old, 52% of the cheerful entrants were still alive, whereas only 18% of the least cheerful were alive. Now, we concluded that plus one with positive emotions they do a body good. How good? Well, Martin Seligman, the father of learned optimism, puts it this way. I quote, we estimate that being in the upper quartile of optimism seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular risk roughly equivalent to not smoking two packs of cigarettes daily. Rubs my eyes. Rereads that. What recaps Being in the upper quartile of optimism seems to have a beneficial effect on cardiovascular health. That's roughly equivalent to not smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. Wow, that's today's plus one. How's your optimism? Tomorrow we'll talk about a tip from Sonia Lyubomirsky on the most robust strategy to build our optimism. And and you can check out some tips from seligman in this +1 we link for now, what's one little thing you think you can do to cultivate a little optimism? Let's get on that. As always today.
