Do I have to stay positive all the time for the best chance of recovery from serious illness?

People who are seriously or terminally ill are frequently exhorted to “stay positive”. Positive thinking has become a new creed for some. However when you feel you are facing a long period of illness stretching out in front of you that is possibly or probably culminating in death it can all seem too hard. Is it necessary to be positive all the time for the best outcome?

A study of personal resilience published in the Qualitative Health Research in March 2008 suggests that total positivity was not necessary to survival. The study was one which explored what people did who were considered terminally ill but who did much better than medically expected. These were people who should have died but didn’t, well not within the timeframe the doctors expected. Some lasted many decades longer than expected given their diagnosis and treatment.

Facing a terminal or serious illness for which there doesn’t seem to be any way out is very difficult. There are some in the community who will insist that these people must stay positive and deny what the doctors are telling them if they are to have a chance at staying alive. Some patients are told they will only die if they believe it and that they should therefore believe they will get better.

If only life was as simple as that. It isn’t and many positive thinkers who deny their situation die.

Fortunately it isn’t true that you have to believe you are not going to die in order to continue to live. People who had “miraculous” recoveries and unexpectedly long lives with no apparent symptoms did have some periods when they were negative. They didn’t have to be positive all the time. Some of them cried a lot, howling with the emotional pain of being told they would likely die soon. Some of them stomped around very angry for a period of time. They did feel all the emotions that everyone else might feel. And then…

…they chose to let go of what they couldn’t do and focused their day on what they could – whether that was being in charge of their own toileting, or achieving a walk to the front door to say goodbye to a visitor, or a walk up the mountain to spend time alone with nature, even if it took them twice as long to get half as far as previously.

Being positive is only one small aspect of the resilience that might just be what someone needs to do better than expected given their terrible diagnosis. The issue is not a matter of feeling positive when all the world seems to be caving in on you. It is a matter of what you DO. It is about doing what you can with the time you have left.

This leaves you with a big question. What do you want to do with the time you have left? For one of the survivors it was a matter of making some beds for his children to sleep on as they were sleeping on mattresses on the floor, and a table to eat from.

One of the other survivors decided he wouldn’t bother farming any more and immediately leased out his farm and went to the local hotel where he became a story teller to the local tourists who supplied him with beer.

Another survivor decided to take his family back to Scotland so he could show them what was important to him about where he had come from.

So if you have been given a diagnosis with little hope, or if you want to avoid being in that situation as best you can, then ask yourself: what do I really want to do with the time I have left? And would it make a difference if this was two months, two years or 60 years? You especially don’t want to spend all of your retirement money only to find that you don’t die.

Thinking positively, what do you really want to do with the time you have left? It might take some time to work this out. I spent some four months at the beginning of this year asking myself this over and over again until I came up with enough answers to satisfy me. What will it be for you?