Happy people are healthy people. According to a study by Carnegie Mellon University Psychology Professor, Sheldon Cohen, positive emotions play a larger role in health than previously thought.

The study indicated that people who are happy, lively, calm or exhibited other positive emotions were less likely to catch a cold and if they did, were less likely to report symptoms. Professor Cohen’s original study was in 2004. In the more recent study he allowed for other variables in personality and the results were the same. Happy people seem to have a higher resistance to infectious diseases such as rhinovirus and influenza.

The people who report positive emotions are less likely to catch colds and also less likely to report symptoms when they do get sick. This held true regardless of their levels of optimism, extraversion, purpose and self-esteem, and of their age, race, gender, education, body mass or prestudy immunity to the virus.

“We need to take more seriously the possibility that positive emotional style is a major player in disease risk,” said Cohen, the Robert E. Doherty Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon.

The paper will be available online at Psychosomatic Medicine

The article about the research appeared online at Carnegie Mellon University