Entire disciplines of medicine and urology have dedicated resources and research towards the discovery of connections between the emotional states of human beings to their health. In fact, looking at the available academic references, there is a rich literature available not only on proposals of various ways and means that emotions may be able to affect our physical and psychological health, but there is even a collection of both statistical and practical evidence of the existence of such connections.
The purpose of this paper would be to review a part of the said academic literature in order to see the connection between optimism and physical, as well as psychological, well-being. Although it has become an intrinsic part in our culture and modern-day perception of optimism that it indeed contribution rates lead to such healthy results, by looking at actual evidence-based research and theories, we may be able to make real-life connections in the field.
In an article published in 2003, researchers have tried to identify, by using evidence-based and statistics-based techniques, the connection between social economic status and perception of such status towards physical well-being and actual diagnostic and clinical health. In the article, the researchers did not only look at the possible negative effects of socioeconomic status to actual health measurements, but also, more importantly for our paper, integrated a discussion on the importance of positive perceptions on such health issues (Gallo & Matthews, 2003).
In this study, the specific health issue that was explored was cardiovascular health and other heart related problems and diseases, and using such evidence like statistics and medical reports in order to make a significant correlation analysis of the connection between the two. However, as with many other research and literature in this discussion in the past has identified, optimism and positive outlook — and it’s measurements connecting it to physical health — should be taken with a grain of salt because such effects may only be classified under the many other variables that may significantly affect health.
Because of the reason that cardiovascular problems and cardiovascular well-being may have within it factors ranging from way of life, perception, and even medical history and genetics, the main purpose and method of correlating it with optimism is through taking all things constant — which is a hard task especially in a multivariable measurement scenario.
In order to address this, the researchers made use of a large sample size of consideration so that they may be able to indicate such dummy variables and be able to make a significant correlation or analysis of optimism to physical health. Also integrated into the study is a discussion of the authors of the roles of cognitive and emotional factors in various literature in the past that connects positive outlook and optimism to physical health.