Happy Easter, if you are Christian.  Happy spring weekend to the rest of you.  I have just returned from the highlands of New Guinea where Christianity has taken hold among people who still sleep in thatched huts around an open fire, on leaves.  No pillows.  No blankets.  No stoves.  No electricity.  No running water.  No TVs or radios… (Read the rest on LiveScience.com here)

“The Science of Optimism” is an ongoing blog series focused on the bright side of dating in 2013. The series will feature posts by Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and scientific advisor for Chemistry.com.

By Dr. Helen Fisher

Prayers, betting parlors, doctor’s appointments, monuments, diets, holidays, college degrees, lottery tickets, Valentine’s Day flowers, wedding rings: what do these things have in common? Each offers hope. The Statue of Liberty is a beacon of hope. Las Vegas sells hope. Immigrants risk their lives and leave their homelands because they hope. At Christmas, Passover and Ramadan, we hope… (Read the rest on LiveScience.com here)

Feeling a little low in the hope department? One author offers five ideas to help you tune into your inner dating optimist.

By Amy Spencer

Every single person runs up against the occasional inner doubts when it comes to love. But having a few down days does not a pessimist make: With just a few tweaks to your attitude, you can get back your giddy sense of dating anticipation and attract your “half-orange” (a translation of the Spanish term media naranja, meaning your sweetly perfect other half) more easily. Here are five steps along the path to regaining dating optimism.

Step 1: Decide with conviction that you will find your other half.
The definition of optimism is a belief that things will work out for the best. So to be a dating optimist, you need simply believe your love life will work out for the best. Start expecting success! Then, whether you’re having a butterfly moment on a blind date, a lonely night with a Lost marathon, or a dry spell where you haven’t met a single cute soul in weeks, you’ll see your dating ups-and-downs for what they really are: making you wiser, warmer and more ready to meet your true match.
Step 2: Say out loud that you’re ready for a real relationship.
You can’t order a half-pound of ham at the deli counter without voicing your intentions; the same goes for love. Even if you know in your heart that you’re ready for the real thing, if you’re saying out loud that you’re “having a blast being single” then the energy you’re putting out there is all about numero uno. Create the duo energy you need by announcing you’re ready for a serious relationship to your friends and family, in your online dating profile and to the world around you in general.

Step 3: “Love-visualize” your happy ending.
One key to embracing dating optimism is basking in how you want to feel in your ideal relationship. Practice doing “love-visualizations”: Take a deep breath, make yourself smile, and then picture yourself — either through your future eyes or looking down at yourself from above — in a perfect moment with your other half. Try this one, for example: See yourself cuddling under a big duvet in bed on a Saturday morning with your future partner, laughing as you steal the covers and dive under them. Your partner pushes them back, looks you in the eye and says, “I can’t believe I found someone as amazing as you” — while you, of course, were thinking the exact same thing. Play around in that scene for two to three minutes, adding more details, focusing on the feelings, breathing deeply and smiling until you feel a warm, happy buzz in your belly. Remember this feeling, because this will be your life before you know it.
Step 4: Accentuate the positive on every date.
The happier and more positive you feel about your dating life, the more positive events and people you will attract. This isn’t magic; it’s a form of emotional regulation, which is rooted in neuroscience and psychology. Positive thoughts can develop neural pathways in the brain that, when used regularly, can actually change the structure of your brain. Your positively focused brain affects everything from your body language to your perception of the world — which, when it comes to dating, changes the decisions you make about relationships, how others perceive you and the kind of person you attract. So before you swing open the restaurant door to meet your next match, decide that instead of picking out what’s wrong with your date, you’re going to find three things that are right. If you seek the positive, you’ll find it — and be the better because of it.

Step 5: Tune into your “Wrong-Dar.”
That’s what I call your emotional radar about who’s right or wrong for you. In essence, it’s your love gut. Your goal is to find someone who makes you feel all the wonderful ways you’ve previously imagined, right? Well, if the person you’re seeing or flirting with isn’t making you feel as adored, funny, attractive, or fascinating as you want, then let your “Wrong-Dar” guide you so you can move on to better prospects. The more tuned in you are to yourself, the faster you can toss the mismatches to the curb and get back on track toward finding the person who will treat you as fabulously as you deserve.

Amy Spencer writes for Glamour, Real Simple, and New York magazine, among other publications, and is the author of Meeting Your Half-Orange: An Utterly Upbeat Guide to Using Dating Optimism to Find Your Perfect Match.

Dr. Helen Fisher speaks at TEDxSMU in Dallas, Texas!

“The Science of Optimism” is an ongoing blog series focused on the bright side of dating in 2013. The series will feature posts by Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and scientific advisor for Chemistry.com.

By Dr. Helen Fisher

Optimists tend to be accomplished. They excel in academia, as well as in athletics, the military, and political and vocational pursuits.  Optimists are less anxious and depressed.  They shine at solving problems.   They have stronger friendships.  And they enjoy better physical health.  These hopeful men and women also tend to be conscientious and have a greater ability to delay their indulgences.  They focus on the future—a happy future, their happy future.

