Be happy... and not sneezy
Have you ever been looking forward to a few days off, only to come down with a cold? It's very common.
It is as if people raise the bar on their immune systems when they have not got time to be ill, but when they look forward to a bit of leisure their immune system suddenly lets a virus get hold.
There is a whole area of research that looks at psycho-neuro-immunology, or PNI, for short. That is the possible relationship between the mind (psycho-), the nervous system (neuro-) and the immune system. And more and more studies are showing that being positive helps boost your immunity. So too, does exercise, partly through improving fitness and partly through its beneficial effect on psychological wellbeing.
The average cold takes nine days – three days to come, three days to endure and three days to go away. Anything you can do to reduce their length or avoid them is worthwhile.
Having a positive outlook is important and research backs up the observation that happy and positive people get fewer colds and are less troubled by them than those who are negative in their outlook.
A recent study published in the Journal of Psychosomatic Medicine followed up 200 healthy adults. They were all asked to 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.
All of them were given nasal drops containing either a cold virus or a flu virus that causes cold-like symptoms. Over six days, the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneezing or congestion they had, while the researchers collected objective data, such as daily mucus production. It was found that, based on objective measures of symptoms, happy people were a third less likely to get a cold. And when happy people did develop a cold, they rated their symptoms as less severe than those reported by the negative emotional style people.
Another interesting piece of research published in the American Journal of Medicine looked at the effect that moderate exercise can have in reducing the risk of catching a cold. A group of 110 women with an average age of 61 years were followed up for a year. None of them were regular exercisers. During the year half of the women were assigned to an exercise group, where they spent 30 minutes daily, five days a week, doing moderate-intensity activity like brisk walking. The other half made up a control group, which only attended a weekly 45-minute stretching class. Highly significantly, the non-exercisers got twice the number of colds.
The message is simple, to reduce your risk of a cold, stay positive and enjoy exercising.
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Weather for Wakefield
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 13 C to 24 C
Wind Speed: 13 mph
Wind direction: North
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Temperature: 12 C to 24 C
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