VOL-8 Test 6 Passage 3 — IELTS Reading Practice

A. If you have a positive outlook, the likelihood is that you will lead a longer life. John Nash examines the link between optimism and good health

A. If you have a positive outlook, the likelihood is that you will lead a longer life. John Nash examines the link between optimism and good health

B. Medical studies are concluding that optimists really do have something to be cheerful about. Coincidental links between Optimism and improved general health have been found by researchers. Recently, a Yale University psychologists’ study of 660 volunteers aged 50 and above was published. It found that thinking positively about ageing adds an average of seven years to a person's life. The team, led by Dr Becca Levy, suggests that having an optimistic attitude can bolster the will to live, though they admit that they cannot explain it fully.

C. Another American research team, however, says they have identified a physical mechanism behind the phenomenon. Their eight-year study of 670 men aged about 63 found that the optimists had significantly better lung function than men who were more pessimistic. This is the first study to show such a link. The research team at Brigham & Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School believes that attitude somehow strengthens the immune system, and that adopting a more positive outlook may reverse physical decline. ‘Preliminary studies on heart patients suggest that by changing a person's outlook, you can improve their mortality risk,’ Says Dr Rosalind Wright.

D. The role of optimism in good health has long been noted but often sidelined. Sigmund Freud, the influential psychologist. optimism with ignorance. and from 1970 to 2000 there were 46,000 psychology papers on depression and only 40 on joy.

E. Part of that negativity may be blamed on optimists themselves. They are not necessarily fun to have around, Says Brice Pitt, the Emeritus Professor of the Psychiatry of Old Age at Imperial College, London. ‘Optimists tend to be insufferable people. Always jolly, always up, and, frankly, they have a hopelessly rosy outlook’ he says. ‘Depressive people see things as they really are, and that is a disadvantage from an evolutionary point of view. Optimism is a piece of evolutionary equipment that has carried us a long way through millennia of setbacks.’

F. Studies show that optimists do better than pessimists in work, school and sports: suffer less depression, achieve more goals, respond better to stress and fight disease better. Among people aged from their mid-nineties into their hundreds, researchers generally fail to find consistencies in diet or exercise (and some still smoke). What the super-aged do tend to share, however, is a Positive, optimistic outlook.