Winston Churchill, Britain’s prime minister during World War II, once described success as the “ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” He might have been more than a little prescient because researchers have since found that optimism plays a key role in achievement in life — as well as increasing our odds of living longer and healthier.But where scientists once thought that having a sunny outlook, or a rainy one, was set in stone on the day we were conceived, the latest research suggests that genes play only a 30 to 40 percent role in our outlook and that, with a little training, our brains have the ability to shift over time from a more negative outlook to a more positive one.
A book published last week provides a road map for rewiring the brain and redefines what optimism is. “It’s not just positive thinking but positive actions,” said Oxford University cognitive neuroscientist Elaine Fox, author of “Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain.” Persistence is key: Rather than sitting and passively waiting for life to happen, optimistic people take steps to implement their goals.
Read this article, which tells something new about optimism, here: RewireBrain
No comments:
Post a Comment