At the time, the influence of optimism on individuals’ experiences of chronic pain, or any type of pain for that matter, had never been systematically examined. In 2000, Garofalo conducted a review of the then scant body of literature specifically addressing whether optimism confers any benefit for the experience and management of chronic pain. At this time it seems that the field of pain medicine and research could benefit from a thorough review of the literature addressing positive psychological variables, particularly optimism, in relation to the pain experience.
Along this vein, it is conceivable that optimism could indirectly influence the experience of pain through hopefulness and pain acceptance. Given that optimism is related to positive expectancies for the future and the ability to adapt, one might expect that persons with a high level of optimism are more likely to report greater hopefulness and pain acceptance.
Studies have shown that, over time, individuals with higher levels of pain acceptance actually tend to report significantly lower levels of pain and pain-related disability.
CULTIVATE OPTIMISM MEANING HOW TO
Pain acceptance is not giving up and succumbing to the pain, but rather accepting pain as a part of life and learning how to live more effectively in spite of it. Acceptance of pain involves accepting what cannot be changed, reducing unsuccessful attempts at eliminating pain and engaging in valued activities despite pain. In line with this conceptualization, high levels of hope have been found to be related to lower levels of pain, psychological distress, and functional disability in patients with chronic illnesses such as traumatic brain injury, HIV, and cancer. Hopefulness has been conceptualized as a cognitive set involving both agency (i.e., the belief in one’s ability to initiate and sustain actions) and pathways (i.e., the belief in ones’ ability to generate routes to achieve desired goals). Other positive psychological constructs related to optimism have been shown to be important factors in biopsychosocial models predicting how individuals adjust to acute and chronic pain experiences, particularly hopefulness and acceptance. Whether or not optimism might similarly exert beneficial effects on the experience of pain is a topic that would benefit from greater clarification. Support for this hypothesis has come from previous research which has shown that a high level of optimism is linked to both enhanced physiological recovery and psychosocial adjustment to coronary artery bypass surgery, bone marrow transplant, postpartum depression, traumatic brain injury, Alzheimer’s disease, lung cancer, breast cancer, and failed in vitro fertilization. As such, individuals with greater levels of optimism are hypothesized to demonstrate enhanced resilience to stressful situations and to experience greater physical and psychological well-being than their counterparts with low optimism. Individuals high in optimism are likely to persist in their goal-directed efforts, whereas those with low optimism are more likely to withdraw effort, become passive, and potentially give up on achieving their goals. Conversely, individuals who are low in optimism expect negative outcomes in their future and do not expect to cope successfully. As a consequence, they expect to cope effectively with everyday stress and challenge.
Individuals high in optimism are people who expect positive outcomes to occur in their future. Optimism is an individual difference factor that relates to generalized outcome expectancies and was defined by Scheier and Carver on the basis of their broader theory of self-regulation. Scientific interest in optimism continues, and indeed, the vast majority of empirical evidence thus far has shown that optimism reliably exerts widespread mental and physical health promoting effects. Optimism is a dimension of personality that received substantially increased research attention throughout the 1980’s and 90’s given its presumed ability to positively impact individuals’ health and subjective well-being during times of adversity.
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