Forget the pills and potions, hold the tissues, and be positive. It just may be a good way to avoid a cold. People with a positive emotional style - happy, lively, and calm - were nearly three times less likely to develop a cold after being exposed to a virus than the negative-minded volunteers. They were infected by the bug, but their body's reaction to it meant they were less likely to have a cold. "We found that the tendency to express positive emotions was associated with greater resistance to developing a cold,'' say the researchers.

Common colds are not the only health problem to be avoided or lessened by being positive. New research shows that men and women with so-called dispositional optimism - defined as having positive expectations for the future - were less sensitive to pain.

Positive folk may also be less likely to die prematurely and to live seven or more years longer than the more miserable. They recover more quickly from surgery, may be less likely to develop cancer, suffer a stroke, die from heart disease, or suffer from depression.

"The more positive people expect their futures to be, the better their mood, the fewer their psychiatric symptoms, and the better their adjustment to diverse situations including pregnancy and cardiac surgery," says Dr Suzanne Segerstrom, of the University of Kentucky

While it's long been accepted that negative emotions such as anger, depression and anxiety have an effect on health, increasing evidence is showing that positive emotions may be associated with lower rates of illness and less severe symptoms.

Researchers at Yale University who investigated longevity found that those people who had positive attitudes about ageing when they were young lived more than seven years longer that those with a less positive attitude. "Our study carries two messages. The discouraging one is that negative self-perceptions can diminish life expectancy; the encouraging one is that positive self-perceptions can prolong life expectancy," says Dr Becca Levy, who led the study.

The link between a positive mind and health may also lead to new ways of tackling disease.

"It is an important area," says Dr John Weinman, professor of psychology as applied to medicine at the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College, London. "For years, what we have tended to do is to focus on people who have problems, those with illnesses. We have maybe over-focused on these people and why they have problems in coping with illness. We would actually learn a lot from people who do well despite having major health problems, those who get back to functioning quickly, and who survive for longer periods of time.

"What is especially interesting is the long-term survival of people with major health problems which we know should shorten their lives. In type one diabetes, for example, which is known to reduce life expectancy by about 15 years, there are people out there who are in their seventies and eighties who have lived since childhood with diabetes. What is it about those people? That is the big question."

Just how a positive and optimistic outlook has such an effect is not known. Some theories suggest that it is because such people tend to look after their health better, be more focused and know what they want, and are more likely to shun health-threatening behaviours.

But other research suggests something else at work. In the common-cold research at the University of Pittsburgh, the researchers found that it was not so much that the positive people did not get infected with the virus, but that they tended to have fewer signs and symptoms of illness. That, say the researchers, appears to suggest that the link may be down to differences in the release of immune system cells involved in the inflammatory response to the infection.

Researchers at Miami University have suggested that many hormones that play a key role in health are affected by emotions, including cortisol, norepinephrine, dopamine, prolactin, and oxytocin. "Positive psychological factors have been associated with many of these hormones," they say. "For example, among people with HIV, spirituality and focusing on the positive have both been linked with lower levels of cortisol." And as they point out, higher levels of cortisol have been shown to be linked to faster disease progression in HIV.

PAIN
People showing dispositional optimism may be better able to cope with pain and need less medication. A study at Michigan State University on cancer patients shows that those who were more optimistic tended to report less severe pain. A study at the University of Alabama showed that patients who were optimistic used less medication for pain relief. "More optimistic adolescents are better able to match their medication use to their pain severity. Future research should examine how other psycho-social factors might influence pain medication use in adolescents and adults, and clinicians should take into account psychosocial factors when working with pain populations."

DEPRESSION
Researchers at The Netherlands Institute of Mental Health monitored 464 older men for 20 years, during which time 44 per cent developed depression. Those who were classed as having high levels of dispositional optimism - defined as positive expectations - were 75 per cent less likely to develop the condition.

HEART DISEASE
The positive-minded have a 55 per cent lower risk of dying from heart disease, according to the results of a study which followed 500 men aged 54 to 84 for 15 years. "Our results demonstrate a strong and consistent association between dispositional optimism and lower risk of cardiovascular mortality," says the researchers from The Netherlands Institute of Mental Health, Delft. Just how low optimism may lead to cardiovascular death, is, say the authors, an intriguing, but unanswered question. One possible mechanism, they say, is that optimism is related to better coping behaviour. Another study at the University of Pittsburgh, and based on 200 women diagnosed with thickening of the arteries, showed that over a 15-year period, the disease progressed more slowly in those women classed as optimists. Other research has shown that optimists have a lower risk of rehospitalisation after coronary artery bypass graft surgery.

OTHER CONDITIONS
There are many other advantages associated with a positive outlook, according to a review from Carnegie Mellon University in America. "Positive emotional style was found to be associated with lower rates of stroke, and improved pregnancy outcomes among women undergoing assisted fertilisation. It is also linked to better overall health, and to less pain."

MORTALITY
A review of research into the association between positive wellbeing and mortality shows a signifciant link. The University College London analysis of 35 studies showed that positive psychological wellbeing was associated with an 18 per cent reduced mortality in healthy people and a 24 per cent lower risk in sick people. "Positive feelings - emotional well-being, positive mood, joy, happiness, vigour, energy - and life satisfaction, hopefulness, optimism, sense of humour, were associated with reduced mortality. Results suggest that positive psychological wellbeing has a favourable effect on survival in both healthy and diseased populations.

COMMON COLDS AND OTHER INFECTIONS
A number of researchers have suggested that a positive attitude boosts the immune system and helps fight infections. A study at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and other centres found that a positive mindset - characterised by being happy, lively, and calm - was associated with resistance to the common cold. Volunteers were exposed by nasal drops to a cold or flu virus, and for both viruses, increased positiveness was associated with lower risk of developing an upper respiratory illness. The most positive were 2.9 times less likely to catch a cold. "We found the tendency to express positive emotions was associated with greater resistance to developing a cold." A review of research on HIV by the University of Miami found that "larger and more recent studies showed a relationship between optimism and better health outcomes."

CANCER
Women who are happy and optimistic may have a lower risk of developing breast cancer. The research also show that adverse life events, such as loss of a loved one or divorce , can increase the risk. Results from the study at Ben Gurion University in Israel show that exposure to more than one adverse life event was associated with a 60 per cent increased risk of disease, while happy and optimistic women were 25 per cent less likely to have the disease. "A general feeling of happiness and optimism seems to play a protective role," say the researchers. "The relationship between happiness and health should be examined in future studies and possible relevant preventive initiatives should be developed," say the researchers.

LONGEVITY
Negative thoughts about ageing may cut years off lives, according to research at Yale University. Researchers found that older people with more positive self-perceptions of ageing, which had been measured up to 23 years earlier, lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive thoughts about ageing. The 7.5-year higher longevity for those with the more positive attitudes remained after other factors were taken into account."

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE
A number of studies have found that optimists and people with positive attitudes have lower blood pressure. A study at the University of Helsinki based on teenagers found that pessimists had higher blood pressures during the day and at night. The researchers say that the night-time high levels may be an indicator of an increased risk of heart disease much later in life "Pessimistic attitudes may have a physiological cost on adolescents' blood pressure even when they are sleeping, and take their toll on the cardio-vascular system over a 24-hour period.''

-Independent News