Good news program for those of you who hate positive thinking : Researchers say that being dysphoric does not increase your chances for illness or premature end . The two are touch , they contend , but not the way we remember .
These findings are the result of a 10 - twelvemonth study , published todayinThe Lancet , involve virtually 720,000 British charwoman between the age of 50 and 69 . Researchers sent out questionnaires asking subject area player about their wellness , their income , their lifestyle , and their worked up wellbeing . woman were asked to rate their happiness , stress , loosening , and feelings of restraint over their lives . The responder finish the same questionnaire every three to five twelvemonth .
By the end of the report , 4 percentage of bailiwick participant had give way . As former studies have shown , women who reported being unhappy were more probable to be smokers . They were more probable to be short , more probable to live alone , and less potential to get regular drill .
But once all those factors were control for , they were no less probable than their glad counterparts to get tired of and snuff it . The researchers found no significant difference in the death rate of well-chosen and unhappy women . Nor did they find an increase decease rate in women who report high levels of stress . Women who were disturbed were more potential to say that they were stressed , unhappy , not relaxed , and not in control of their lives , but the research worker institute no grounds that these factors were actually creditworthy for the illness .
All these findings sharply contradict late trends in inquiry , which have emphasized the role ofstressand unhappiness in have disease .
Members of the research team are quite confident in their closing . Speaking in a press release , co - author Sir Richard Peto of the University of Oxford said , “ Many still consider that accent or sadness can straightaway cause disease , but they are simply confusing cause and consequence . Of course people who are ill incline to be unhappier than those who are well , but [ this study ] shows that happiness and unhappiness do not themselves have any unmediated effect on dying rates . ”
Still , it ’s worth mark that happiness is pretty intemperate to measure out . “ There is no perfect or generally agreed elbow room to measure felicity or related immanent indices of wellbeing , ” the research squad admitted in their paper . “ Different approaches thus confine comparability between study . ”
