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10/30/07

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_DictionaryGirl_

_DictionaryGirl_

NEWSWIRE

San Diego, CA

OCT 26, 2007 12:54 PM



Hey there! As you may know, my little region of Southern California has been suffering the effects of a sprawling inferno for the past week or so. I'll admit, after days of non-stop live coverage of devastated homes and new blazes cresting hills and threatening nuclear facilities like a ticking time bomb, it's tough not to totally retreat into your own reality, windows drawn from the ashen air rattling your lungs and clogging your brain, and just sit down on othe floor watch marathons of Yo Gabba Gabba (a delightfully psychotropic Banana Splits-like show my little sister introduced me to the other day during my family's evacuation visit). But in situations like this, optimism is one hell of an asset -- knowing, just knowing your house won't burn down in a fire and that everything will rebuild and be all right makes days a whole lot easier to take.

It's easy to tell someone to just be optimistic, but everyone knows it's not quite as simple as that. Scientists, however, are cracking into the state of mind we call optimism and discovering that it's more of a state in your mind than anything, and (cue shock here) it seems to be in cohabitation with its evil twin.

Imagine receiving a big chunk of cash in the future. Or winning a prize. Chances are, such optimistic thoughts are coming from two places in the brain that play an important role in enabling people to, as the old song says, accentuate the positive, New York University scientists said on Wednesday.

Pinpointing the brain regions involved in optimism and positive thinking about the future, the researchers said, may also have shed light on what might be going wrong in people with depression.



Personally, I wouldn't call "imagining receiving a big chunk of cash in the future, or winning a prize" optimism so much as believing in luck and faeries, but maybe I'm just more cynical than I thought. Anyway, researchers hooked fifteen young adults up to highly fancy and sophisticated brain-tracking machinery, and asked them to imagine several scenarios from the future, running the gamut from winning a grand award to being dumped and attending a funeral. While envisioning the more optimistic episodes, the the rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala of the subjects (way down in the established emotion centers of the brain) lit up like crazy. The researchers' monocles collectively popped upon realizing that these are the same brain areas that are known to control pessimism and depression, and then lots of thinking went on.

It had been unclear what was going wrong in these two regions that might contribute to depression. "But our data would suggest that one of the things they're doing is making it hard to think about things optimistically. Of course, one of the primary symptoms of depression is pessimism," [Elizabeth] Phelps [NYU professor/researcher of psychology and neural science] said.



So what we know now is that optimism is also controlled by emotions. In this vein, researchers noted problems controlling "optimism bias" in their subjects, where -- given neutral situations -- the subjects tended to build them up better than they were. We're just a chipper lot, we young adults.

The good thing about this research is that it has the potential to go a long way in more effectively treating depression. Perhaps one day we'll have a more perfect pill to cancel out the negative and accentuate the positive, attacking and enhancing the same site at once. It'll be a nice thing, I imagine (optimistically). Until then, I'll just be here on the floor, watching kids' shows with cameos by Biz Markie. It's the next best thing.


_DictionaryGirl_ wishes the kids' shows of her youth featured Biz Markie.



Evilgasm

Evilgasm

Netherlands
April 2007

OCT 27, 2007 12:25 PM

But they can also use it to develop other kinds of drugs....

eeek

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Sorry... my inner mad-scientist got the better of me there.

xxxxxxx

xxxxxxx

Canada
September 2005

OCT 27, 2007 12:27 PM

Note the disturbing implication of this and previous research upon which it builds: in order just to function normally, without sinking into pathological depression, human beings need an optimism bias, that is, a tendency to systematically "spin" the facts to look better than they are. It is fairly well established that the people with the most realistic estimations of their prospects in life, those free from the mild to moderate delusions of "it will/won't happen to me," tend to be the clinically depressed.

Bicycle_Samurai

Bicycle_Samurai

York, ON
September 2003

OCT 27, 2007 01:51 PM

Shit man.... that's exactly what I'm missing. An optimism bias.

Zap me until I'm positive. K. THX. BAI.

I, for one, welcome our optimistic young adult overlords?

attn_ho

attn_ho

Brooklyn, NY
February 2004

OCT 27, 2007 02:26 PM

I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.

