In U.S., Using Strengths More May Be the Best Pain Medicine; Americans with health issues may get emotional boost from using strengths more.
Byline: Jim Asplund
Synopsis: The more hours per day that Americans with health issues use their strengths to do what they do best, the less pain, stress, worry, and anger they report. The emotional benefits are greater for those with health issues than for those without.
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The more Americans with health problems use their strengths each day to do what they do best, the less likely they are to report experiencing physical pain, worry, stress, anger, or sadness "yesterday," despite their medical situations. Among those without health problems, there is a similar, but far more modest relationship between strengths usage and negative experiences.
These findings are based on Gallup Daily tracking interviews with 120,354 American adults on Aug. 22-Dec. 30, 2012. Gallup assessed strengths usage based on responses to the following question: "About how many hours out of the day yesterday were you able to use your strengths to do what you do best?" Health problems were assessed by asking, "Do you have any health problems that prevent you from doing any of the things people your age normally can do?"
Among Americans with health problems, those who are able to use their strengths for at least 10 hours per day are much less likely to say they experience pain (50%) than those who use their strengths for three hours or less daily (69%). The same relationship exists among those without health problems, only with a somewhat smaller difference in experiencing pain between those who use their strengths for 10 or more hours (13%) and those who use their strengths for zero to three hours (17%). This pattern holds true for anger, stress, sadness, and worry, and is consistent across all age, gender, education, and income groups.
It is possible that Americans who report using their strengths for more hours per day are generally more positive or upbeat people who are less likely to report experiencing negative emotions. Even if this is the case, this underlying positivity has clear benefits for Americans -- particularly for those with health problems -- in terms of how they view and describe their lives. Researchers such as Shelley Taylor at UCLA have documented the psychological and biological benefits of optimism and other positive emotions. Even "positive illusions" have been shown to help people manage stressful experiences, including poor health, by giving them a greater sense of control over their circumstances.
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