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Happiness is Good For Health
Research Shows Happy People Resist
Colds And Flu Better Than Others
WebMD Feature
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Happiness may do more than put a
smile on your face; it might also improve your health.
That's according to a study by Sheldon Cohen, Ph.D., and
colleagues. Cohen is the Robert E. Doherty Professor of
Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.
"We need to take more seriously the possibility that
positive emotional style is a major player in disease
risk," Cohen's team writes in Psychosomatic Medicine.
Of course, anyone can get sick. Happiness isn't a magic
bullet that guarantees health, and the researchers
aren't blaming illness on negative emotions. But the
effect emotions have on health may be more complicated
than previously thought, the researchers note.
Cohen and colleagues studied 193 healthy adults aged
21-55 (average age: 37). Participants got medical
checkups and completed surveys on their emotional style.
Positive emotional-style traits included being lively,
happy, or calm. Negative traits included being tense,
anxious, sad, depressed, angry, or hostile.
Participants noted how often they had experienced those
emotions in the previous two weeks. The goal was to
gauge their typical mood, not temporary ups and downs.
Based on the surveys, the researchers gave participants
scores for both positive and negative emotional style.
Positive emotional style scores were low for 64 people,
medium for 64 other participants, and high for 65
people. Meanwhile, negative emotional style scores were
low for 66 people, medium for 62 people, and high for 65
people.
With the participants' consent, the researchers exposed
them to viruses that cause colds or flu. The
participants were then quarantined for five to six days
to see who got a cold or flu.
People with high scores for positive emotional style
were more likely to resist colds and flu, the study
shows. But people with high scores for negativity
weren't especially vulnerable.
In other words, being positive was a plus against colds
and flu, but negativity wasn't a hazard.
It's not clear why or how happiness guarded against the
diseases.
The study only covered colds and flu. But the findings
may have broader meaning.
"These results indicate that positive emotions play a
larger and more important role in disease risk and
health complaints than previously believed," the
researchers write.
For instance, they note that depression is a mix of high
negative emotions (like sadness) and low positive
emotions (like happiness).
Most research on depression and health has focused on
high negative emotions, not low positive emotions, the
researchers write.
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