Pessimism

Philosophical pessimism describes a tendency to believe that life has a negative value, or that this world is as bad as it could possibly be. In particular, it most famously describes the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's pessimism comes from his elevating of Will above reason as the mainspring of human thought and behavior.

In popular language the term pessimist is applied to persons who habitually take a melancholy view of life, to whom painful experiences appeal with great intensity, and who have little corresponding appreciation of pleasurable ones. Such a temper is partly due to natural disposition, and partly to individual circumstances

Do you expect the best, or do you assume the worst? If you are a pessimist, could your health be at risk? Psychologists love to blame pessimism for health problems, but could they be right? A recent study conducted by Dr. Walter Rocca, a researcher and professor of neurology at Mayo Clinic College of Medicine, tracked thousands of Minnesotans who completed a personality test in the 1960s.

A pessimistic outlook leads to more anxiety, which can disrupt levels of stress-related hormones or otherwise knock the body's endocrine or nervous systems out of whack. This much is known. Then, theoretically at least, this could trigger some cascade of events that damages the brain and ends in Parkinson's or dementia.