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Beat the Common Cold and Flu With Happiness
Posted by: Dr. Mercola
November 25 2006 | 2,276 views

HappinessHappiness, along with other positive emotions, could be even more important to health than had been previously thought.

A recent study finds that those who are happy, lively, calm or otherwise generally exhibit positive emotions are less likely to become ill when they are exposed to a cold virus.

What's more, when happy people do catch a cold, they report fewer symptoms than might be expected.

Previous studies had reported similar results, but left open the possibility that the greater resistance to infections may not have been related to happiness per se, but to other characteristics often associated with happy people. But this latest study controls for those variables, and still found that those who report positive emotions are less likely to catch colds, regardless of such factors as age, race, gender or body mass index.


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Happiness will not only protect your body from stressors that can lead to coronary heart disease, but it can also boost your immune system's ability to fight off the common cold.

There is little doubt about the powerful effects positive emotions can have on your physical health and well-being. At the same time, there is equally little doubt about the effects that negative emotions can have on you.

The results of this study may seem superficially trivial to you, but protecting your health from colds and the flu is an important issue, particularly if it means avoiding a possibly harmful drug you don't need.

Manifesting positive emotions and happiness are only one of several natural ways to strengthen your immune system, which include:



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