Positive Psychology

Is the glass half full, or half empty?

The most interesting thing I learned this week was actually in my psychology class.  We have been studying personality and part of personality is optimism vs. pessimism.  I found that there are some interesting correlations between optimists and health.  Optimists live longer and have fewer illnesses than their pessimist friends.  This is interesting because it shows that the way you think about things affects you biological health. 

Knowing this information makes me wonder how the perspective someone has affects the recovery process. Is the the perspective someone has very important to their physical health and recovery?  Before, I was only finding information about people who thought they could heal themselves through solely thinking they are better.  Now, I am finding some practical mental perspectives that can help someone stay healthier or get better quicker.  Finding positive psychology, specifically positive health for physical and mental wellbeing, is the main avenue I will stay in to see how this could affect the recovery process.  There is a lot of research done on the perspective of people by the founder of positive psychology Dr. Martin Seligman.  This is a cool link I found about positive health.

Through researching it more and kind of stumbling upon it, I have found a great psychological avenue to focus more of research on. This week's research has been focused on the psychological aspect and next week I plan to look more at the phyiscal aspect by interviewing some physical therapists.