Pessimistic thinking: How to become an optimist again.

Some people have a pessimistic outlook, while others are optimistic. Pessimistic thinking means you have many thoughts about how life isn’t going well for you or won’t turn out well. You’re more likely to assume a decision will lead to bad outcomes rather than good ones.

Of course, this can prevent you from making mistakes, but unfortunately, it can also prevent you from living.

Therefore, in this blog you are going to find out what effect pessimism can have on people, and to what extent it is wise to do something about it and what you can do about it.

Pessimism and mental problems

In any case, pessimism isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In a study where students were asked whether, compared to other students, they would handle a negative event in their lives well or poorly, it turned out that they all rated themselves more negatively. So they were pessimistic, but according to the researchers, this was also because they were actually optimistic about the likelihood of something happening to them. As a result, they had not been motivated up to that point to learn how to cope with negative events in life[1].

So it also depends a bit on the problem you are pessimistic about to say whether you are a pure pessimist or not.

Research does show that people who are pessimistically inclined recover less quickly after stress than optimistic people. The stress response itself was no different from optimistic people, but pessimistic people did find certain tasks more difficult than optimistic people. The more stressful the situation, the worse pessimistic people could cope with it than optimistic people[2].

So pessimism can prevent you from getting out of a stressful situation faster. Not helpful at all!

Even when dealing with issues such as depression, pessimism can prevent you from believing in your own ability to get better, causing you to remain depressed in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy[3]. Pessimistic thoughts can therefore cause you to suffer from mental health issues longer than necessary.

Pessimistic thinking and physical problems

One physical condition you may suffer from is cancer. This is a disease that often requires at least weeks—and sometimes years—of treatment to recover from. Research shows that pessimistic thinking, particularly among young people with this disease, affects mortality rates. In a study that focused exclusively on palliative cancer patients—meaning those who are no longer expected to recover—it was found that people between the ages of 30 and 60 with this disease died sooner if they were pessimistic than if they were not.

What is interesting is that depression did not have this effect, so it was really about pessimism[4].

Pessimism can also affect your immune system. This was revealed in a Caribbean study of women infected with HIV and HPV who had not yet developed secondary complications (such as cervical cancer). For example, the number of T cells was lower, which meant the body was less able to clear the HPV virus[5].

Thinking less pessimistically

Pessimism, therefore, has all sorts of negative consequences for your body and mind. At the very least, it undermines your resilience . That’s reason enough to start focusing on the glass being half full, but how do you transform pessimistic thinking into optimistic thinking?

One way to do this is with hypnosis. Hypnosis is also widely recommended for improving resilience[6], and thus reducing pessimism.

Mind Reversal

For example, you can reframe pessimistic thoughts with the help of a hypnotherapist or hypnocoach. At the Hypnosis Institute of the Netherlands, we assume, for instance, that everything you do is something you do with a positive intention. It serves a purpose.

So ask ourselves then, what is the benefit to the pessimistic person of pessimism now? After all, if we know that, we can help figure out how that person can get that benefit even without pessimism.

Perhaps, for example, pessimism actually causes other people to start thinking of solutions for them, or to leave them alone. In that case, asking for help and setting boundaries can also be a good way to achieve those goals.

This already feels a lot positive than to use some kind of pessimistic shield to scare people away, or "force" other people to start doing positive things for you.

Pinpointing the cause of pessimism

Have you ever seen a pessimistic toddler or preschooler? Probably not, those laughing, those playing, those running. Those are still full of the joy of life. So no one is born pessimistic, but something (or several things) may have happened in life that created pessimistic thinking.

So there is often a cause for pessimism.

Through regression, you can identify that cause and “repair” it[7]. After all, a situation that triggers a pessimistic thought also evokes a certain feeling. Using the regression technique, the hypnotherapist will ask you to go back to the very first moment in your life when you experienced that feeling.

This is often a moment in your childhood, because that is the period in your life where you consider how life works. You then determine "okay, so the world is like this and these are the rules." However, you are still a child then, so what did you know then?

Everyone so subconsciously has those rules and we almost never reevaluate those rules with our mature knowledge of the world.

This is exactly something you can do with regression. This can be done, for example, by empathizing with other people who were there at the time.

The Inner Child

It’s also possible that you experienced a great deal of disappointment as a child and, as a result, have come to expect disappointment from life. The good news is that you’re an adult now, and the situation is completely different from when you were a child.

By having a conversation with your inner child , you can also help your own inner child come to the surface. This is something the hypnotherapist will help you with.

Many people feel this as a tremendous relief and find that they are more positive in life afterwards. That they also appreciate more what they already have. Pessimism then often lingers illogically for a long time, while life is actually quite good.

Gratitude Exercise

Following this, or even during the conversation with your inner child, you can also do a gratitude exercise . For example, you can make a list of things in life you’re grateful for. These can be small or big things, such as:

1. Grateful for my fresh green tea.
2. Grateful for nice weather.
3. Grateful to wake up.
4. Grateful to my partner.
5. Grateful to my friends.
6. Grateful to have work.
7. Grateful for my home.
8. Grateful Walking.
9. Grateful for that fun movie.

Especially if you practice gratitude regularly, it can have a significant positive impact on your overall mindset . Research shows that this helps improve your overall sense of well-being and boosts your mood[8].

Self-hypnosis

A hypnotherapist often assigns “homework” in the form of self-hypnosis. This usually takes the form of an audio recording with specific suggestions for the client. The interesting thing is that research shows self-hypnosis also affects your immune system. A study in which participants took part in a 12-week program to reduce stress and build resilience found that it had a positive effect on the immune system and certain markers[9].

Helping people with hypnosis

So pessimism is a problem that causes people to linger longer in mental problems and makes serious illnesses have a greater impact. Death can even be quicker in the palliative phase.

Plenty of reason, then, to do something about pessimistic thinking.

You can help yourself, but you can also help other people with this. Whether you are or want to be a hypnotehrapeut, hypnocoach or counselor. Knowledge of hypnosis can help you change lives.

Would you like to know what hypnosis can do? Then join the free online masterclass.

Or sign up for one of our events or training courses. You can take the courses in a classroom setting and/or live online. This is ideal if you can’t make it to class for a while, or if you don’t even live in the Netherlands 😉.

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