Optimism Helps You Sleep Better

By Victor Perton

People who are optimistic tend to sleep better.

University of Illinois studies show people who are the most optimistic tend to be better sleepers.

So too a Medical University of Vienna study shows the same link and made the point that better sleep helps enhance optimism.

The lead researcher in the Illinois study Professor Rosalba Hernandez said, "Optimists are more likely to engage in active problem-focused coping and to interpret stressful events in more positive ways, reducing worry and ruminative thoughts when they're falling asleep and throughout their sleep cycle…Dispositional optimism—the belief that positive things will occur in the future—has emerged as a psychological asset of particular salience for disease-free survival and superior health.”

The Vienna Medical School’s Jakob Weitzer wrote, "The most optimistic participants in our Survey in the Austrian population had a 70 % lower insomnia prevalence compared to the least optimistic. Results were similar for men and women. Training optimism, or related personal traits, might be a promising tool to prevent insomnia and other sleep problems. Further, optimism training could be combined with established treatment approaches which could potentiate treatment effects. "