Put On A Happy Face!

According to Reuters, optimism is good for the heart:

The most optimistic among a group of 545 Dutch men age 64 to 84 had a roughly 50 percent lower risk of cardiovascular death over 15 years of follow-up, according to the study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

Previous research has suggested being optimistic boosts overall physical health and lowers the risk of death from all causes. A positive attitude also has been shown to help patients who suffer from heart disease caused by narrowed arteries.

Sadly, positive attitudes are not much in evidence among the White House press corps, especially in the wake of Cheneymania:

Renana Brooks, a clinical psychologist practicing in Washington who said she had counseled several White House correspondents, said the last few years had given rise to "White House reporter syndrome," in which competitive high achievers feel restricted and controlled and become emotionally isolated from others who are not steeped in the same experience.

She said the syndrome was evident in the Cheney case, which she described as an inconsequential event that produced an outsize feeding frenzy. She said some reporters used the occasion to compensate for not having pressed harder before the Iraq war.

"It's like any post-traumatic stress," she said, "like when someone dies and you think you could have saved them."

White House reporter syndrome (WHRS) is pronounced "whores", BTW ;-)

Well, as my co-conspirator Anna noted in an earlier post, liberalism is a mental illness.

And as for me, I'm hoping that my optimism during Mardi Gras will carry me through Lent, at least.

UPDATE: Pew Research Center: Are We Happy?

Some 45% of all Republicans report being very happy, compared with just 30% of Democrats and 29% of independents. This finding has also been around a long time; Republicans have been happier than Democrats every year since the General Social Survey began taking its measurements in 1972. Pew surveys since 1991 also show a partisan gap on happiness; the current 16 percentage point gap is among the largest in Pew surveys, rivaled only by a 17 point gap in February 2003

Conservatives happier that liberals? It must be due to schadenfreude! ;-)

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Thanks for the link!

Basil's Blog