People who inculcate positive emotions and maintain positivity are less likely to develop any heart disease than those who tend not to be happy, revealed a new study by the Penn State.
For the study, researchers examined 1,000 patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) over the course of five years and observed that patients who reported higher positive psychological states were more likely to be physically active, sleep better and take their heart medications. These subjects were also less likely to smoke, compared to patients with lower levels of positive states.
Nancy L. Sin, postdoctoral fellow in the Center for Healthy Aging, said, "Negative emotions and depression are known to have harmful effects on health, but now we have found that positive emotions are associated with a range of long-term health habits, which are important for reducing the risk of future heart problems and death."
Although, the research team found no correlation between positive emotions and alcohol use and that positive emotions at baseline did not predict changes in health behaviors. The team concluded that their findings will help in future work on interventions to improve health habits and further research with other chronic disease populations and with electronic tracking of health behaviors should be conducted.
The research is published in Psychosomatic Medicine.