Is Optimism Something We're Born With?

I consider myself an optimist. I sometimes wonder why, since having lost my sister, my father, and my grandmother to unnatural deaths linked to mental distress, I have potentially much to be unhappy about. Yet while these losses have affected me profoundly, in general, I find it hard not to start each day with the feeling that life is good, and the future is bright. And my general feelings of optimism have made me wonder if people are born with an optimistic personality, or whether this is something that can also come through changes in behaviour.

The Genetic Roots of Optimism

That some individuals may be biologically disposed to optimism is bolstered by a report of a retired Scottish woman called Jo Cameron, who has mutations in two genes that consequently make her impervious to pain. Intriguingly, suggesting that responses to physical and emotional pain may be linked, Cameron also scored zero on tests assessing levels of anxiety and depression, and says that she always feels happy and upbeat.

So what is the cause of Jo Cameron’s resistance to physical pain and her perpetually sunny outlook on life? One of the genes mutated in her genome, named FAAH, is involved in the breakdown of anandamide, a bodily chemical central to pain sensation, mood, and memory. The other mutation is in a gene that boosts FAAH’s action, and the two mutations combined dramatically boost levels of anandamide in the body. Appropriately, given that Cameron seems to exist in a state of permanent natural "high," this second gene is named FAAH-OUT.

So should we all aspire to have our genomes engineered like Jo Cameron’s? In fact, our pain response plays a vital role in protecting us from injury and death. And indeed during Cameron’s life, she has accumulated injuries that include a degenerated hip and thumbs deformed by osteoarthritis, which only came to the attention of doctors when Cameron became unable to walk and handle items, not because she reported any pain.

While it might be better not to emulate Cameron’s imperviousness to pain, how about finding a way to provide the rest of us with her sunny disposition on life? In fact here too there are some negative features. One contributing factor to Cameron’s positive outlook is that she quickly forgets negative incidents. However, she is also more generally highly forgetful. This provides another reason why it would not be a good idea to genetically engineer everyone to be more like Cameron, unless we want a planet of people who feel no pain and are perpetually happy, yet who are prone to serious injury because they have no painful warning signals, and cannot remember what you told them last week.

Still, studying how Cameron’s two gene mutations result in her resistance to both physical and emotional pain might help the development of new types of painkillers and therapies for the treatment of depression. More generally, while Cameron is clearly a highly unusual person, the existence of such an individual suggests that there may be many other people who have a less extreme tendency to be resistant to pain and have a more positive outlook on life, but who nevertheless have a genetic basis for this tendency.

How Optimism is Influenced By Behavior

At the same time, it would seem mistaken to only focus on biological reasons for someone adopting a positive outlook on life. Importantly, there is also evidence that changes that we make in our lives can also help us cope with, and see a way beyond, even the greatest misfortunes that the world throws at us. One story that inspired me following the death of my sister was that of a 106-year old black woman called Ida Keeling from the Bronx in New York, who is a record-breaking sprinter, having decided to take up running at the age of 60.

This was not just the whim of someone approaching old age but a person trying to find meaning in life following the deepest personal tragedy. In her earlier years, Ida—a single mother after her husband died of a heart attack aged only 42—was active in the black civil rights movements, shuttling her children to Malcolm X speeches and attending the 1963 March on Washington in which Martin Luther King made his famous "I have a dream" speech. Ida’s daughter Shelley Keeling has said, "I always understood from mother that you die on your feet rather than live on your knees."

However, in the late 1970s, Ida’s resilience was tested to the limit by the descent of her two sons into serious drug addiction, and their subsequent deaths from drug-related violence. But as Ida fell into a deep depression, Shelley Keeling—a track-and-field athlete—suggested that her mother take up running to help combat her grief. And after some coaxing, Ida registered for a five-kilometre race through Brooklyn. It was a seminal moment for her. "Good Lord, I thought that race was never going to end, but afterward, I felt free," she noted. "I just threw off all of the bad memories, the aggravation, the stress."

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My own running routine—a mere one-mile jog around the park every morning—pales into insignificance beside Ida Keeling’s efforts, but it was directly inspired by reading her story and realising that daily running could be a way for me to deal positively with my grief.

And Ida Keeling’s story raises the question of why running has proved so beneficial as a way of maintaining a positive outlook on life, and how this differs from the way that genetic mutations have had a similar impact on Jo Cameron.

In fact, these two individuals may have more in common than might first appear, since exercise can stimulate the production of the chemical anandamide—the same substance that exists at such high levels in Cameron’s body because of a defect in the proteins that control its breakdown. This explains why even moderate exercise—like a 15-minute jog in the park—can leave us feeling more satisfied with ourselves and at peace with the world.