Sara is exactly right!

Reply to this post if you want to know my anti-cancer protocol.

I’m really grateful you brought this up. In no way do I endorse the idea that people bring poor health upon themselves with negative thoughts or that positive thinking should be able to cure people. What I got out of the data was about longevity among folks without unalterable life-threatening conditions. Optimism is not a panacea, but I think the reasoning behind that optimism (seeking treatment, managing stress…) is helpful to know. Again, I do not think that people with conditions like those you mention (spina bifida, leukemia and other cancers, etc) are responsible for their trials and are in any way at fault.

Thanks for bringing another dimension to the conversation—you speak for lots of folks out there, I’m sure.

How do you explain the innocent children born with spina bifida, the non-smokers who get emphysema, the tee-totallers who get liver cancer? And is it fair to them, in their hours of need, to suggest that if only they’d had more positive thinking patterns, these trials wouldn’t have landed on them?

A secondary point is the notion of being positive when you’re already sick. Recent studies (I can dig out the reference if anyone really wants it) have established that it makes no difference to your survival rate from breast cancer whether you’re positive or gloomy. It does make a difference to the quality of the time you have. But it’s natural to be gloomy and sad and worried and anxious and depressed, and yes, even pessimistic about your chances of recovery at various points along the way. Another study has revealed the terrific burden that having to be perpetually positive puts upon those with serious illnesses; the expectation means we feel guilty that we’re somehow failing ourselves and our loved ones if we have a bad day, a sad day, a mad day. Let us experience the grief and fear, sadness and desperation, as well as supporting us when we find the strength to say “yes, this can be beaten” or “yes, I can do this” or “today’s a great day”.

I agree that thinking positively can make one’s day a nicer day, one’s life a nicer life, but it can’t always save you from misfortune, ranging from the banal to the catastrophic.

Nicolas last blog post..Have you heard iStockaudio?