{"id":1809,"date":"2017-03-03T09:31:28","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T09:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2025-09-29T18:27:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T18:27:39","slug":"being-pessimistic-is-bad-for-your-heart-but-being-optimistic-doesnt-help","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=1809","title":{"rendered":"Being pessimistic is bad for your heart &#8211; but being optimistic doesn&#8217;t help"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"asset-img-link\" href=\"http:\/\/tomfaranda.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d834525a2f69e201b8d2660006970c-pi\" style=\"display: inline;\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sisyphus\" class=\"asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834525a2f69e201b8d2660006970c img-responsive\" src=\"https:\/\/tomfaranda.typepad.com\/.a\/6a00d834525a2f69e201b8d2660006970c-150wi\" style=\"width: 150px;\" title=\"Sisyphus\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So &#8211; avoid <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Pessimism\">pessimism<\/a> and say your prayers.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#39;s a study from Finland &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/11\/16\/well\/mind\/pessimism-may-be-bad-for-your-heart.html?em_pos=small&amp;emc=edit_hh_20170228&amp;nl=well&amp;nl_art=2&amp;nlid=5681832&amp;ref=headline&amp;te=1&amp;_r=0\">During 11 years of follow-up, 122 people died from coronary heart disease. After controlling for smoking, diabetes and other factors, the scientists found that those in the highest one-quarter of scores on pessimism were more than twice as likely to die of heart disease as those in the lowest one-quarter. But being optimistic had no effect on death rates one way or the other. \u201cYour personality traits can make physical health worse,\u201d said the lead author, Dr. Mikko Pankalainen, a psychiatrist at the Paijat-Hame Central Hospital in Lahti, Finland. \u201cIf you\u2019re pessimistic and have some health issues, then it\u2019s even more important to take care of your physical health.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So &#8211; avoid pessimism and say your prayers. Here&#39;s a study from Finland &#8211; During 11 years of follow-up, 122 people died from coronary heart disease. After controlling for smoking, diabetes and other factors, the scientists found that those in the highest one-quarter of scores on pessimism were more than twice as likely to die [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-lymphoma-and-related-medical-stuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1809"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5708,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1809\/revisions\/5708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}