Are you weak? Are your relationships weak?
We know that low levels of vitamin C, smoking and poor sleep increase the likelihood of infection. The question is: can you add a stressful relationship to that list? Sheldon Cohen, a psychologist at Carnegie Mellon University, answers: definitelyCohen assigns precise numerical values to the factors that cause one person to catch a cold and another to stay healthy.
Those who had ongoing personal conflict were 2.5 times more likely to catch a cold than others, putting conflicted relationships in the same causal range as vitamin C deficiency and insufficient sleep. (Smoking, the most damaging unhealthy habit, made people three times more likely to succumb.)
Conflicts lasting a month or more increase susceptibility, but an occasional argument posed no health hazard.
Thank you for reading me.
– Dr Roch
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