Optimists may have longer lives

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Optimists may enjoy longer lives than people with a dimmer outlook on the future, a long-term study suggests. Optimists found to live longer than pessimists. Or maybe they just think they will Researchers found that of nearly 7,000 adults followed since their college days in the 1960s, those who were optimistic in their youth had a lower risk of dying over the next 40 years than their more pessimistic peers. On average, the most pessimistic study participants were 42 percent more likely to die of any cause than the most positive participants, according to findings published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings medical journal. The results echo those of a number of past studies on personality factors and health, including research that has linked optimism to longer life. One study of elderly adults found that those with a positive view of the future were less likely than pessimists to die over the next decade -- regardless of their health at the start of the study. These latest findings are based on a 40-year follow-up of 6,958 men and women who entered the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in the mid-1960s. At the time, they took a standard personality test that gauges a person's tendency to be optimistic or pessimistic. What do you consider yourself an optimist or a pessimist and why?