mental distress and may help provide important protection against these diseases, says Gunnar Engstrom, MD, a professor at Lund University in Sweden, who has extensively studied self-ratings of health.
One thing is certain: You don’t even have to be particularly healthy to see the bright side. Idler once interviewed a partially paralyzed stroke victim in a wheelchair who claimed to be in excellent health. “His only complaint was that he had recently strained his shoulder in a karate class,” she says. “He never even mentioned the wheelchair.”
Not everyone can match this man’s indestructible optimism. But we can all take some control over the attitudes that may help steer our fate. As Idler puts it, “People should occasionally turn their attention away from risks to their health and focus on the resources they have to stay healthy.”