EP02 Sarah Pressman PhD and The Power of Positive Emotions

In this podcast episode you’ll learn that new research shows that skin heals faster from a flesh wound if you’re more positive and how smiling, even when you don’t feel happy can reduce your stress. This podcast is all about the new research proving there’s a connection between your emotions and your health.

This idea is probably one you’ve thought about before. There are certainly countless self-help gurus, talk shows and magazine articles that reinforce the idea that how positive you are can influence how healthy you are. But what does the evidence say about all this? Can positive thinking really affect how well we are? 

I recently chatted to Sarah Pressman PhD who is a leading researcher at the University of California, Irvine who looks at the connection between our emotions and health. She recently published the results of a fascinating experiment where she gave willing volunteers a minor skin wound and she found that people with higher levels of positivity healed more quickly than less positive people. So just think about that for a moment… if you’ve been seriously injured or you’ve had surgery, you want to get better as fast as possible right?

And if Sarah Pressman’s research is anything to go by… how positive you are could influence that.