John R. Miles

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Now, back to my conversation with Deepika Chopra.

One of the things you write in the book is that optimism enhances our physical health in many ways.

And a study you cite found that individuals who scored high in optimism lived on average 11 to 15 percent longer, and those who scored lower were significantly more likely

than pessimists to live to 80 or older.

So it has some really strong health benefits.

But one of the things I've covered a lot on the podcast is toxic positivity, which I think can do the exact opposite.

And I wanted to talk about sometimes the harms that toxic positivity can cause.

I can completely relate to what you're saying because a lot of the work that I do is not only for children, like my most recent children's book, but I really studied the science of mattering.

And I have a book coming out in October called the mattering effects.

So I've actually interviewed over a hundred leading scientists for this book and.

Two of the people I spoke to while researching the book were Susan Cain and Laurie Santos.

And they were both talking to me about the toxic positivity that they were seeing on college campuses.

In the case of Susan, it was going back to her alma mater, Princeton.

And in the case of Laurie, it was Yale where she teaches.

I think Lori gave a great description in our conversation.

She said what's happening is so many of these students are experiencing duck syndrome.

And what she was saying is they appear fine on the surface, but underneath,