The conclusion belongs to a new study

Mar 25, 2010 13:45 GMT  ·  By

While being overly-optimistic might make you look dumb, generally speaking, just the right amount of the feeling may actually have significant health advantages. According to new researches, it could be that always seeing the full half of the glass might contribute to the well-being of the immune system, strengthening it and making it work better overall. The new conclusions were based on investigations conducted on first-year law students, LiveScience reports.

The researchers kept track of a large number of students, which had to report their levels of optimism. In various follow-up tests, samples of their blood were analyzed, so that experts could figure out the state of their immune systems. A direct correlation between the level of optimism in the participants and the strength of their cell-mediated immunity was immediately observed. Those who were more inclined to be optimistic showed increased amounts of the particular type of immune cells that is directly responsible for attacking new pathogens, such as bacteria and microbes.

Conversely, those who tended to only see the empty half of the glass had lower counts of the same immune cells, the team reports. Previous investigations have already established a tight correlation between the psychological and the physical, but the new study went a bit deeper. Researchers now propose that every situation people experience, from fights with loved ones to stress at the workplace, could be participating to their overall health, either promoting or hindering the natural healing abilities that all human bodies are born with.

“To show that a single person – with the same personality and genes – has different immune function when he or she feels more or less optimistic provides a stronger link between the two,” explains Suzanne Segerstrom, a psychology professor at the University of Kentucky, and a coauthor of the new study. According to University of California in San Francisco (UCSF) health psychologist Margaret Kemeny, the new data could have considerable implications for a number of healthcare experts that are involved in counseling and providing specialized mental health treatments.