Is an Optimistic Mind Associated with a Healthy Heart?

But what about the research that says that pessimists live longer? I'm thriving and I will live longer than those pessimists.
http://www.creativitypost.com/psychology/is_an_optimistic_mind_associated_with_a_healthy_heart
When individuals are confronted with challenge, they may succumb or they may respond in one of three ways: They may survive (continuing to function, but in an impaired fashion), recover (return to previous levels of emotional, social and psychological functioning), or thrive (to go beyond the prior baseline, to grow and flourish). Through the interactive process of confronting and coping with challenges, a transformation occurs. As Virginia O’Leary puts it,

    “The potential theoretical, empirical and policy significance of the proposed paradigm shift from illness to health, from vulnerability to thriving, from deficit to protection and beyond ought not be underestimated. The precedent for this paradigm shift is growing in the scientific literature.”

One of the most important coping mechanisms that has been discovered is optimism. According to the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, our “explanatory style,” or the way in which we interpret our setbacks, is learned early in our lives and influences whether we rise above failure or accept it. Those with an optimistic explanatory style have positive expectancies for positive outcomes in the future (“In uncertain times, I usually expect the best”).

This conception is important because optimism is particularly associated with positive immunological functioning and health. A 2012 review conducted by Julia Boehm and Laura Kubzansky concluded that in healthy populations, “optimism and vitality are consistently associated with reduced risk of incident cardiovascular events.” In fact, across both healthy and patient populations, optimism was “the most reliably associated with a reduced risk of cardiac events.”*

When individuals are confronted with challenge, they may succumb or they may respond in one of three ways: They may survive (continuing to function, but in an impaired fashion), recover (return to previous levels of emotional, social and psychological functioning), or thrive (to go beyond the prior baseline, to grow and flourish). Through the interactive process of confronting and coping with challenges, a transformation occurs. As Virginia O’Leary puts it,

“The potential theoretical, empirical and policy significance of the proposed paradigm shift from illness to health, from vulnerability to thriving, from deficit to protection and beyond ought not be underestimated. The precedent for this paradigm shift is growing in the scientific literature.”

One of the most important coping mechanisms that has been discovered is optimism. According to the father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, our “explanatory style,” or the way in which we interpret our setbacks, is learned early in our lives and influences whether we rise above failure or accept it. Those with an optimistic explanatory style have positive expectancies for positive outcomes in the future (“In uncertain times, I usually expect the best”).
This conception is important because optimism is particularly associated with positive immunological functioning and health. A 2012 review conducted by Julia Boehm and Laura Kubzansky concluded that in healthy populations, “optimism and vitality are consistently associated with reduced risk of incident cardiovascular events.” In fact, across both healthy and patient populations, optimism was “the most reliably associated with a reduced risk of cardiac events.”*
- See more at: http://www.creativitypost.com/psychology/is_an_optimistic_mind_associated_with_a_healthy_heart#sthash.0oz4TIMs.dpuf