"Hope does not just motivate people to positive action. It actually has healing power."

So says John Ortberg in his book If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat.

Ortberg sites a medical study in which 122 men who had suffered their first heart attack were evaluated on their degree of hopefulness and pessimism: "Of the 25 most pessimistic men, 21 had died eight years later. Of the 25 most optimistic, only 6 had died!… Loss of hope increased the odds of death more than 300 percent; it predicted death more accurately than any medical risk factor, including blood pressure, amount of damage to the heart, or cholesterol level."

Ortberg adds his own humorous interpretation to the study: "Better to eat Twinkies in hope than to eat broccoli in despair."