No, we really didn't need this new challenge for our psyche after more than two years of the pandemic state of emergency.
Being confronted with the very real possibility of a new world war, with the immeasurable suffering of many innocent people in the immediate geographical vicinity, makes it almost impossible for even the last optimist to maintain a halfway benevolent view of the world.
Numerous studies have suggested that such a view would be desirable for many reasons, not least health.
Optimists are less ill and generally feel better, we know that.
However, it is less clear how an optimistic attitude unfolds these positive effects.
Scientists around the American psychiatrist Lewina Lee from Boston University have now investigated this question on the basis of a long-term study with 233 men whose optimism had been queried in 1986 and 1991.
More than 14 years later, the participants were asked to record stressful experiences and their mood in diaries.
The scientists' assumption, published in the "Journals of Gerontology, Series B", that optimists are better able to emotionally process unhealthy stress was not confirmed.
On the contrary, optimists seem to be able not to perceive potential stressful experiences as stress in the first place: for example, by simply ignoring negative events or reinterpreting them as positive.
Difficult tasks are thus seen as challenges, not as threats.
Most of the respondents experienced stress at home and at work.
Unfortunately, the study does not provide an answer to the question of how to remain optimistic in the face of global catastrophes.