Positive thinking is considered one of the best ways to succeed: a huge number of books and manuals indicate that changes for the better will not begin until people in them believe it. However, Fuschia Sirois, studying psychology of health at Sheffield University (England), is confident that a pessimistic mood can set the direction of thoughts that will help to achieve the goal faster. "And what about the people who are accustomed to seeing the glass half empty," she asks in an article published on the portal The Conversation. Is it always so bad to be a pessimist? "Researchers focused on" defensive "pessimism - a strategy that helps a person overcome anxiety. They suggested that low expectations and the fear of hitting the dirt face make pessimists think more carefully of each step. For example, if a pessimist goes to an interview, he anticipates a failure in advance and mentally considers the worst scenarios, thereby avoiding them. In his head, an action plan is built that can ensure that imaginary failures do not happen.

All this was proved thanks to an experiment in which several volunteer pessimists were asked to collect words from puzzles. As a result, staying in the usual, bad, mood, they were much more focused on the task and performed it more successfully, and when they got a good mood, they were distracted and made mistakes. Hence, the participants of the experiment used their negative attitude in order to motivate themselves to a better job.

According to scientists, pessimism can be useful in the event that you wait for news about the outcome of a case, but at the same time you can not influence anything. When the result is not as good as the optimists expected, they are very disappointed, while the pessimists were morally ready for this and do not particularly worry.

Psychologists conducted another study involving people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and arthritis, and asked them to assess their future health on a simple scale from bad to excellent.

Those who thought positively believed that their health would improve in the near future, while pessimists adhered to the opposite point of view and thought out possible ways to combat the disease. That is, negative thinking can have certain advantages for health: pessimists tend to be more concerned about their condition, and, for example, if an epidemic begins, it is more likely to take preventive measures.

"So being a pessimist is not necessarily bad, even though you can irritate others," concludes Cirova. "Ultimately, what you are doing with this pessimism is important".