This post continues our tradition of guest blogs on Psych-Your-Mind! Here, Elizabeth Hopper-- graduate student at the University of California, Santa Barbara-- discusses the possibility that positive emotions might matter a lot for your health. Read on!
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You may have heard that negative emotions can have an impact
on your health: for example, you may have been told that people who are prone
to becoming stressed or hostile have a higher risk of cardiovascular
disease. But what about positive
emotions? Are positive emotions simply a
nice experience to have, or can they actually serve to protect your health? In today's post, I'll discuss some of the
recent findings on positive emotions and health, and discuss how positive
emotions might help to lower your risk of heart disease.
What's the evidence for positive emotions affecting
health?
In the
past, psychologists have paid much more attention to the role of negative
emotions in health than the role of positive emotions. However, the research that has been done on
positive emotions suggests that they may also be important for health. In one article, (Pressman & Cohen, 2005),
researchers reviewed many of the existing studies on positive emotion and
health, and found that positive emotions are often associated with
increased longevity and better
health. They identified fifteen studies
that examined whether positive emotions lead to increased longevity and found
that, in ten of the fifteen studies, positive emotions were indeed associated
with increased longevity (three studies found that positive emotions were
associated with decreased longevity, and two studies failed to find an
effect). The researchers also looked at
studies assessing the link between positive emotions and morbidity (a term
referring to disease, disability, and poor health). In all six studies looking at positive
emotions and health, they found that positive emotions were associated with
lower morbidity.
In another
recent study, researchers assessed the relationship between positive emotions
and heart disease (Kubzansky & Thurston 2007). The researchers assessed emotional vitality
(a measurement of energy, satisfaction with life, and emotional stability) in
over six thousand adults, none of whom had coronary heart disease at the start
of the study. The participants were then
followed over time, and it was found that emotional vitality at the beginning
of the study was associated with a lower risk of developing coronary heart
disease.
How do positive emotions promote health?
At this
point you might be wondering: why is it that people who experience positive
emotions tend to have better health? Do
happier people tend to behave in ways that promote health, such as exercising
more? Or do positive emotions have a
more direct way of affecting health?
One way
that this can be measured in research is by assessing people's health
behaviors, such as exercise and smoking, and then using statistical techniques
to determine whether the relationship between positive emotions and health
still holds after accounting for these other variables. For example, in the study on emotional
vitality and heart disease, it could be that happy people are more likely to be
nonsmokers or to engage in physical activity, both of which reduce the risk of
heart disease. In order to address this
possibility, the researchers measured whether or not participants smoked and
how often they engaged in physical exercise.
They found that these health behaviors could account for some of the
link between emotions and heart disease, but not all of it.
So if being
happy doesn't just protect people's health by causing them to adopt certain
healthy behaviors, how else might it affect health? One intriguing possibility is that positive
emotions might directly make you healthier by affecting your hormones and
cardiovascular system.
In the case
of heart disease, one key candidate for explaining the link between positive
emotions and health is cortisol. Cortisol
is a hormone released in response to certain types of stress, and prolonged
high levels of cortisol can lead to high blood pressure and higher levels of
abdominal fat, both of which are risk factors for heart disease. In one study (Steptoe, Wardle, & Marmot,
2005), researchers asked people to report on how happy they were and to provide
cortisol samples at several times on two different days. They found that participants who rated
themselves as happier had lower total levels of cortisol: the happiest fifth of
participants had cortisol levels that were 32% lower than the cortisol levels
in least happy fifth of the participants.
Another
factor that may increase risk for heart disease is having high levels of
cardiovascular reactivity in response to stress. While it's normal for your body to
temporarily increase its heart rate in response to a stressful situation,
frequent activation of the cardiovascular system or activation that lasts a
long time can increase your risk for heart disease. However, one recent study suggests that
positive emotions may actually reduce the effect of stressful experiences on
your cardiovascular system. In this
study (Frederickson & Levenson, 1998), researchers had all participants watch
a fear-inducing video, which, not surprisingly, increased their heart rate and
several other measures of cardiovascular activation. Then participants were randomly assigned to
watch one of four videos: an amusing video, a video designed to induce contentment,
a neutral video, and a sad video.
Compared to people who watched the neutral or sad videos, the people who
watched the amusement or contentment videos recovered from watching the fearful
video more quickly. The authors suggest
that positive emotions may have an “undoing” effect, where they serve to
reverse the activation of the cardiovascular system caused by negative
emotions.
Our society
often encourages people to protect their health by reducing the amount of
negative emotions and stress that they experience. But, although there is much less research on
positive emotions, the emerging research on positive emotions and health
suggests that negative emotions aren't the only emotions that can affect your
well-being—if you want to protect your health, you might end up benefiting from
doing something that makes you happy.
Elizabeth Hopper is a graduate student in Social Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include (1) the effects of emotions and relationships on health and (2) the role of rejection sensitivity in close relationships.
Recommended Reading:
Fredrickson BL, & Levenson RW (1998). Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions. Cognition & emotion, 12 (2), 191-220 PMID: 21852890
Pressman, S., & Cohen, S. (2005). Does Positive Affect Influence Health? Psychological Bulletin, 131 (6), 925-971 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.925
Elizabeth Hopper is a graduate student in Social Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include (1) the effects of emotions and relationships on health and (2) the role of rejection sensitivity in close relationships.
Recommended Reading:
Fredrickson BL, & Levenson RW (1998). Positive Emotions Speed Recovery from the Cardiovascular Sequelae of Negative Emotions. Cognition & emotion, 12 (2), 191-220 PMID: 21852890
Pressman, S., & Cohen, S. (2005). Does Positive Affect Influence Health? Psychological Bulletin, 131 (6), 925-971 DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.131.6.925
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That's true negative emotions effect our health psychological and emotional. To make us better individual we should absorb positive vibes.
ReplyDeleteWow! This post is really interesting! Who would have thought that positive emotions would determine your risk for heart disease!
ReplyDeleteI’m curious, though, if serotonin levels were measured in this study as well.
Thanks for sharing!!!
The list could go on forever. It is natural to become disillusioned, depressed and hostile in light of such bad news.
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