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Hope and Optimism
Two good friends talking and smiling.

How Optimism Can Help You

By adopting hopeful and optimistic attitudes, we change the way our brains process and deal with stressful feelings. These attitudes also help us turn pessimistic, negative thoughts about our situation and the world into positive, more helpful ones.

Hope and optimism
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Sometimes, life just gets overwhelming. Maybe you find yourself in a difficult situation and can't figure a way out.

Do you find yourself saying, "What's the use," "Why bother," "Nothing ever works out anyway," "I always mess things up"? So, what do you do when negative thoughts creep in and try to stay? We have five exercises to help you break this pattern. Give these a try, and learn to use the power of self-talk to help you move yourself into a more hopeful direction.

Keep reminders at home and at work to replace pessimistic thoughts with more hopeful, supportive thoughts and change your self-talk for the better.

Turning Point has helped tens of thousands. Please explore website to learn more and to download these five exercises to help you use hope and optimism to overcome stress.

Understanding hope and optimism

First lesson

What's the difference between hope and optimism?

Second lesson

Why do we need hope and optimism?

Third lesson

How can you use hope and optimism to overcome stress?

Take the hope and optimism quiz

  • True – The University of Pittsburgh studied the health and hope of almost 100,000 women over eight years. They found optimists often believed they would live longer than pessimists – and they were right! The study found that over the eight-year period optimists, compared to pessimists, were less likely to die from all causes.
  • True – Even though a hopeful attitude doesn't make you jump higher or run faster, it does mean you're more goal-oriented and motivated. A study at the University of Pennsylvania took a group of winners, told them to swim as fast as they could, recorded their swim times, and then gave them false, slower times. The optimistic swimmers used the fake time as motivation and swam even faster, while the pessimists did even worse.

Hope and optimism toolbox

Related links

Emotional Expression
Hope and Optimism
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Self-Calming
T'ai Chi
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