Good vibes only? Why positive thinking can be bad for your health

This week, positive thinking was validated further. A new study revealed optimists are more likely to live longer than those with a more negative approach to life. According to the US-based research, positive people are more likely to live to the age of 85 – roughly 11pc longer than pessimists.

The theory is that optimists may find it easier to control emotions and are therefore protected from the effects of stress. The team of researchers added that pessimists could benefit from doing things like imagining a future where everything turns out well. Many people (optimists, I presume) welcomed the news. It’s all so simple: just think happy thoughts and you may (note: may) live an extra few years. If you’re a pessimist, don’t fret, you can train yourself to be happy – just imagine winning the Lotto and you may (note: may) live an extra few years.

The idea that you can programme yourself to become a ‘born-again optimist’ has been knocking around for a while now – just look at Tony Robbins and The Secret. But according to Anne Colgan, Chair of the Irish Council of Psychotherapy, denying your instinctive emotional responses or masking them with cheeriness can actually increase internal emotional stress.

“The key to happiness is being your authentic self and accepting all of your emotions,” she says. “If you are grieving or have been through a trauma, you can’t just switch to being positive – it’s not good for you.

“If you are sad, there tends to be a reason why you are sad. If you are happy, then there also needs to be a reason for that happiness,” she explains. “There is huge pressure to be positive. I call it the Tyranny of Positivity. We are bombarded with people telling us that positivity is the best thing and that being positive makes you more positive. It’s very stressful.”

In her 2010 book, Bright-sided: How The Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America, Barbara Ehrenreich stated that America’s “reckless optimism” had resulted in the financial crash.

Others have argued that the pressure to ‘be positive, think positive, stay positive’ has led to increased cases of anxiety, particularly in younger people.

“It is just not possible to be positive all the time because life is not positive all the time,” says Colgan. “Denying your genuine self is never good. Denying your genuine emotions is not good.”

According to Colgan, trying to completely reprogramme your emotional hardwiring to become a born-again optimist is almost impossible. We are extremely complex beings, she explains, adding that it simply “won’t last”.

However, it is possible to change our immediate surroundings and behavioural habits, which, in turn, may improve our mental health.

“There are things we can do to increase our happiness. We can remove toxicity [bad relationships, or working environment]. And we are all creatures of habit; if you are in a habit of negative thinking, you can alter that.”

Eva Doherty, a clinical psychologist and a chartered member of the Psychological Society of Ireland, believes that by examining our emotional responses, we can improve overall mental health.

“You need to look at yourself under a microscope. You can find out what triggers low mood and anxiety and find ways to handle that.”

According to Doherty, there are practical ways we can prevent ourselves falling into destructive or negative cycles. “The answer is not to go around being overly positive and saying everything is rosy, because that’s denial and that’s not healthy,” she says.

“We cannot switch off emotional responses because they are coming from mammalian centres of our brain, but we can examine and try to understand them. If you are a glass-half-empty person, you need to acknowledge and accept it and move forward.”

So being pessimistic doesn’t make you a sourpuss. In fact, accepting your negative energy and retiring the notion of eternal and never-ending happiness could be the most positive thing you ever do.   

Irish Independent