March 7 (UPI) —<\/span> Thinking positive thoughts does not make a difference in how older men respond to stress, a study published by Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences found.<\/p>\n However, being optimistic may reduce how often they experience it, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n<\/article>\n It also seems to change the way they interpret situations as stressful or not, the researchers said.<\/p>\n “This study tests … if more optimistic people handle daily stress more constructively,” study co-author Lewina Lee said in a press release.\n<\/p>\n The findings also indicate they “therefore enjoy better emotional well-being,” said Lee, a clinical psychologist at the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder at the VA Boston Healthcare System and assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine.<\/p>\n Lee and her colleagues followed 233 people born between 1940 and 1949 who completed optimism questionnaires administered by the Veterans Affairs Health System, or VA, in 1986 and 1991.<\/p>\n Fourteen years later, these study participants were asked to report daily stressors, along with positive and negative moods, on eight consecutive evenings up to three times over an eight-year span.\n<\/p>\n More optimistic men were about 20% less likely to report negative mood and about twice as likely to report more positive mood compared with those who were more pessimistic, the data showed.\n<\/p>\n They also reported having up to 80% fewer stressors, which was unrelated to their higher positive mood but explained their lower levels of negative mood, the researchers said.<\/p>\n While earlier studies have supported the idea that optimism may promote good health and long life, why this is the case remains unknown, they said.\n<\/p>\n “Stress, on the other hand, is known to have a negative impact on our health,” Lee said.<\/p>\n “By looking at whether optimistic people handle day-to-day stressors differently, our findings add to knowledge about how optimism may promote good health as people age,” she said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Optimism may not help people respond to stress, but it could reduce how often they experience it, according to a new study. Photo by geralt\/Pixabay March 7 (UPI) — Thinking positive thoughts does not make a difference in how older men respond to stress, a study published by Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological Sciences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1013594,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[176,5737,5742,1312,3221,1754,28],"class_list":["post-1013593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-finds","tag-frequency","tag-optimistic","tag-reduce","tag-response","tag-stress","tag-study"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1013593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1013593\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1013593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1013593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1013593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Study:](\"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Study-Being-optimistic-doesnt-help-stress-response-but-may-reduce-frequency.jpg\" "\\"Study:")
\n<\/div>\nOptimism may not help people respond to stress, but it could reduce how often they experience it, according to a new study. Photo by geralt\/Pixabay<\/p>\n