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muriel_volestrangler

(101,150 posts)
Sat Mar 28, 2015, 12:07 PM Mar 2015

The goosebumps test: Science has found the emotion you need to stay healthy

A link has long been proven between negative moods and ill health. But how do positive moods affect us physiologically?

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, set out to discover exactly that when they tracked emotions such as compassion, joy, love, and so on versus the levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6)—a secretion which causes inflammation in the body—in the saliva of 119 university students. The researchers found that those who regularly have positive emotions have less IL-6—and they noticed the strongest correlation with one particular emotion.

Awe.

“There seems to be something about awe,” Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor and the senior author of the study, told the New York Times. “It seems to have a pronounced impact on markers related to inflammation.” Most of us think of awe as something felt rarely—but we may experience it more than we think. The students reported feeling awe three or more times a week. “How great is that?” Keltner said. “Some people feel awe listening to music, others watching a sunset or attending a political rally or seeing kids play.”

http://qz.com/371985/the-goosebumps-test-science-has-found-the-emotion-you-need-to-stay-healthy/

So, that time you spend surfing the net for astronomy pictures is good for you ...

I'm sure it's a lot more complicated than a brief article implies, but still, this make make you feel better. And that might be good for your health.
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The goosebumps test: Science has found the emotion you need to stay healthy (Original Post) muriel_volestrangler Mar 2015 OP
Keltner is one of the new wave of "positive" psychologists, and there are some amazing new findings. Jackpine Radical Mar 2015 #1
That's a wonderful website! I''ve bookmarked it for me and my grandson, who loves science. nt Nay Mar 2015 #2
Kickin' Faux pas Mar 2015 #3
K&R silverweb Mar 2015 #4
which is why I'll stay here!!! elleng Mar 2015 #5
K&R Sherman A1 Mar 2015 #6
Goosebumps are also the key-trait of true poetry, according to Robert Graves, author of Aunt Bold Ire8 Mar 2015 #7
Awwww... Thor_MN Mar 2015 #8

Jackpine Radical

(45,274 posts)
1. Keltner is one of the new wave of "positive" psychologists, and there are some amazing new findings.
Sat Mar 28, 2015, 12:14 PM
Mar 2015

Compassionate acts bring their own emotional rewards, for example.

Aunt Bold Ire8

(7 posts)
7. Goosebumps are also the key-trait of true poetry, according to Robert Graves, author of
Sat Mar 28, 2015, 08:19 PM
Mar 2015

The White Goddess, a rather obtuse and very hypothetical family tree of the linguistic encryption of forbidden knowledge in the mythopoetic roots of Western Literature, inherited from pre-Christian goddess oriented cultures.

Continuing a discussion you'd recognize from the time of Aristotle about aesthetics and what makes good poetry distinct from bad poetry, Graves states that goosebumps, and/or hair prickling in your scalp or on the back of your neck, are some of the effects of experiencing "true poetry" (his term) and this is because a true poem contains "the Mother of all Muses", you could say, in its affect -ive elements.

An interesting concept, given the cognitive issues at least implied by all of the skirmishes between atheism/rationalism and what passes for religion these days.

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