How to Stay Optimistic When Everything Seems Wrong

With the endless stream of urgent news pushing the boundaries of our mental health, it seems laughable to suggest optimism right now. Maybe you’re worried about losing your job, losing your home or losing a loved one. Maybe you already have. Maybe you’re worried about your own health, and maybe you feel helpless or doomed. Whatever it is, optimism feels like a luxury that few of us can afford.

But at its core, optimism doesn’t require you to sweep those anxious, negative feelings under the rug. It’s not about smiling when you don’t feel like it. Optimism is simply being hopeful about the future, even when the present feels wholly negative. Cognitively, this is a challenge, because it requires you to acknowledge your positive and negative emotions at once and to allow them to exist simultaneously. As hard as it may be to make the case for optimism during a time of crisis, that’s when it happens to be the most useful.

“There is an extraordinary level of uncertainty right now, and that produces fear, despair, helplessness and anxiety, which are all understandable and appropriate under these circumstances,” said Stephanie Marston, a psychotherapist and a co-author, with her daughter Ama Marston, of the book “Type R: Transformative Resilience for Thriving in a Turbulent World.”

“Especially during a crisis,” Stephanie Marston said, “we just have to be even more attentive to our emotional state. When we do that, we’re able to more quickly move beyond our stress, discomfort or pain.”

Optimism can soften the negative effects of stress, allowing us to cope with and recover from trauma more easily. With all of this in mind, there is a handful of research-backed evidence for embracing optimism as a tool for dealing with the stress and anxiety you’re most likely experiencing right now.

…

Look for meaning.

It’s easy to spiral into a pit of existential despair, and who could blame you? But if you can construct some kind of meaning during a crisis, it may go a long way toward coping with the stress.

“I’ve been thinking frequently of the quote from Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’: ‘Those who have a “why” to live can bear with almost any how,’” Dr. McGowan said. “We can choose to use this time to connect to ourselves and what’s important to us, our values, who we strive to be in the world.” In other words, it’s a good time to think about what matters to you most and then process current events through that lens.

In a classic study on trauma, subjects wrote about their traumatic experiences for 15 minutes a day. Those who were able to find meaning from their experiences reported less stress, more positive moods and fewer illnesses than subjects who simply wrote about their everyday experiences.

…

Don’t sweep your negative feelings under the rug.

Negative feelings serve a purpose, and you shouldn’t ignore them. Our negative emotions tell us something’s wrong, making us more likely to give the problem the attention required to solve it.

“Negative emotions, such as anxiety, fear and doubt, can act like an attention funnel that narrows our minds to important details,” Ms. Marston said. “This can be valuable when evaluating situations during the pandemic and sorting out fact from fiction with the overwhelming amount of information we’re receiving.”

Overly negative thoughts can be unhelpful, but so can overly optimistic thoughts.

“It isn’t about glossing over the negative emotions associated with stress, traumas and changes in our lives, but instead letting them sit side by side with other feelings,” Ms. Marston said.

A 2004 study on optimism and resilience by the psychologists Michele M. Tugade and Barbara L. Fredrickson suggested that resilience requires emotional complexity and that resilient people are able to experience both positive and negative emotions simultaneously.

…

Read the whole story (subscription may be required): The New York Times