How to Be More Optimistic Without Faking It | Dr. Deepika Chopra | Happiness | E527
About this episode
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby discusses the nature of real optimism with Dr. Deepika Chopra, exploring how forced positivity can worsen anxiety and how to cultivate genuine optimism.
By the end of the gratitude journal, the breath work, the affirmation in the mirror, you felt worse, not better. You're not failing at positivity. You're using tools that were never designed to do what you're asking them to do. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Deepika Chopra, the clinical health psychologist known as The Optimism Doctor and the author of the new book The Power of Real Optimism. Deepika has spent over a decade studying why optimism is a skill, not a personality trait, and her work has appeared everywhere from the TODAY Show to Forbes to Vogue. She joined me to explain why forced positivity actually makes anxiety worse, and what real, durable optimism looks like when you stop performing it and start practicing it. In this conversation, you'll learn: Why an optimist isn't someone who feels good all the time, and what they're actually doing differently in their head The exact reason 'I am confident' affirmations can deepen self-doubt, and how to phrase them so your brain stops detecting them as a lie The specific moment Deepika's optimism work was tested in the hardest way it could be, and what shifted for her in the middle of it Why scheduling worry time…
People in this episode
Host: Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby
Guest: Dr. Deepika Chopra
Topics covered
- optimism
- mental health
- anxiety
- self-improvement
- positivity
Keywords
- optimism
- anxiety
- positivity
- self-doubt
- mental health
- affirmations
- gratitude
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Power of Real Optimism
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