Good news: Spending time with friends is good for your heart.

RODALE NEWS, EMMAUS, PA—If you want to really cut healthcare costs and reform the system, go to a town hall meeting with positive ideas in hand, not as a hostile protestor. Otherwise, you might just set yourself up for a heart attack. According to a new study published in the journal Circulation, hostility increases the risk of both developing and dying from various kinds of heart disease, while remaining positive can actually keep your heart healthy.

THE DETAILS: Researchers used information from the Women’s Health Initiative study that took place from 1994 to 1998 and studied data collected from 97,253 women. During the study, the women filled out questionnaires that rated their optimism/pessimism (for instance, “In unclear times, I usually expect the best” and “If something can go wrong for me, it will”) and their levels of hostility (using parameters like “I have often had to take orders from someone who did not know as much as I did” and “It is safer to trust nobody”). They also looked at general lifestyle characteristics, such as income level, education levels, and socioeconomic status, as well as health habits like smoking and alcohol use. Results from those surveys were compared with instances of coronary heart disease and deaths from cardiovascular disease and cancer.

Women with a positive, optimistic outlook on life had a 9 percent lower risk of developing heart disease, and a 14 percent lower risk of dying during the eight-year follow up, compared to pessimistic women. And women who were considered hostile based on their responses to the questionnaire were at a 13 percent greater risk of heart disease and a 16 percent greater risk of dying from any cause during the study.

WHAT IT MEANS: It’s difficult to say if being optimistic will ward off heart disease, or if women who lead healthier lives are happier because they’re healthier, says lead study author Hilary Tindle, MD, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh. “Women who were characterized as optimists were everything you’d like to be if you could choose for yourself,” she says. They were wealthier and more educated, didn’t have major physical or mental health problems, and they exercised more and had healthier weights. Still, she says, “after controlling for all those factors, optimists still had a lower rate of disease and death.” Being pessimistic or having hostile attitudes, she says, can predispose you to stress. Plus, “Pessimists have more episodes of negativity, and that adds to wear and tear on the cardiovascular system,” she says.

Here are a few ways to keep your positive wits about you:

• Cherish the micromoments. A study published earlier this year found that people who experienced “micromoments” of positivity were actually better able to cope with stressful incidents, which is a key feature of optimistic women, says Dr. Tindle. “Optimists just have a healthier approach to life,” she says. “They cope better with adversity.” The easiest way to relish a micromoment? Find something in your day to be grateful for.

• Lean on your friends. Another key characteristic of optimists that isn’t often seen in pessimistic or hostile individuals is a strong social network, says Dr. Tindle. And that may not be all that surprising. After all, who’s going to extend you a helping hand if you’re always insisting that the only way to do something is to do it yourself?

• Don’t be a Pollyanna.Assuming that everything will just work out just sets you up for problems. “Optimism is more than just being blindly positive,” says Dr. Tindle. The questions used in this study to measure optimism and pessimism really get to the core of how people handle adversity, she adds. “Optimists tend to be realists,” she says. “They expect good things to happen because they have good coping skills and because they’ve built strong social networks.”