Mental Health Class: "Cultivating Optimism to Increase Life Satisfaction"

Dean Barley, director of the BYU Comprehensive Clinic was our guest speaker. He received a bachelor of science degree in psychology from BYU, a master’s degree in social work from the University of Utah, and a doctorate in counseling psychology from BYU.

Cultivating optimism is another key element in improving our physical health. Optimists tend to respond better when bad things happen by: 1) not taking it personally; 2)   believing that misfortune is a temporary passing event; and 3) noticing that the misfortune doesn’t affect all aspects of their lives (I’ve still got my health!”) People who are optimistic generally do better in school, sports, getting promotions, having good relationships, and they live longer and are healthier.

-Comprehensive Clinic

Here we share some information we also found online that we think it goes along the lines with what Dr. Barley shared with us. Hope it is helpful to you

Optimists

Optimists explain positive events as having happened because of them (internal). They also see them as evidence that more positive things will happen in the future (stable), and in other areas of their lives (global). Conversely, they see negative events as not being their fault (external). They also see them as being flukes (isolated) that have nothing to do with other areas of their lives or future events (local).

For example, if an optimist gets a promotion, she will likely believe it’s because she’s good at her job and will receive more benefits and promotion in the future. If she’s passed over for the promotion, it’s likely because she was having an off-month because of extenuating circumstances, but will do better in the future.

Pessimists

Pessimists think in the opposite way. They believe that negative events are caused by them (internal). They believe that one mistake means more will come (stable), and mistakes in other areas of life are inevitable (global), because they are the cause. They see positive events as flukes (local) that are caused by things outside their control (external) and probably won’t happen again (unstable).

A pessimist would see a promotion as a lucky event that probably won’t happen again, and may even worry that she’ll now be under more scrutiny. Being passed over for promotion would probably be explained as not being skilled enough. She'd therefore expect to be passed over again.

The Differences Between Optimists and Pessimists

What's the Explanatory Style of an Optimist?

                                          By Elizabeth Scott, M.S. Updated May 23, 2014

Our Next two classes will be

August 13th

at 5:30 

Weight Lose Class "Choose to Lose"

at 6:00 

Zumba