Researchers found that optimists aren’t any better than the rest of us when it comes to dealing with stressful situations and conflict, nor do they get over those episodes any faster. Rather, their higher sense of well-being came by encountering fewer daily stressors than people who were less optimistic, according to the findings, published on March 7 in The Journals of Gerontology. The reason for that isn’t entirely clear, says Lewina O. Lee, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine in Massachusetts and lead author of the study. “This could be because they were truly encountering fewer stressors, or they were less likely to interpret situations as stressful,” she says.
Optimistic People Don’t Respond More Constructively to Stress
The researchers followed 233 older and mostly white men who completed a questionnaire designed to evaluate their level of optimism. After a period of 14 years, participants completed a questionnaire about their daily stressors and were asked to assess their positive and negative moods on eight consecutive evenings up to three times over an eight-year span. Stressors included things like arguments, potential arguments, work-related stress, or health stressors. Participants were asked to report their mood (for example, “distressed” or “irritable” would be considered a negative mood; “excited” or “enthusiastic” would be positive) and to rate the extent to which they experienced that mood on a scale of 0 (very slightly or not at all) to 4 (extremely). The study authors expected to find that the optimistic men might respond more effectively or constructively to stress and therefore enjoy better emotional well-being, but that wasn’t the case.
Optimists May Be Better at Sidestepping Conflict or Stress Situations
However, investigators did find that the more optimistic men reported not only experiencing less negative mood but also more positive mood (beyond simply not feeling negative). The men with a more positive outlook also reported having fewer stressors in general, which was unrelated to their higher positive mood but accounted for their lower levels of negative mood, according to the authors. Dr. Lee notes that the findings are limited by the fact that most of the participants were older men who were mostly white. “We have yet to see if the results may generalize to other population subgroups, like women or younger people.” Rather than dealing with stressful situations more effectively, the optimists did something pretty far upstream, says Jonathan Gerkin, MD, associate professor and psychiatrist at the UNC School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, who was not involved in the research. “They didn’t engage in as much stressful stuff, though it’s unclear why that was the case,” he says. The findings may not be what the author expected, but they do make sense, says Dr. Gerkin. “If someone is more optimistic, they’re probably better at seeing situations that they’d rather not be part of. They think, ‘That’s not for me — I’m not going to seek out or concern myself with negative stuff,’ and may be better at sidestepping those things,” he says.
The Tendency to Skirt Stressful Stuff May Come With Age
Lee uses something many of us have encountered in the last couple years — a heated discussion about COVID-19 — as an example of how the optimist may choose to not engage in a stressful situation. “Let’s say there is a family gathering and different family members have different opinions on COVID-19 precautions and the vaccine, which can easily escalate into an argument. People may try to change the topic and avoid the likelihood of an argument, or they may reframe a heated discussion as ‘That’s just how my family talks — no hard feelings!’ — and let the negative feelings slide,” says Lee. These findings shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that looking on the “sunny side” or avoiding a stressful situation is always the best path to take, says Gerkin. “You should only do that if you choose to, based on your own reasons,” he says. What seems to track with age and wisdom is the ability to discern whether or not certain situations are “worth it,” says Gerkin. “That’s the ability to step back and think, ‘Why would I want to do X?’ As we get older, we start to figure out what things are worth feeling stressed or uncomfortable about,” he says. If the reasons aren’t good enough, we may decide to dodge that situation altogether, he adds.
The Best Way to Handle Stress Depends on the Situation
What exactly does it mean to “handle stress constructively”? The answer to that is largely subjective and it varies across people and situations and depends on your goal in a given situation, says Lee. “For example, if your goal is to meet a deadline, handling the stress constructively may mean putting aside other priorities, like family, leisure, or health, at least in the short run, so you can meet the deadline. In the longer term, however, our priorities may shift so what it means to handle stress constructively may involve a different approach — for example, prioritizing health and making sure one gets enough physical activity and rest,” she says.
How to Minimize the Negative Impact of a Stressful Situation
There are a few ways to minimize the negative impact of a stressful event, says Lee. “Having an optimistic outlook, including cultivating an awareness of our thought process, being able to ‘try on’ different ways of thinking about a situation, and trying to see the positive and controllable aspects of an undesirable situation are some strategies that can be helpful,” she says. How we frame things in our mind and what we choose to engage with can make a big difference in how we experience life, says Gerkin. “An optimist is someone is who may be better at framing a situation to think, ‘This isn’t so bad.’ Or they may see that it is negative and choose to go right past it and move on to something that matters to them,” he says.
