Warm People Likely to Keep Cold at Bay1
Staying positive2 through the cold season could be your best defense against getting iii, new study findings suggest. is an experiment that exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or fluvirus3, researchers found that people with a generally sunny disposition4 were less likely to fall ill.
The findings, published in the journal Psychosomatic Medicine, build on evidence that a “positive emotional style” 5 can help ward off the common cold and other illnesses. Researchers believe the reasons may be both objective as in happiness boosting immune function and subjective as in happy people being less troubled by a scratchy throat6 or runny nose.
“People with a positive emotional style may have different immune responses to the virus,”explained lead study author Dr Sheldon Cohen of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. “And when they do get a cold, they may interpret their illness as being less severe.”
Cohen and his colleagues had found in a previous study that happier people seemed less susceptible to7 catching a cold, but some questions remained as to8 whether the emotional trait itself had the effect.
For the new study, the researchers had 193 healthy adults complete standard measures of personality traits, self-perceived health and emotional “style”. Those who tended to be happy, energetic and easy going were judged as having a positive emotional style, while those who were often unhappy, tense and hostile had a negative style.
The researchers gave them nasal drops containing either a cold virus or a particular flu virus. Over the next six days, the volunteers reported on any aches, pains, sneezing or congestion they had, while the researchers collected objective data, like daily mucus production. Cohen and his colleagues found that based on objective measures of nasal woes, happy people were less likely to develop a cold.
词汇：
bay/bei/n．绝境，穷途末路 flu/flu:/流感/(influenza的简称)流(行性)感(冒) virus/5vaiErEs/n.病毒 disposition/dispE5ziFEn/n.本性，性情
psychosomatic/7saikEusEu5mAtik/adj．心身的，身心的 boost/bu:st/v．提高，举起 scratchy/5skrAtFi/adj．刺痛的，使人发痒的 runny/5rQnI/adj．流粘液的 pittsburgh/5pitsbE:^/n．匹兹堡(美国城市) colleague/5kCli:^/n．同事 susceptible/sE5septEbl/adj．易感的，敏感的
catch/kAtF/vt．感染到 trait/treit/n.特质；特性 perceive/pE5si:v/vt．发觉，觉察；理解 energetic/7enE5dVetik/．adj．精力充沛的，精神饱满的easy-going /i:zi5gEuin/adj．随和的 tense/tens/adj．紧张的 hostile/5hCstail/adj．敌意的 nasal/5neizEl/adj．鼻的 ache/eik/n.(长时间连续的)疼痛，酸痛 sneeze/sni:z/vi打喷嚏 congestion/kEn5dVestFEn/n．充血 mucus/5mju:kE s/n.粘液woe/wEu/n.痛苦，苦恼；(复)灾难，苦头
注释：
1．Warm People likely to Keep Cold Gt Bay：情绪乐观的人不易患感冒。warm people原意是“热心肠的人，情绪高昂的人”，keep/hold…to bay是“使……走投无路，不使……接近”的意思，因此本题目如果直译则是”情绪高昂的人可能让感冒不能得逞”或“情绪高昂的人可能远离感冒”或“情绪高昂的人可能拒感冒于千里之外”。
2．staying positive：保持积极向上(的情绪)
3．exposed healthy volunteers to a cold or flu virus：使健康的志愿者接触感冒(病毒)或流感病毒。expose原意是“使暴露，使面临”，这里expose sb．to sth。是“使……接触……”的意思。
4．sunny disposition：乐观开朗的个性
5．positive emotional style：乐观情绪型，情绪积极型
6．scratchy throat：嗓子痛
7．susceptible to：对……敏感的，容易受到……影响的
8．as to：关于，至于
责任编辑：wangpeng6151
