Being relaxed and embracing positivity in all aspects of life has always been associated with good health. Thus, people have always been encouraged by medical providers and psychologists always to expect favorable and good outcomes hence happiness in every situation. Knowledge concerning this concept is essential since people can understand how thinking is connected to their health. However, some feel that positive thinking has nothing to do with health; thus, do not advocate for it. Nevertheless, positive thinking improves health since it limits one's chances of getting serious illnesses.
Summaries of the research articles
All articles “Changes in Optimism Are Associated with Changes in Health over Time among Older Adults” and “ Optimism and quality of life in patients with heart failure " were located when browsing about optimism. I used the search term "benefits of optimism," and the two appeared on the search results. Markedly, the two research articles are credible. For instance, the first article was funded by the National Institute on Aging and executed by the University of Michigan. On the other hand, the second article was sponsored by the Cambridge core organization. Besides, both pieces incorporated ideas from various scholarly works to support their concepts. Therefore, the research articles are credible and trustworthy.
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In “Changes in Optimism Are Associated with Changes in Health over Time among Older Adults," 9,790 older adults took part in the study that took four years. Among them, 59.1% were women. All participants ranged between the age of 51 and 97 of age (Chopik et al., 2015). The aspect of ethnicity was not kept into consideration while selecting the sample group. Respondents were chosen randomly chosen from the Health and Retirement Study panel (Chopik et al., 2015). In this case, only 50% were selected. Then, enhanced face-to-face interviews were contacted to determine the appropriate ones (Chopik et al., 2015). Finally, 9,790 with full data on health and optimism were selected for the study (Chopik et al., 2015). Questionnaires were mainly used to collect data. Concerning optimism, respondents were asked to indicate their level of agreement with each of the six items that were presented. In this case, they were supposed to choose "strongly agree" if they strongly preferred an item over others and "strongly disagree" if they did not (Chopik et al., 2015). There were six options. Regarding health, respondents were supposed to rate their health on a range of 1to 5, poor to excellent (Chopik et al., 2015). In this case, they were supposed to choose one option. Findings were determined and analyzed.
Besides, 100 patients were involved as respondents in the "Optimism and quality of life in patients with heart failure" research article. Their mean age was 70 ± 9 years (Kraai et al., 2017). Among them, 24, who constitute 28% were women (Kraai et al., 2017). The remaining percentage as men. The aspect of ethnicity was not considered in this particular study. The respondents were chosen from 159 patients that attended the HF clinic in University Medical Centre Groningen (Kraai et al., 2017). All respondents were given questionnaires, where they were asked respondents were asked to choose their level of agreement to the ten items on the questionnaire (Kraai et al., 2017). Four of them were filler items, three were negatively worded, and the last other three were positively worded. The results were obtained and give a score for Dispositional Optimism (Kraai et al., 2017). Concerning health, a questionnaire was also used to collect data. Respondents were asked to choose one out of five domains: anxiety, pain, usual activities, self-care, and mobility. Final findings were collected, recorded, and analyzed.
Results
Findings in both research articles proved that optimism was associated with good health. In the first article, an increase in the level of optimism in the fours correlated with an increase in reports of good health and a decrease in those regarding chronic illnesses. On the other hand, the second article indicated a closes association between dispositional optimism and health. In both research articles, the hypothesis, "optimism lead to good health," was proved to be right (De Moor et al., 2006). Embracing positivity in every situation is healthy (Matzka et al., 2018). However, the fact that optimism significantly influenced health for seniors in society was surprising. Studies in both articles took a considerable length of time. Hence, there was enough time to concentrate on collecting data from respondents. The longer period also allowed for idea analysis on all the variables that were vital to the final findings. This makes their claims stronger. However, the studies involved seniors majorly. Younger people were not well represented. For instance, respondents between the age of 51 and 97 of age were involved in the first researcher, while the mean age for those in the second research study was 70 ± 9 years. Thus, the sample groups did represent the whole population well.
Claim and Conclusion
Optimism leads to good health. Basing on the findings in the two research articles, the claim is accurate. The two pieces were published in 2015 and 2017, respectively. I would expect similar outcomes in the future since both research articles are based on an appropriate sample population with ideas interests on the aspects of optimism and health. Generally, the two pieces helped me understand the seniors in society. Notably, they presented information concerning the correlation between optimism and health in people who the elderly in society.
References
Chopik, W. J., Kim, E. S., & Smith, J. (2015). Changes in Optimism Are Associated with Changes in Health Over Time Among Older Adults. Social psychological and personality science , 6 (7), 814–822.
De Moor, J. S., De Moor, C. A., Basen-Engquist, K., Kudelka, A., Bevers, M. W., & Cohen, L. (2006). Optimism, distress, health-related quality of life, and change in cancer antigen 125 among patients with ovarian cancer undergoing chemotherapy. Psychosomatic Medicine, 68 (4), 555-562.
Kraai, I. H., Vermeulen, K. M., Hillege, H. L., Jaarsma, T., & Hoekstra, T. (2017). Optimism and quality of life in patients with heart failure . Palliative and Supportive Care, 1–7.
Matzka, M., Köck-Hódi, S., Jahn, P., & Mayer, H. (2018). The relationship among symptom clusters, quality of life, and treatment-specific optimism in patients with cancer . Supportive Care in Cancer, 26(8), 2685–2693.
