Can a Fighting Spirit Help You Overcome Disease?
There’s no evidence to back up the idea that an upbeat attitude can prevent any illness or help someone recover from one more readily. On the contrary, a recently completed study of nearly 60,000 people in Finland and Sweden who were followed for almost 30 years found no significant association between personality traits and the likelihood of developing or surviving cancer. Cancer doesn’t care if we’re good or bad, virtuous or vicious, compassionate or inconsiderate. Neither does heart disease or AIDS or any other illness or injury.
Read the entire article on a fighting spirit and illness.
It must be an old wives tale that people with a positive mental attitude are more likely to prevail than a sourpuss. I would imagine that the placebo effect would work better on an optimist than a pessimist, but apparently not.
At the very least, I would someone with a stronger constitution to adhere to diets and exercise more than someone who does not believe they control any of their health destiny.
Interesting. Goes against conventional wisdom.
This is bad news for Hollywood. Think how many movies assume that a will to live matters.
Bad news for novels, folklore, etc. haven’t you ever heard of somone dying of a broken heart?
Oh, horsefeathers! Just because an oped in the NYTimes makes the claim, that doesn’t make it so. Attitude makes a huge difference, as does will to live. Ask any doctor. Numerous studies back it up. This is “conventional wisdom” for the same reason cliche’s hold up over time — there’s truth there. A positive attitude is not a magic cure but it helps.
Well Erin, I say to you hogwash. What studies support your contention that a positive attitude changes disease outcomes. If anything, the idea that a positive attitude will give you a better disease outcome is an extension to delusional thinking so common today. Read “Bright-sided” which is bill as a “knockdown of America’s love affair with positive thinking and an urgent call for a new commitment to realism”