Adam Smith viewed science as an antidote to "the poisons of enthusiasm and superstition." I agree with the last part (i.e., as concerns superstition), but "enthusiasm" as poison? What was he thinking?
For a guy who lived two centuries ago (1723-1790), Adam Smith was pretty insightful. How could he guess that wishing, believing, pretending and "mentally fighting" for a belief, even if unaccompanied by any evidence whatsoever, would become wildly popular? Yet, look at us now. Many Americans are fond of and proud to embrace all manner of unsupported nonsense. Some, in fact, consider "blind faith" a virtue.
Adams relied on reason and observation and whatever evidence-gathering he could muster to adopt or reject beliefs in his time and he respected anything that science could confirm. He knew that wishing doesn't make anything so. And that segues to the title above-"Don't worry, be happy and look on the bright side-but don't expect doing so will make you healthier." By that, I mean don't expect that such an outlook will pay off in this manner. A comprehensive longitudinal study suggests it will not. More about that shortly.
While an upbeat and positive outlook won't guarantee improved health and such, it won't hurt, either - provided you are not devastated by the fact that nothing of the kind came from positive thinking. So, if you prefer or can't help but worry unhappily with a dark side outlook, well, that's not a doomsday condition, either. Turns out, there's no evidence that gloominess will hurt your health prospects. If you end up dying (!) or remaining ill, it's not because you generated too little optimism or engaged in too little happy talk. The fact is that positive thinking neither helps nor hinders recovery from illness, disease or whatever. My initial title for this essay was "Don't Worry, Be Happy and Look on the Bright Side-But Don't Expect Doing So Will Make You Healthier" but that was a little long.
For nearly two centuries, starting with the "New Thought Movement," the idea grew that the mind could cure. This became a widely held belief. It was largely a religious, quasi-metaphysical idea, based on faith. This meant it was supported by no evidence, but embraced because it made people feel better.
Lately, this "look on the bright side if you want to get well" notion was embraced under other banners, all characterized by "positive thinking." Variations on this theme included a law of attraction (X thoughts bring X outcomes), a school of affirmations and creative visualizations, a movement for self-healing, champions for a "life force channeling," for a "psychosomatic hypothesis" and so forth.
The best-known influence along these lines was and remains prayer-believing that if you believe hard enough, some kind of god or "infinite intelligence" will come to your aide.
Alas, the evidence from an extensive study of positive thinking in a medical context indicates strongly that none of it is so.
I have to confess, in the interest of full disclosure, that the wellness movement in general and yes, even yours truly, embraced the positive thinking idea, at least to an extent. For instance, you may have noticed that I often sign off with the Monty Python phrase, "Always look on the bright side of life." Of course, just as the guy on the cross in the Python movie, "The Meaning of Life" did not expect that singing that cheerful if ludicrous little tune would improve his prospects, I never implied doing so would cure cancer or anything else. But, someone might get a related impression. Fortunately, the wellness movement was never quite so simplistic about positive thinking as seen in the "happy talk" mentality popularized by Norman Vincent Peale in his 1952 best-seller, "The Power of Positive Thinking." Nor did many wellness advocates reach the goofiness level of the New Age palaver of Rhonda Byrne's "The Secret." In case you missed it, this secret encouraged followers to make direct requests for health and such to The Universe! (Unfortunately, no address for The Universe was provided.)
Come to think of it, this idea hardly seems less preposterous than directing requests to an imaginary friend (i.e., prayer).
Positive thinking is separate and distinct from prayer. Prayer usually takes the form of requests for interventions by a god or gods, spirits and the like. Positive thinking is something else entirely. It is simply about engaging in upbeat attitudes that somehow will set off a chain of chemical or other internal, mental vibrations that boost chances for healing, good health or whatever one desires, within limits. (While the phrase "anything is possible" is often heard in a positive thinking context, few really believe "anything is possible." Think about it4-can you imagine expecting that, if you really set your mind to it, you can fly, levitate or speak conversational Chinese-without studying the language? Only a certified crazy person believes ANYTHING is possible.)
Yet, despite resistance by the scientific community, interest remained high in the belief that "positive characteristics like optimism, spirituality and being a compassionate person" were associated with being healthy and that healing was aided by being upbeat. A recent study, reported in the New York Times, described research involving nearly 60,000 people in Finland and Sweden. People were tracked for three decades. No "significant association was found 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." (See Richard P. Sloan, "A Fighting Spirit Won't Save Your Life," New York Times, January 24, 2011).
The downside of this enforced optimism on patients, for instance, is (quoting the Times article) that "the incessant pressure to be positive imposes an enormous burden on patients whose course of treatment doesn't go as planned."
Richard P. Sloan concludes his article on not expecting positivism to have much if any effect, for better or worse, on prospects for recovery or health or anything else as follows: "It is difficult enough to be injured or gravely ill. To add to this the burden of guilt over a supposed failure to have the right attitude toward one's illness is unconscionable. Linking health to personal virtue and vice not only is bad science, it's bad medicine."
I think it's good to take steps to worry as little as possible, to be as happy as you can given your circumstances and prospects and to look on the bright but sensible side of life, but don't expect that it will make you and healthier or lead to increased longevity. If all this boosts the quality of your life, that's payback enough.
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