At long last, there’s good news for people who figure bad news is right around the corner. Turns out, those of us who see the glass half-empty live longer and healthier lives than those irritating cock-eyed optimists, the ones who are always chirping, “Have a great day!”

A 10-year study of 40,000 adults also discovered that people with “low expectations for a satisfying future” have a lower risk of disability than people who identified themselves as “overly optimistic” about their future.

Indeed, this is fine day to be a Gloomy Gus or a Debbie Downer.

Grumpy old men, rejoice. Optimistic older people had a 10 percent higher mortality risk than those who had a grimmer outlook on life.

Frieder R. Lang, lead author of the study (published by the American Psychological Society) from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, said: “Our findings revealed that being overly optimistic in predicting a better future was associated with a greater risk of disability and death within the following decade.

“Pessimism about the future may encourage people to live more carefully, taking health and safety precautions.”

And here’s a shocker: “Unexpectedly, we also found that stable and good health and income were associated with expecting a greater decline compared with those in poor health or with low incomes.

“Moreover, we found that higher income was related to a greater risk of disability.

coAs the APA noted, as way of explaining their methodology for the remarkable study:

Lang and colleagues examined data collected from 1993 to 2003 for the national German Socio-Economic Panel, an annual survey of private households consisting of approximately 40,000 people 18 to 96 years old. The researchers divided the data according to age groups: 18 to 39 years old, 40 to 64 years old and 65 years old and above. Through mostly in-person interviews, respondents were asked to rate how satisfied they were with their lives and how satisfied they thought they would be in five years.

Five years after the first interview, 43 percent of the oldest group had underestimated their future life satisfaction, 25 percent had predicted accurately and 32 percent had overestimated, according to the study. Based on the average level of change in life satisfaction over time for this group, each increase in overestimating future life satisfaction was related to a 9.5 percent increase in reporting disabilities and a 10 percent increased risk of death, the analysis revealed.

Makes you want to stay home today, sit alone in a quiet room, and do some serious brooding, doesn’t it?

Have a great day!