Positive Health

POSITIVE HEALTH

Positive health is a holistic approach to well-being that emphasizes an individual’s capacity to adapt and manage life’s challenges, rather than solely focusing on the absence of illness.

„Positive health describes a state beyond the mere absence of disease. Positive health can be operationalized by a combination of excellent status on biological, subjective, and functional measures. We can test the hypothesis that positive health predicts increased longevity (correcting for quality of life), decreased health costs, better mental health in aging, and better prognosis when illness strikes. The field of positive health has direct parallels to the field of positive psychology, parallels that suggest that a focus on health rather than illness will be cost saving and life-saving.„ (from „POSITIVE HEALTH“ by Martin E.P.Seligman, 2008.)

Positive psychology is a rigorous academic field that encompasses character strengths, positive relationships, positive experiences, and positive institutions. It is the scientific study of what makes life most worth living – and maintains that what is good in life is as genuine as what is bad.

Virtues are core aspects of human excellence that allow us to survive and thrive. Researchers found six core virtues to be ubiquitous across cultures.

The 6 Virtues according to Positive Psychology

  • Wisdom and Knowledge – Strengths of wisdom and knowledge are cognitive strengths related to the acquisition and use of information. Strengths comprised in this virtue are creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, and perspective.
  • Humanity – Strengths of humanity involve caring interpersonal relationships with others, particularly in one-to-one relationships. Strengths comprised in this virtue are love, kindness, and social intelligence.
  • Justice – Strengths of justice refer to the optimal relationship between the individual and the group or community, rather than the more one-to-one relationships in the humanity virtue. Strengths comprised in this virtue are teamwork, fairness, and leadership.
  • Courage – Strengths of courage involve applying will and fortitude in overcoming internal or external resistance to accomplish goals. Strengths comprised in this virtue are bravery, perseverance, integrity, and enthusiasm.
  • Temperance – Strengths of temperance protect us from excess. Strengths comprised in this virtue are forgiveness, humility, prudence, and self-control.
  • Transcendence – Strengths of transcendence allow people to rise above their troubles and find meaning in the larger universe. Strengths of transcendence are appreciation of beauty and excellence, purpose, gratitude, optimism, and humor. (Cited)

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This is why activities of the Mehana Institute are complementary and embrace also art and beauty, hardening and resilience, and teamwork and creativity.

positive psychology in experiment (Comparative study):

Emotional style and susceptibility to the common cold

Sheldon Cohen, William J Doyle, Ronald B Turner, Cuneyt M Alper, David P Skoner

Objective: It has been hypothesized that people who typically report experiencing negative emotions are at greater risk for disease and those who typically report positive emotions are at less risk. We tested these hypotheses for host resistance to the common cold.

Methods: Three hundred thirty-four healthy volunteers aged 18 to 54 years were assessed for their tendency to experience positive emotions such as happy, pleased, and relaxed; and for negative emotions such as anxious, hostile, and depressed. Subsequently, they were given nasal drops containing one of two rhinoviruses and monitored in quarantine for the development of a common cold (illness in the presence of verified infection).

Results: For both viruses, increased positive emotional style (PES) was associated (in a dose-response manner) with lower risk of developing a cold. This relationship was maintained after controlling for prechallenge virus-specific antibody, virus-type, age, sex, education, race, body mass, and season (adjusted relative risk comparing lowest-to-highest tertile = 2.9). Negative emotional style (NES) was not associated with colds and the association of positive style and colds was independent of negative style. Although PES was associated with lower levels of endocrine hormones and better health practices, these differences could not account for different risks for illness. In separate analyses, NES was associated with reporting more unfounded (independent of objective markers of disease) symptoms, and PES with reporting fewer.

Conclusions: The tendency to experience positive emotions was associated with greater resistance to objectively verifiable colds. PES was also associated with reporting fewer unfounded symptoms and NES with reporting more.