Guess what makes your heart happy?

You! When you are happy, your body, including your heart, stays healthier. Some researchers tried to find the truth in this statement. They looked closely at the heart health of 5,100 adults to find if this was really true for most people. What did they find?

An optimistic person is twice as more likely to have a healthy heart than a pessimistic person. Now, who is an optimist? An optimist is someone who looks at the sunny side of things. On a cloudy day, an optimist will sing because the weather is pleasant. A pessimist, on the other hand, will grumble that the day is dull and grey. Serve an optimist the last half glass of juice in the house, and the optimist will beam happily to have got half a glass. A pessimist, on the other hand, will look at the empty half and wonder why he was unlucky not to get a full glass. An optimist seizes every opportunity to make things happen. The pessimist blames everything on what did not happen.

To measure heart health, the study published in Health Behavior and Policy Review looked at seven indicators of health:

blood pressure
body mass index or the weight to height ratio
blood sugar
cholesterol or fat in the blood,
diet
the amount of exercise
whether those in the study took tobacco.

Rosalba Hernandez is a professor of social work at the University of Illinois. The person was given a score of 0, 1 or 2 on each of the seven criteria. 0 stood for poor and 2, for ideal. So, a participant could score anywhere from 0 to a maximum healthy of 14. Those in the survey were from ages 45 to 84. To find out whether they are happy, optimistic people or pessimists, their mental health and optimism levels were also studied. The optimistic ones scored much higher. Optimists also have lower blood sugar and blood fat or cholesterol. They are more active and slimmer. Optimistic people are less likely to smoke. This also means, the optimistic person is less likely to suffer a stroke or a brain attack that can leave patients paralysed or even kill the patient. So, as the song says, don’t worry, be happy. And let your healthy heart sing along.

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