Why positive emotions may be the next big predictor of health

What if joy or amusement could improve your health—would you smile more today? That’s precisely the question psychology researcher, Jennifer Stellar, PhD, has explored in her work. The University of Toronto postdoctoral fellow recently presented her research at TEDMED 2015. Learn about her evidence-based approach to exploring human emotions and why our feelings may have a greater impact on our well-being than we expect. Measuring positive emotions and health To determine whether emotions impact health, Stellar launched two studies in which she measured students’ levels of proinflammatory cytokines, which if chronically elevated for long periods of time, can have harmful health effects contributing to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and depression. In her research, Steller specifically measured students’ levels of Interluken-6 (IL-6), a common proinflammatory cytokine, based on the emotions they exhibited. Stellar noted that she and her research staff had an important hypothesis to test. “Our idea was that people who experience more positive emotions will have lower levels of IL-6 circulating in their body,” she said. “Why did we think this? Certain negative emotions have been associated with increases in IL-6, so we thought perhaps positive emotions would have an opposite effect leading to lower levels of this damaging biomarker.” Stellar had students come to a lab where she measured how many positive emotions they experienced in the previous month,...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news