Dr David Hamilton Home Page

Being Positive Protects Against the Common Cold
(www.drdavidhamilton.com)

I’ve noticed lately that there seems to be loads of people with the cold or the remnants of a bout of cold/flu, like a persistent sore or irritated throat, or persistent blocked nose or sinuses that just won’t seem to let go. It seems like this season’s colds have clung on a bit too long for many people.
It is likely that our attitudes play a role here.

Studies have shown that people who experience more positive emotions tend to be less likely to catch colds than those who experience more negative emotions.

For instance, a study led by Sheldon Cohen, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, recruited 354 healthy volunteers aged between 18 and 54 years old and gave each of them nasal drops containing the cold virus.

Beforehand, each person was assessed for their tendency to experience positive emotions, like happy, pleased, and relaxed and their tendency to experience negative emotions, like anxious, hostile, and depressed.

The results clearly showed that those who experienced most positive emotions were less at risk of developing the cold than those who experienced more negative emotions.

What does this mean for the average person?

It means that we should look at our lives and pay attention to how we’re feeling. Do you feel stressed, irritable, or hostile a lot? Or do you feel mostly cheery?

The way we tackle the daily situations of our lives can affect our emotions. Some people see everything as a problem and have a tendency to ‘make mountains out of molehills’.

This is not meant as a criticism. We have all been there, and this reads true for many of us right now in our lives. It can be a symptom of difficult situations in our lives, tiredness, work or relationship problems, or even dietary factors. These people typically experience more negative emotions.

Others make ‘molehills out of mountains’ and have a tendency to breeze through situations without getting too hot and bothered. Life seems to be easier for them. But for most of us in the western world, we also know that when this reads true for us it’s not always that life is easy but that it is our attitude that makes life easy.

Changing how we look at things can make the difference between experiencing mostly negative emotions or mostly positive emotions in our daily lives.

Ask yourself if you feel you need to look at things differently in your life?

There are many great tools out there that can help you. Filling a section of my book case are titles like, ‘Authentic Happiness’, by Martin Seligman, ‘Thanks’, by Robert Emmons, and ‘Loving What Is’, by Byron Katie, all which give excellent instructions for increasing the content of positive emotion in our lives.

I’d like to give you just one tool that I have found to be of immense use in my life. Byron Katie tells us not to make assumptions about why people said or did things, but instead to ask ourselves, ‘Can I absolutely know that to be true?’

Most often, the answer is ‘no’. You cannot absolutely know for sure why a person said or did something. All you can really do is assume.

For many of us, negative emotions pour out of negative assumptions we make. And we make it even worse when we act upon our assumptions. A friend of mine once shared some wise words with me.

She said, ‘You know what to assume does don’t you? I said, ‘no’. Then she said, ‘It makes an Ass of You and Me.’ Wise words indeed, ones that I have found to be very true.

Isn’t it interesting that a little shift in how we look at things might just help us keep the cold at bay?

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