JunkyardAngel

JunkyardAngel

San Gabriel, CA
February 2006

OCT 27, 2007 02:31 PM

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



puke

attn_ho

attn_ho

Brooklyn, NY
February 2004

OCT 27, 2007 02:44 PM

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



puke



you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.

wildswan

wildswan

I'm lost
June 2006

OCT 27, 2007 02:52 PM

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



puke



you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.



Oh, yeah.

.

JunkyardAngel

JunkyardAngel

San Gabriel, CA
February 2006

OCT 27, 2007 02:52 PM

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



puke



you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.



whatever



And I note you use the future tense there: How do you know that I already haven't amounted to nothing?

JunkyardAngel

JunkyardAngel

San Gabriel, CA
February 2006

OCT 27, 2007 02:54 PM

wildswan said:
Oh, yeah.

.



I loved it!

attn_ho

attn_ho

Brooklyn, NY
February 2004

OCT 27, 2007 02:56 PM

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



puke



you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.



whatever



And I note you use the future tense there: How do you know that I already haven't amounted to nothing?


youre posting on this website when you could be out there, attracting fame and fortune!


Gringo

Gringo

Spokane, WA
May 2006

OCT 27, 2007 02:56 PM

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.


So have you read it?

If so, why cite the opinions of others and not your own?

If not, then the opinions of others don't mean much apparently. tongue

attn_ho

attn_ho

Brooklyn, NY
February 2004

OCT 27, 2007 02:59 PM

TheGringo said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.


So have you read it?

If so, why cite the opinions of others and not your own?

If not, then the opinions of others don't mean much apparently. tongue



1. No, havent. 2. Base, self defeating Snark. 3. cause im a jerk, you dingus!

Gringo

Gringo

Spokane, WA
May 2006

OCT 27, 2007 03:00 PM

Oh....you called me a jerk? I'M A JERK?!?!?

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Well, you're......you're just a stupid, stinky, doo-doo faced smelly head!

JunkyardAngel

JunkyardAngel

San Gabriel, CA
February 2006

OCT 27, 2007 03:01 PM

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:

JunkyardAngel said:

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



puke



you disbelieve the power of the secret? clearly you will amount to nothing in this world.



whatever



And I note you use the future tense there: How do you know that I already haven't amounted to nothing?


youre posting on this website when you could be out there, attracting fame and fortune!




I'm, um...snapping?

I'm snapped?


Gringo

Gringo

Spokane, WA
May 2006

OCT 27, 2007 03:02 PM

Snap to the Crackle to the muthafuckin' POP.

Gringo

Gringo

Spokane, WA
May 2006

OCT 27, 2007 03:19 PM

_DictionaryGirl_ said:
But in situations like this, optimism is one hell of an asset -- knowing, just knowing your house won't burn down in a fire and that everything will rebuild and be all right makes days a whole lot easier to take.

If I still lived in so CA and my house was burning, seriously, I'd grab a coat hanger and some marshmallows and just give in.

At least we'd have something to laugh about later.

Dovanna

Dovanna

Minneapolis, MN
March 2007

OCT 27, 2007 03:21 PM

Reminds me of Brain Candy. biggrin

lokimonster

lokimonster

Mastic Beach, NY
April 2005

OCT 27, 2007 05:00 PM

indeed, i miss The Biz

SouGei

SouGei

Blackwood, NJ
January 2007

OCT 27, 2007 11:06 PM

attn_ho said:
I hear reading "The Secret" does wonders for optimism.



I haven't read the Secret, but I believe I did.

Young_Gershwin

Young_Gershwin

Australia
January 2007

OCT 28, 2007 03:02 PM

Oh well. Until the magic pills arrive I'll stick to self medication.

[YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/usbNJMUZSwo&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/usbNJMUZSwo&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

Young_Gershwin

Young_Gershwin

Australia
January 2007

OCT 28, 2007 10:13 PM

Hmmm... didn't work...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usbNJMUZSwo

Chaser's War on Everything about "The Secret". Americans would know them from the APEC stunt.

_kungfoo_

_kungfoo_

Los Angeles, CA
April 2005

OCT 28, 2007 10:47 PM

Just put the YouTube URL in between the [YOUTUBE] tags, not the HTML code.

attn_ho

attn_ho

Brooklyn, NY
February 2004

OCT 28, 2007 10:51 PM

KUNGFOO said:
Just put the YouTube URL in between the [YOUTUBE] tags, not the HTML code.



better yet, VISUALIZE the youtube showing up!