FYI: Can Staying Positive Extend Your Life?
Staying Positive Joan Vicent Canto Roig/Getty Images Maybe, but no one has ever proved it. The belief that optimism can keep you alive-or at least stave off cancer-gained traction after the release of a study in the Lancet medical journal in 1979. The study followed six dozen recovering breast-cancer patients for five years. Researchers found that those who responded to their situation with a "fighting spirit" fared better-longer survival, fewer signs of residual cancer-than those who had feelings of "helplessness" or "hopelessness." Subsequent studies seemed to corroborate the result, and the benefits of optimism crept into medical doctrine. Rather pessimistically, a few recent large-scale meta-analyses (reviews of multiple studies) have found a lack of convincing evidence that optimism really extends the lives of cancer patients. Neither positive emotions like fighting spirit nor the absence of negative ones such as helplessness or hopelessness reliably predict a better outcome. "There will always be new...