How to Feel Better at No Cost

Here's an interesting bit of research into psychology and health. This bit is from a blog posting at the Psychology Today site:

Is it good for your health to see me coughing, sneezing and blowing my runny nose? Believe it or not, recent research suggests that the answer might be: Yes.

Of course, it's not good for your health if I sneeze right into your face. You're better off not being exposed to all those disease-causing microbes in the first place. But if you are exposed to those microbes, your immune system is going to have to fight them off; and it may fight them off more aggressively if you've just been looking at people who look diseased. That's the implication of some new results published by scientists at the University of British Columbia.

Go read the whole post to get all the details. He discusses why this result makes sense from an evolutionary psychology viewpoint.