By Cathy Hartt, RN, DNP

When was the last time you felt helpless about something? Maybe it’s noisy neighbors or world affairs. When we get blasted with things that cause us to feel powerless we can lose our hardwired optimism. In other words, we stop trying to correct the situation. That’s called “learned helplessness.” Fortunately, there are simple, evidenced-based strategies that can be done to help our brains stay wired for optimism.

In 2016, I returned to school to earn my doctorate in nursing. My area of study was human optimism. I attended resilience training designed for the US Army and applied that to an optimism project at the Warrior Resource Center. Over the next several weeks, I will share those exercises with you. The key is to build new habits to train your brain that you have an impact on what is happening in your life.

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