Evidence That Good Moods Prevent Colds

duguk writes in with another reason to keep happy over Christmas. A new scientific study suggests that people who frequently experience positive emotions are less likely to catch colds. Psychologist Sheldon Cohen and his colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University interviewed 193 healthy adults daily for two weeks and recorded the positive and negative emotions they had experienced each day. The researchers then exposed the volunteers to a cold or a flu virus. Those with "generally positive outlooks" reported fewer cold symptoms. From the article: "'We need to take more seriously the possibility that a positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk,' Cohen says... Although a positive emotional style bore no relation to whether participants became infected, it protected against the emergence of cold symptoms. For instance, among people infected by the influenza virus... 28 percent who often reported positive emotions developed coughs, congestion, and other cold symptoms, as compared with... 41 percent who rarely reported positive emotions."

Comments

Maybe

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe happy people just don't complain as much.

Re:Maybe

[danpsmith]

Maybe happy people just don't complain as much.

Important point, my grandmother, as my mother would say, would never bleed, she'd hemorrhage, she'd never get a papercut, it would be a laceration. Frame of mind has a lot to do with how you designate what's wrong with you.

I personally hardly notice or care when most colds come or go because I don't dwell on them. There's people who seem to be always sick, just because they can always find some symptom to complain about. Happy people could've just not even noticed their symptoms, because they aren't in a "woe is me" frame of mind.

People looking for a tragedy in their own lives always find one.

correlation, not cause and effect

[yagu]

It's an interesting correlation, but the article/study doesn't give a convincing argument "positive" feelings can prevent illness. It simply reports positive feelings and emotions are closely correlated to resistance to acquiring or displaying symptoms from influenza (rhinovirus).

I don't discount a positive attitude is a good thing to have, but a more rigorous approach could have given better or more convincing results. For example, is it possible some people have a less positive outlook or less positive emotions because they have a less effective immune system and therefor are more often ill (thus introducing a possible reason for the less positive emotions)?

Relatedly, is it possible those with positive outlooks and emotions are just that because they have a strong immune system and are rarely ill?

I'd be interested in seeing a study where some of the "negative" subjects were trained in positive emotions and reintroduced to the study to see if their results are different. I'd like to guess positive feelings positively influences their health, but this study doesn't give that proof.

(My favorite example of this kind of "study" is the correlation between increased sales of ice cream and drownings, leading some to possibly think ice cream increases drowning risk... of course ignoring the fact that ice cream sales increase in warmer weather when more people are swimming.)

Re:correlation, not cause and effect

[MrFlibbs]

This reminds me of another study to determine the relationship between height and basketball. Subjects were sorted into two groups: those who played basketball and those who did not. The basketball-playing group was, on the average, several inches taller. The conclusion? Playing basketball makes you taller!

Correlation does not imply causation.

Re:correlation, not cause and effect

[arivanov]

Well... It may the underlying reasons for the good moods, not the good moods themselves.

I noted that my colds have a nearly perfect correlation with the level of tiredness. I used to catch an average of more than one cold a month during the winter in the days when I overworked myself, worked extra hours for a prolonged period without compensating with a day off here or there, took work home and otherwise followed the antisocial behaviour pattern loved by slaver PHBs.

Nowdays, I stay strictly within the "green" zone of sub-40h per week at work and do not overdo the recreational coding. As a result I have less than one cold per 4-6 months. I have observed the same correlation in other people.

Unfortunately many PHBs do not grok the phenomenon. They would rather have their staff staring at the monitor at the height of lemsim stupor while checking in ephedrin driven code that has to be thrown out later anyway. Even the fact that the average productivity in the industry in Europe is in nearly perfect inverse proportion to the overtime put in does not make them stop and think for a second.

Chicken/egg.

[Elentari]

I generally don't feel positive when I have a cold.

Bananas

[dunsurfin]

I eat bananas on a regular basis and have noticed that this keeps rogue alligators away from me. The victims of rogue alligator attacks never have bananas on their person. I strongly advise those who are worried about rogue attack from alligators to eat bananas.

Wonder what would happen...

[inode_buddha]

Wonder what would happen if they did a study like this about STD's? "I felt great and I caught it anyway!!! AAUUUGH!"