Why optimists live longer than the rest of us [washingtonpost.com]

The topic this article brings up makes me appreciate the Polyvagal Theory approach to understanding emotions, behavior, and body sensations. I think that just as we all should be trauma-informed, we all should be Polyvagal-informed, too, as it so wonderfully explains the different physiologic states our body has (and it makes way more sense than the traditional model of the autonomic nervous system). Anyway, regarding this article, in general, to be able to be optimistic, you need to feel relatively safe and be in a physiologic state of safety. It's not so easy to feel positive about things if one is in a fight-or-flight or shutdown state (the physiologic states of defense/survival) . That is, if one's survival brain thinks there is a bear chasing you, it's hard to feel optimistic. PACEs science has taught us that early life toxic stress can impact limbic system (brain) development, leaving a person with a survival brain that is quick to respond to stimuli by triggering survival physiologic states (fight-or-flight, shutdown), and that being in these states chronically is a major mechanism that leads to the ACEs Associate Health Conditions that can shorten one's life expectancy. Using a Polyvagal lens, resiliency is defined as the skill of being able to effectively self-regulate from a survival physiologic state back into a physiology of safety. So, it seems logical that an optimist is more likely to effectively self-regulate, and therefore spend less time in the high-allosteric load survival states. Then there's the whole topic of how optimism and pessimism might be coping mechanisms developed from early life experiences, good and bad, but I have to stop rambling.