Hope Springs Eternal! 27+ Ways To Jump-Start It And Your Health

hope health benefits man under stars at night

Photo: Greg Rakozy, Unsplash

The First Gift In Greek Myth Is A Key To The Highest Truth:

There are a few standard things that you can pay attention to when it comes to your H&W picture.

Exercise, nutrition, supplements, how much you walk, etc.

But there are a few things most people really do overlook.

Two of those tend to be hydration and mindset.

They’re just so easy to think as being either automatic, or something that’s just kind of, “there” and fixed.

So it shouldn’t be a surprise that some recent work has joined the body-of-evidence suggesting you really should check-in on your average thought-picture maybe once a week or more…

The Short Answer:

The mindset part of health is easy to forget.
It also takes practice to integrate.
A Mizzou team reviewed 6 studies with 2300+ subjects on mindset benefits.
Hope was the one quality most connected with Meaning.
Meaning in life improves: 1) Relationships, 2)Physical health, 3)Income.
Purpose is also related to improvements in Stress and Inflammation.
Other work also found that Hope is correlated with a 13% longer life.
It also increases the chance of living over 85 to 60%.
Researchers had a specific definition of Hope that’s tied to goal-directed action, creative solutions, and an improving future.
You can jump-start it with Gratitude, Celebrating Small Wins, Procedural-Decomposition, and many other things.
It’s also important, because our minds have a Negativity-Bias.
But Possibility is always out there, so Hope will always be too.

Read on to find out the details…

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Practice Is As Important As, “The New” For Improving Your Mindset!:

We have several posts here on mindset-level stuff.

And you can learn a little just by reading, but you also have to give yourself permission to practice!

“Putting in your reps” makes you more than just an “intellectual tourist”.

-Because as we’ll see, it’s what you REMEMBER to do when the time comes that really makes the difference!

Somehow, It’s Hope That Leads To Everything That’s Worthwhile:

So in a set of 6 studies, with over 2300 subjects, a Mizzou-led team looked for what mindset-tendencies help people most in significant life outcomes.

And their answer was: Hope.

They gave themselves a range of emotions to look at, like amusement, excitement, happiness, etc.

And let’s face it up-front, a lot of this can sound a bit “chicken & egg”,

But the “jump start” emotion behind so many parts of mindset that lead to better outcomes for them, turned out to be Hope.

They also tied it to something much higher-up, perhaps as high as it goes: Meaning.

Hope And Meaning’s Stealth Influence On Health & Life Benefits:

Now why is any of this important?

Well, it turns out that people who had this one indicator-quality ended up with a significantly-greater sense of Meaning in their lives.

And not only is Hope associated with a lifespan increase of at-least 13 years and 60%+ odds of living to 85+,

It’s much bigger brother is associated with an even wider spectrum of benefits, starting with findings of better:

1) Relationships
2) Physical health
3) Income

And even work on Meaning’s lesser-cousin, Purpose, found still more! Such as:

1) Lower long-term levels of stress hormones
2) Less Total Stress and Toxic-Stress
3) Less Chronic Inflammation
4) Lower levels of circulating Inflammation chemicals
5) Strangely, Meditation and putting yourself in new & better situations (like what Hope & Purpose can lead-to) activates thousands of different genes!

But The Psych-Nerds Have A Really Specific Definition:

So now, given their initial sketch of Hope as ~ an encouragement about a possible better-future, self, and achieved-goals based on the actions you take and their positive influence.

They were at-pains to note that their definition of it is Not just some passive emotion.

To specify a little more, it is a choice and a practice of goal-directed action and finding several pathways to meet that better future; especially when times are tougher and success seems less guaranteed. (PT)

And with the other things that can help generate it, it’s almost like the engine of a car and the GPS, with other things helping to be the fuel.

So, use whatever term you need for yourself that fills that description, but the psych nerds do define Hope & Optimism differently.

Now that we have our terms defined, let’s look into what you can do to improve and jump-start your own Hope as you make that better future happen, baby!

Here are 27+ Ways To Jump-Start Your Hope, Meaning, & Future!:

Because even Sciency-person study author Laura King agrees that,

“Experiencing life as meaningful is crucial for just about every good thing you can imagine in a person’s life.”

So here are a few things for you to try that can all be the fuel for that “upward aiming” engine of Hope:

1) Realize that Hope is always there and is often a choice
2) Identify your unhelpful limiting beliefs, emotions, or stories when they happen
3) Talk back to what’s unreasonable about them
4) Identify which Cognitive Distortions are in them (like black-and-white thinking, personalization, etc)
5) Celebrate your wins, even the small ones
5a) Incremental progress is SUPER important!
6) Don’t get so caught-up in goals that you miss the positive moments in the Here & Now
7) Practice the “3 Small Wins” technique every night, where you write out 3 things, no matter how small, that were good about your day
8) Practice the “Positive Theme” technique where you take one of the wins and generalize it to an ability, usually in the format of, “SEE! I really can consistently do X if I focus and put careful effort in!”-or something like that.
9) Take advantage of good (even small) opportunities to create a sense of forward motion
10) Taking care of something, or even another person
11) Consume inspirational media & stories
12) Break problems into small, doable steps
13) Do simple constructive habits like (yes, Jordan Peterson) making your bed
14) Connect with other positive people
15) Find new ways to cope using therapy
16) Both 14 & 15 recontextualize things & remind you you’re not alone
17) Set small meaningful goals instead of all big ones
18) Practice self-care. It makes you feel worthwhile
19) Practice Gratitude; it powers abundance mindset
20) Get out for a 40-minute walk to clear your head
21) Do your walk in a park or out in nature to magnify #20
22) Curate your personal environment to be positive & conducive
23) Keep yourself accountable without beating yourself up
24) Remember Naval Ravikant’s maxim that, “All great truths are usually contradictions.”
25) Look at different possibilities for forward action
26) Consider swearing-off The News. It’s clickbait-negativity you can do nothing about
27) Notice and appreciate someone else’s progress. Sometimes we give others more credit than ourselves.
27a) BONUS POINTS: Now reflect that kind, appreciative attitude back at yourself and your own progress, no matter how small.

Watch-Out For Humanity’s Negative Information Bias!:

Now we don’t have to turn into a delusional hippie and engage in Pollyanna-ism.

But one thing to keep in mind is our Self-Protection Instinct’s obsessive Negative Information Bias.

It will always catch more of our attention and stick in our memories more.

(hence the tip about getting rid of The News)

So there’s a really fair-argument that the attitude of Hope is REALLY important in the face of that.

As before, one of the specifics that psychologists identified is: Hope is more likely to be used when positive outcomes are not certain,

And something a bit more sentimental and passive like Optimism is used when those outcomes are more certain.

Keep Your Mind Open To The Thousands Of Solutions Out There:

Unfortunately the more negative you are, the more all the 1,000 different solutions and pathways out there will be invisible to you!

And one of the most Hopeful and true things that can be said is this:

No matter what problems you think you have, somebody else has had them before you; -and solved them!

So remember:
1) Hope will always be there, because possibility always is.
2) You’re probably stronger than you think!
3) Nothing is permanent. Not even tough times.
4) “This too shall pass”.

So stay hopeful out there and take action just like The United States Marines:

IMPROVISE!, ADAPT!, OVERCOME!