What’s with All the Negative Waves, Moriarty?

One of my favorite movies of all time is Kelly’s Heroes.

If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and watch it sometime. It’s quite the all-star cast.

Although the movie takes place in World War II, there’s a hippie tank commander named Oddball played by Donald Sutherland. Oddball is constantly berating his tank mechanic for having a pessimistic attitude. He keeps asking the mechanic:

“What’s with all the negative waves?”

Turns out Oddball may have been ahead of his time in more ways than embracing the hippie culture that came 15-20 years after WWII was over.

Studies in the last five years have started to suggest that repeated negative thinking may increase the likelihood of cognitive decline among older adults.

The study took 491 older adults (average of 65 years) and completed measures in the following areas:

• Repeated negative thoughts

• Personality traits

• Purpose in life

• Worry

• Rumination

• Meditation practice

Cognitive decline was assessed throughout the study both based on testing and ‘endorsement of memory complaints’. I guess that means they asked the people if they’ve been forgetful.

The results were that about a quarter of the participants reported memory complaints. In the final models, repeated negative thoughts was the only psychological variable associated with lower perceived cognitive function and with a higher likelihood of memory complaints.

In other studies, repeated negative thoughts were associated with amyloid plaques and tau protein buildup in the brain. Amyloid and Tau are linked to Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

This is why it drives me crazy when I hear the standard diagnosis of dementia and Alzheimer’s. Families tell me the doctor said “Well you have Alzheimer’s. Nothing you can do. Just get your affairs in order and start looking for long-term care.”

“Oh and take this medication. It may slow the disease down a little.”

We call this ‘Diagnose and Adios’.

If the studies above are to be believed, then the doctor is only feeding into the person’s cognitive decline.

Instead, wouldn’t it be great if the doctor said something like ‘It looks like you might have Alzheimer’s. But it’s still early and there are some people who have turned it around (they have). Let’s fight this awful thing together and see what we can do.’

Yes it’s a tough disease to fight. Yes it comes when you’re old and have a harder time finding the energy to fight.

So what. This is the fight of your life. Those drawbacks make it all the more important for the person to have an upbeat attitude to their struggle.

And everyone around them needs to be upbeat for their sake. We don’t need any Negative Nancy’s dragging them down.

Take a lesson from Oddball in Kelly’s heroes. Look around and see all the beauty in the world. And put out so many positive waves that there’s no way you can lose.