By Pat Orr| For the Victorville Daily Press

I spend a great deal of space ruminating about political decisions, laws and the people who make them. This tends to skew my perspective to the negative. As a moderately conservative person in a state run by ultra-liberals, my view of most state government decisions is not rosy. I told my editor if this pandemic ever receded, I would like to do more local stories with a positive slant. Those are hard to come by when everyone is locked up and not circulating.

I overheard my WFL (wife for life) talking with her sister-in-law on the phone the other day. They observed that both I and her brother were doggedly negative, while they saw themselves as most always seeing the brighter, more positive side of an issue or problem. I countered with No I am just a realist. My WFL laughed. Wait I protested, I am positive. I am positive that things are terrible.

This exchange led me to the ugly realization that 2020 and all that year put us through has forever changed the attitude from sweet to sour for a great many on this planet. Add to the pandemic worries strife over race, riots, several contested elections, personal and business financial woes, and the result is a tough time to stay cheery. I decided to investigate this further. Is there a downside to being a pessimist besides being a drag at parties?

As it happens, like every other human behavior, there are academics studying the issue. Also, as it happens, your emotional well-being and health can be affected by the way you feel about life and what it presents you daily.

University of North Carolina Psychologist Dr. Barbara L. Fredrickson found that All emotions whether positive or negative are adaptive in the right circumstances. The key seems to be in finding a balance between the two.

Research has found a link between an upbeat positive mental state and lower blood pressure, reduced risk of heart disease, healthier weight and longer life. Fredrickson, and others, have found a link indicating that those who savor positive emotions activate new reward pathways deep in the brain and help produce lower levels of a stress hormone.

To reinforce the validity of these findings, Martin Seligman at the University of Pennsylvania looked at the flip side of the equation by doing extensive research on individuals aged 25 to 65 who were rated as pessimists those who routinely have a dark view of events both personal and public. Seligman found that the pessimists' health deteriorated far more rapidly as they aged.

Researchers at Yale and the University of Colorado found pessimism to be associated with weakened immune response to tumors and infection in their own studies. That could have a profound impact on how one should approach contracting any new disease or infection, like COVID-19. There is proof that staying positive helps you beat your health challenges.

Research aside, how do you set about remaking your attitude? Well, naturally, there is quite a large industry willing to teach you how to think positively. Norman Vincent Peale wrote a top selling self-help tome in 1952 that became the signpost of a new era in self-awareness. Subsequently, there has been intensive work by psychologists and physiologists into the science behind staying positive. There is also a great deal of guru-like fakery in the field, too.

In reviewing the current literature (and there is a lot of it), I found some useful tips.

Find an activity that calms and centers you. It may be walking, taking a bike ride, meditating, doing a crossword puzzle or using an adult coloring book (no kidding, they are big now). The motto here is, When the mind ceases, the soul is allowed to speak. Find a way to get away from your thoughts.

Practice the advice from the Disney movie Frozen and sing Let it go over and over. Holding onto negative thoughts and replaying them in your head continually reinforces a dark view toward new situations and issues.

Separate fact from fiction. Surprisingly, negative self-talk those things we beat ourselves up over promote a negative outlook on life. I am always going to be fat. I am too weak to quit smoking. I will never get a good job. An attitude change can often produce surprisingly successful results in the I can never category.

Get a pet. If you are a regular reader of this column, you may remember how I extolled the virtues of having a dog as a friend, companion and psychological counselor. In 2020, the adoption rate for dogs increased by over 30%. Last year, Australian researchers studying the link between pet ownership and mental health found that loneliness decreased in the group that got a dog by 40%.

Dogs also made their owners get out and be more active as a side benefit. Any pet you are comfortable interacting with will work. A parrot, gerbil or bunny are examples. You may need to be more persistent to strike up a long-term conversation with most cats, but they still nuzzle, and that is the whole point.

Help others. Find a way to volunteer. Nothing brings an upbeat attitude into your life faster than helping someone else in need. Volunteering causes the one you are helping to be optimistic and it may just infect you.

Learn something new or indulge a passion. Finding a new hobby or learning a new skill is a way to feel good about achieving something. A sense of achievement is important. For some, just planning and scheduling your day, then ticking off items as you complete them is enough to brighten an attitude. It feels good to finish something you set out to do, no matter how simple the task. You may need to force yourself to remember how good it feels to just feel good about the day you have had.

One of my friends shared her plan over Facebook recently, declaring she would do these two things to make her day go better: Will not watch the news and will not get on the bathroom scale.

Whatever it takes for you, work to make 2021 a positive year. It will be good for your health!

Contact Pat Orr at avreviewopinion@gmail.com.

See more here:
Around Town: Negativity kills - VVdailypress.com