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Staying positive could be the best defense against getting ill in winter,a new study suggests.
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Staying positive through the cold season could be your best defense against getting ill, new study findings suggest.
In an experiment that exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or flu virus, researchers found that people with a generally sunny disposition were less likely to fall ill.
The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, build on evidence that a "positive emotional style" can help ward off the common cold and other illnesses.
Researchers believe the reasons may be both objective as in happiness boosting immune function and subjective as in happy people being less troubled by a scratchy throat or runny nose.
"People with a positive emotional style may have different immune responses to the virus," explained lead study author Dr Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "And when they do get a cold, they may interpret their illness as being less severe."
Cohen and his colleagues had found in a previous study that happier people seemed lesssusceptibleto catching a cold, but some questions remained as to whether the emotional trait itself had the effect.
For the new study, the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality traits, self-perceived health and emotional "style." Those who tended to be happy, energetic and easy-going were judged as having a positive emotional style, while those who were often unhappy, tense and hostile had a negative style.
The researchers gave them nasal drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus. Over the next six days, the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneezing orcongestionthey had, while the researchers collected objective data, like daily mucus production. Cohen and his colleagues found that based on objective measures of nasal woes, happy people were less likely to develop a cold.
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(Agencies/China Daily) |
一項最新研究表明，保持快樂的心情是預防冬季生病的最佳良方。
研究人員讓一群身體健康的志愿者接觸感冒病毒或流感病毒，結果發現，性格開朗的人染病的幾率較小。
這項研究結果在《身心醫學》上發表。其主要依據是，"積極的情緒"有助于預防感冒和其它疾病。
研究人員認為，這可以從客觀和主觀兩方面來解釋，從客觀上說，快樂的情緒可以增強人體的免疫力；從主觀上說，快樂的人對于嗓子疼、流鼻涕等感冒癥狀沒那么敏感。
研究報告的主要撰寫人、匹茲堡卡內基·梅隆大學的謝爾登·科恩博士解釋說：“‘情緒積極’的人對于病毒的免疫力較強。而且他們即使患了感冒，也覺得沒什么大不了的。”
科恩博士和他的同事在此前的一項研究中發現，比較快樂的人不易患感冒，但不能完全確定這一性格本身是否具有這種“功效”。
在這項最新研究中，研究人員邀請了193名身體健康的成年人參加了性格特點、健康自評和情緒特點等各項標準測試，并將容易快樂、精力充沛、性格隨和的人定義為“積極情緒者”，將經常不開心、精神緊張、不友好的人定義為“消極情緒者”。
研究人員將帶有感冒病毒或某種流感病毒的滴鼻液滴進這些實驗對象的鼻中。在接下來的六天里，實驗對象要每天報告自己是否出現頭痛、打噴嚏或鼻塞等癥狀，研究人員則收集實驗對象的“日鼻涕量”等觀察數據。根據所收集的數據，科恩和他的同事發現，性格開朗、比較快樂的人不容易患感冒。
（英語點津姍姍編輯）
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