The awe people feel when they connect with nature, art, and spirituality is linked to lower levels of pro-inflammatory cytokines—proteins that tell the immune system to work harder.
“Our findings demonstrate that positive emotions are associated with the markers of good health,” says Jennifer Stellar, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Toronto and lead author of the study, which she conducted while at the University of California, Berkeley.
While cytokines are necessary for herding cells to the body’s battlegrounds to fight infection, disease, and trauma, sustained high levels of cytokines are associated with poorer health and such disorders as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, arthritis, and even Alzheimer’s disease and clinical depression.
