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Simple “Mind Trick” Could Help You Avoid a Stroke
By Alice Wessendorf on 08/02/2011
There are lots of different ways to say it.
“Whistling in the dark”, “faking it until you feel it”, and “skipping past the graveyard” are just a few examples. But they all really boil down to just one thing, and that’s the power of positive thinking.
The fact is that our minds can play a significant role in our health, yet most of the time that fact is simply overlooked.
I told you last year about what I’ve christened the “Oscar the Grouch effect.” A study had revealed that a negative outlook could literally increase your angina or heart-attack risk by up to 44%.
Now the findings of a new study say we may need to add reducing your stroke risk to the list of things an optimistic outlook can accomplish for your health.
Researchers looked at a subset of 6,044 stroke-free volunteers from the ongoing Health and Retirement study. The volunteers’ optimism levels were measured on a 16-point scale using a standard tool called the Modified Life Orientation Test.
During the two-year follow-up period there were 88 cases of stroke. After taking into account the volunteers age, gender, chronic-illness status, and self-rated health levels, the researchers found that with every one point increase on the optimism scale there was a corresponding drop of 9% in stroke risk over the two-year period.
They even conducted a second analysis to find out if just avoiding being a Gloomy Gus would do the trick. But their data indicated that optimistic thinking offers protection above and beyond what just the absence of negative thinking can offer.
Now if you’re anything like me you may be wondering at this point how they can prove that positive thinking caused the drop in stroke risk. The simple answer is that they can’t. Well, not yet at any rate.
This was an observational study…meaning the researchers didn’t control all the factors involved in the study…so it would be impossible to say that positive thinking absolutely caused the drop in risk. But after they adjusted for all the normal outside factors, the relationship was still sitting there staring the researchers in their faces.
And, well, frankly, since other studies have already turned up similar findings, and since positive thinking never hurt anybody…in fact, quite the contrary…I think these are results we can and should get behind.
So I, for one, plan on trying to leave the grouchy to Oscar and the grumpy to Eeyore. Want to join me?
Related Articles of Interest:
What Oscar the Grouch Can Teach You About Heart Disease
Underestimating the healing power of the mind
DNA, Cancer and Meditation: Is There a Connection?
Drop self-criticism and drop pounds too
Reference:
"Dispositional Optimism Protects Older Adults From Stroke: The Health and Retirement Study," Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Assocaition, 2011 Jul 21. [Epub ahead of print]
Printer-friendly versionAbout the author
An enthusiastic believer in the power of natural healing, Alice has spent virtually her entire 17-year career in the natural-health publishing field helping to spread the word.
She is an advocate of self-education and is passionate about the power of group knowledge sharing, like the kind found right here on HealthierTalk.com. Alice loves to share her views on holistic and natural healing as well as her, sometimes contentious, thoughts on the profit-driven inner workings of traditional medicine.
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Comments
Boomer12k
Can't prove it by me. I have always been a positive person, active in Martial Arts. Mostly joyful and good hearted. Had a stroke at 42!!! I think the snack food diet, pop, (read aspartame), and chips, and jars and jars of peanuts and too much salt, and too much sugar, etc... got to me. At the time of my stroke I had been JUICING!!!! And at that time, other than the junk food, I was eating mostly vegan meals. But the junk food for snacks. It was also determined from a CAT scan I had a sinus infection, and I had been having terrible headaches at that time too. Sharp and stabbing in either side of my head. I also developed a "Temporal Bulge" on the right side of my head. If you put your right hand on your right forehead above your right eye, and angle the fingers to the side and back at a 45 degree angle, that is where the indentation goes. And below that on the right side is a "bulge". So something physical happened, that the doctors never acknowledged, but the Chiropractor found it described in a TEXT BOOK!!! It is called a "Temporal Bulge". It can be caused by an upward reaction from the Stomach, no less.
So, I don't personally see my optimistic outlook on life protecting me against any of that!!!
So, if you ask me if "positive thinking" prevents strokes, I would say no. Laughing and joking and smiling, and looking forward thinking the future is going to be good, and being nice to people are GREAT THINGS!!!! But they don't protect you. As for the study, maybe there is something they missed. My Aunt Barbara was a health nut, she lived in the mountains, had good clean water and air, and ate good food, and went for walks all the time, it was a small town, you could walk everywhere. She died of glandular problems, went Manic/Depressive, and ended up borderline Diabetic in a nursing home and passed away in about 2 years, partially blind. So a good up beat, happy, and optimistic personality did not protect her one bit in the end. I don't think she ate any Junk Food in her life! She was 82.
My Uncle, not necessarily the health nut lived to a month shy of 90. He was a big, barrel chested Irishman, who quit smoking in the early 60's, and I never saw him take a drink. He was active as an owner of a garage, so he was around all the car pollution, gas fumes, car fumes, etc... BUT, he was very robust, and I would call him an optimist too. But I think it comes down to physical make up and what your body can take. In the end, he wasted, and lost allot of weight, and had respiratory problems.
However, neither one of them died of STROKE or had one in their life that I know of. So, gee, maybe it does help prevent stroke. But it did not help against the things that did kill them....
Just pointing out some things from my experience. Other peoples experience might differ.
Be well and happy! Life is too short, even if you live to be 1000.
Steve
Boomer12k
On the other hand, my Great Aunt Elizabeth dies at 90 from a fall down some stairs. She was the most venomous, hate filled, poisoned person you would ever want to meet. Pessimistic to the extreme. BUT....she ate right, worked in the garden. Never had a stroke for all that negativity. Grouchy does not come close to describing her attitude, and she had been that way since her 40's.
Maybe 88 out of 6,044 in 2 years is just about right. Some people will develop a bad artery or vein in the brain, or some fat will dislodge. Not all pessimists, who are also criminals, (I do not mean to imply all pessimists are criminal, or even the other way around, I am talking about a criminal who is also pessimistic in attitude), get cancer. I have known of good, decent, church going, optimistic, going to heaven outlook, generous, etc.... people, who did, and died from it, as well as others who got other health issues. It was generally due to diet, and other lifestyle things.
So, as far as this study goes, I think it is inconclusive and probably reflects wishful thinking on the part of the evaluators.
It happens in studies. Maybe they are optimists!
Be well and happy.
Steve
leo
I look at things in a realistic way.
That is to say I'm not negative, nor positive.
I try to see things as they really are.
I have noticed that if nearly anything can go wrong, then it probably will and one should try to prepare for that.
That is my motto, try to be prepared for the worst that can happen, then don't worry about it anymore.
Go on and enjoy all that life has given you and may have in store for you later on.
Life is about challenges, choices, love and whatever else you may make of it.
wardostman
Another great article. This study only confirms what most informed people already know: that a positive outlook influences all aspects of our lives, including our health. The trouble is some people think it is the only answer and will overcompensate for bad activities, and that is their downfall.
Keep it up girl!
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