{"id":319817,"date":"2021-01-28T13:41:32","date_gmt":"2021-01-28T18:41:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/?p=319817"},"modified":"2023-11-08T20:10:28","modified_gmt":"2023-11-09T01:10:28","slug":"learn-to-keep-the-bad-times-in-perspective","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.harvard.edu\/gazette\/story\/2021\/01\/learn-to-keep-the-bad-times-in-perspective\/","title":{"rendered":"The movies may have been right"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t
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\n\t\tThe movies may have been right\t<\/h1>\n\n\t\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\n\t
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\n\t\tBrett Milano\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\tAmid life\u2019s turmoil, take a look on the bright side of life, professors suggest\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\n<\/header>\n\n\n\n
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Bad day, or week? Or maybe it\u2019s the endless eon that 2020 and the first month of 2021 have felt like?<\/p>\n

A Harvard expert has some advice, and it doesn\u2019t involve diving ever deeper into coverage of the pandemic or politics.<\/p>\n

\u201cTry to have some perspective,\u201d says Laura Kubzansky<\/a>, Lee Kum Kee professor of social and behavioral sciences at Harvard\u2019s T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH). \u201cIf you look at the history of world events, things are always changing. So it helps to avoid saying things like, \u2018This will never change, we\u2019ll be in this situation forever.\u2019 And it helps to recognize where the silver linings are \u2014 which I\u2019d say the news media is especially bad about doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you can\u2019t conjure up some optimism, she says, try focusing on the hopeful things in your life. \u201cSometimes it\u2019s just about realizing there\u2019s a certain amount of randomness in the world and you need to roll with it. Maybe now that the world is disrupted, you can find out things about your kids that you wouldn\u2019t have learned otherwise. Maybe you can notice that it\u2019s a beautiful foliage season, and spend time outside. And maybe you can think that we\u2019ve just been too driven, we all need to slow down.<\/p>\n

\u201cFinding perspective isn\u2019t just about optimism \u2014 it\u2019s also about the things that travel with it, in terms of feeling a sense of meaning and purpose. And that goes with the understanding that you\u2019re not going to feel good all the time \u2014 that\u2019s OK. It\u2019s a hard time and nobody\u2019s saying \u2018Look on the bright side every minute.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n

\u201cHigher levels of optimism been shown to be associated with lower risk of developing diabetes, coronary heart disease, and poor lung function.\u201d<\/p>\nLaura Kubzansky, Harvard Chan School<\/cite><\/blockquote>\r\n\n

Julia Boehm, a former research fellow at Harvard Chan School and current associate professor in the Cream College of Health and Behavioral Sciences at Chapman University, agrees that staying upbeat these days can be a challenge. \u201cIt\u2019s something I\u2019m working hard on in my own life. The thing to do is to hold onto what we can in these unusual circumstances. We might be losing something in terms of larger social relationships but there are ways of cultivating that, like having game nights over Zoom and really holding onto the people in your bubble. We can still practice kindness toward others in this time, which is something that\u2019s shown to produce feelings of happiness. And you can always say, \u2018The sun still rises every day, and the sunset still looks beautiful.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Optimism may not come easy, but evidence is growing that it makes a measurable difference. \u201cWhat we have done is to understand that optimism is in some way protective for health,\u201d Kubzansky said. \u201cHigher levels of optimism been shown to be associated with lower risk of developing diabetes, coronary heart disease, and poor lung function. And it can contribute to greater likelihood of achieving exceptional longevity \u2014 as well as healthier aging. This is important, because living longer but sicker is not something anyone aspires to. We have documentation of these associations, and we\u2019re looking more closely into the mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n\r\n

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