How to boost this hope?  As I mentioned in my last blog, optimism has been linked with the dopamine system in the brain.   So it is reasonable to suggest that if you can increase your dopamine activity (and design reasonable goals), you are likely to become more optimistic.   There are several ways to do this.   Novelty triggers dopamine production.  So try a new restaurant, ride your bike to work, take a class in chess or calligraphy, or arrange a trip down the Colorado River or to the Louvre.  If you have a sweetheart, have some fun in bed.  And get some exercise.  All stimulate the dopamine system in the brain.

You might also create a little mantra to boost your optimism.  I have one that works remarkably well for me.  When I become deluged with work and feel slightly short of breath from panic, I repeat four words:  “I can do this.”   I say it over and over in different tones and tempos.  It gives me hope.   Perhaps it also entertains my medial orbito-frontal cortex, a brain region directly behind the forehead that has been linked with the ability to see life through rose-colored glasses—what psychologists call “positive illusions” or the “pink lens effect.”

This brain region is associated with the tendency to be realistic, as well as negative about one’s self and others; but a deactivation is linked with the ability to suspend negative judgment (and thus over-evaluate a partner).  Those still in love had been wearing rose-colored glasses!

“Faith, Hope, and Charity.”  No wonder optimism is one of the primary theological virtues in the Judeo-Christian tradition.  Optimism not only preserves your health; optimism can preserve your relationship.   So take a tip from poet Emily Dickinson, who wrote “Hope is the thing with feathers / That Perches in the soul,/…Yet, never, in extremity, / It asked a crumb of me.”

Need help getting psyched for your search for The One? Try these smart strategies for a more positive mindset.

By Amy Spencer

Recently, I had a string of bad dates. One was with a man who couldn’t stop pointing out my flaws (specifically, “You have really short nails” and “Do you always laugh like that?”). Another was a smart, handsome man who turned out to be intolerably self-aggrandizing. The list goes on—but instead of getting bummed out that I was getting, well, nowhere in love that week, I laughed it off. You see, I am a dating optimist, and I know that some awful dates are par for the course. But why dwell on the bad stuff? The fact is, no one is going to meet the man or woman of their dreams with a negative outlook—which is why I talked to other dating optimists and found some top tips on how to bring out the brightest, best, happiest dater inside us all.

Commit to complimenting your date on three things
Making yourself search out the good (Hmm, maybe I’ll like his laugh!) rather than the bad (Uh-oh, she’ll probably hate the loud atmosphere…) is the simplest way to flip the optimist switch. If you focus on finding the good in the person across the table, you will find it.

Remember: The worse the date, the better the story
Dating is like the opposite of the Olympic figure-skating judging: Instead of throwing out the highest scores and the lowest scores, a happy dater relishes both. And let’s be honest, we all have our entertaining horror stories to share. Tracy Allen, 29, recalls one date she had that always garners an appreciative audience at parties: “I was having a great ski weekend with my date, until every few hours he’d call the cat-sitter he hired to ask how his kitty was doing,” she says. “At one point, he even asked the sitter to put kitty’s ear up to the phone so he could say hello!” Personally, I fondly recall my shock of listening to a first date of mine casually mention the porn shop he opened with his uncle…but instead of being frustrated about another lost night, I grinned on the inside thinking about how funny it was going to be to tell the story later. (That was four years ago, and it’s still one of my favorites.)

Practice changing your negative buzzwords
If you don’t know what yours are, ask a friend. Maybe they often hear you say you “can’t,” you “hate” or you “won’t.” Or maybe you’re always talking about how people “never” do anything right. Once you know what to listen for, you’ll be more likely to catch and stop yourself. For added incentive, do what cursing-quitters often do: Put $1 in a jar every time you bring up a negative topic among your friends, to help train yourself out of bringing up negative topics on your date. Think about it. You wouldn’t want to hear your date say he or she “can’t understand people who like sushi” or “don’t feel like going to work.” You want to hear that they love surfing and will try anything on the menu. The same goes for you: Nobody likes that SNL character Debbie Downer, so do what you can to be the most positive version of yourself.

Give yourself the YNK speech before your next date
As in, You Never Know! You never know, he might be the date of your dreams. And if he’s not, you never know, he might be the roommate of the man of your dreams. Or, you never know, maybe she’ll tell you about some great new hangout that’s packed with cute singles, or know someone who wants to hire you to join Madonna’s concert tour—or merely tell you a story that prompts you to take off to Thailand for a month. The point is, even if dating doesn’t lead to true love, it leads to different, interesting, and sometimes wonderful experiences you might not have had otherwise. And that’s all good.

