"Thinking about Tomorrow Clears Away the Cobwebs and the Sorrow:^"Daily Anticipation, Positive Affect, and Stressor...

We examine the daily, temporal effects of both positive affect (PA) and anticipation of a next-day positive event on daily perceived stressor related negative affect (SRNA). We first examine the concurrent associations among anticipation of a next-day positive event, PA, perceived stress (PS), and negative affect (NA). Next we illustrate the temporal ordering of these relations, specifically assessing the effects of same-day anticipation of a next-day positive event and same-day PA on next-day PS and NA, ultimately testing whether the PA related to anticipation of a positive event reduces next-day SRNA. Participants came from the young adult (N = 120, M _age = 36.68, SD = 4.94) and later life (N = 226, M _age = 73.89, SD = 5.03) cohorts who completed a 56-day, daily diary burst during Wave 9 of the Notre Dame Study of Health & Wellbeing (NDHWB; N = 346). Multi-level modeling results revealed that individuals experience less SRNA on days they anticipate a positive event. Furthermore, anticipation and same-day PA both relate to less next-day SRNA. Finally, anticipation enhances the buffering effect of same-day PA on next-day SRNA. Thus, interventions and preventive care strategies aimed at uplifting and maintaining positive well-being by reducing stress reactivity could encourage adults to engage in proactive anticipation, where they purposely plan positive events to which they can look forward.