Put together a cheering squad
Whether a date bombs or exceeds your expectations, the very fact that you don’t know what’s going to happen is a large part of the fun. So many of my coupled-up friends say they envy how in my average night out, anything could happen. Being reminded of this fact made me appreciate my single status even more—which is why I decided to permanently draw them in with before-and-after reports. I went on a date recently after meeting some married friends of mine for a cocktail. Before I left, we worked out a code that I would text them through the night: “C” for Cute, “NC” for Not Cute, “SC” for Super Cute, SFO for “Still Figuring it Out,” etc. We had such laughs thinking about what I might find, that I walked away from them and toward my date with a giddy anticipation I hadn’t felt in a while. (Oh, and by the way, that date was super-cute and super-nice.)

Tell yourself, “I won’t settle for any old relationship, I want anamazing relationship” 
If you’re ever feeling low about your unattached status, ask yourself this: If you really, truly wanted to be dating just anyone, you could be, right? The guy who e-mailed you for a second date. The girl who gave you her number at a party. That ex who still calls to “check in.” You just choose not to date them because they’re not right for you. And that’s a good sign, because it proves you won’t settle for just an average relationship. You want someone who’s reallyright for you. It makes any amount of waiting worthwhile.

Go on you-can’t-lose dates
Nothing seems like more of a waste than having an average, predictable evening with a boring date you know you’ll never see again. And that’s why you should try this can’t-lose strategy: Find something you’ve really wanted to do…and do that on your date. Take him or her to a driving range or the opera or play bridge together if you’ve been hankering to go. Because you can’t help being optimistic when you know that no matter what happens with the love connection, you still win! This also works if you’re looking for dates, too: “Instead of meeting men in bars, I started doing fun things to meet them,” says Stephanie Prepon, 36. So far she’s taken sailing lessons, golf lessons, and signed up as a member of the Guggenheim Museum—and met some great men in the process.

Remind yourself that it’s a numbers game
You don’t rent the first apartment you see, and you don’t buy the first bathing suit you try on. You sample them all, and the more you try, the closer you know you’re getting to what you want. Well, it’s the same with love. Remind yourself of that fact! Sometimes the restaurant is only average, sometimes the $160 jeans stretch too much in the butt, and sometimes your date will disappoint you. But getting the bad ones out of the way takes you that much closer to the good ones—and more importantly, makes you appreciate the crazy twists and turns on the road to real romance.

Amy Spencer writes for Glamour, Maxim, and Real Simple among other publications.

“The Science of Optimism” is an ongoing blog series focused on the bright side of dating in 2013. The series will feature posts by Dr. Helen Fisher, biological anthropologist and scientific advisor for Chemistry.com.

By Dr. Helen Fisher

Would you call yourself more optimistic than most people? Chemistry.com singles in cities like Hoboken, NJ, Redondo Beach, CA, and Santa Fe, New Mexico answered “yes” through our personality test, and I can definitely see why these singles are looking on the bright side! These men and women have several traits in common: they are confident that their way of doing things will work out; they have a plan for where they want to be in five years; they never enter any competition expecting to lose; and when they do lose, they focus on how they can do better next time.

Here is the full list of The Most Optimistic Singles in America: 

1. Hoboken, NJ
2. Redondo Beach, CA
3. Santa Fe, NM
4. Naperville, IL
5. Boca Raton, FL
6. Newport Beach, CA
7. Mountain View, CA
8. Waukesha, WI
9. Scottsdale, AZ
10. Irvine, CA

You can also check out our graphic here!

So why are singles in these cities so optimistic? They undoubtedly have some common past experiences, but I suspect they also share some basic brain chemistry. Every member of Chemistry.com takes this same personality test, a questionnaire that measures the constellation of traits linked with four basic brain systems: dopamine, serotonin, testosterone and estrogen. The dopamine system is linked with a sunny personality. And, as I expected, those living in most of these 10 cities are Explorers, men and women highly expressive of the traits linked with dopamine.  Explorers are natural optimists.

However, these cities are also packed with men and women who are highly expressive to the traits linked with estrogen, a brain system not associated with optimism. Estrogen rich men and women (whom I call Negotiators) tend to see the big picture; they are intuitive, imaginative and mentally flexible; they have superb people skills; and they are emotionally expressive. Could it be that Negotiators, who also tend to think long-term, see the many sides of any issue, and are more accepting of ethnic, religious and intellectual diversity, are also more optimistic? Apparently so.

Optimistic singles can live by many credos—among them, to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind; to talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet; to make all your friends feel that there is something in them; and to look at the sunny side of everything. These precepts are good for your health.

But optimism can also be precarious. Optimists see life through rose-colored glasses, what psychologists call the “pink-lens effect.” This can lead to self-delusion. So be optimistic, with caution. Expect positive outcomes; then work to reach these goals. You will “self-correct” if you optimism becomes unrealistic. And as you adjust your focus on more attainable objectives, you will rejuvenate your optimism.

You’ll get other perks, too.  Friends, relatives, lovers and colleagues all flock to a sunny personality.

Find out your own personality by taking the Chemistry.com Personality Test for free today!

Can your choice of mate be predicted by science? Biologist Dr. Helen Fisher profiles the four chemicals that affect personality and shows how data from online dating sites could unravel the mysteries of human attraction.

By Lisa Cericola