24 Apr Smile and the world smiles with you
Even more research supporting the benefits of smiling…not just for you but also for those around you!
HAPPINESS is contagious, a new psychiatric study into mind-altering mateship proves.
The Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry reports that moods – and even mental illness – can spread like the flu.
Gloom and gladness can infect not only close friends, but "friends of friends" up to three degrees of separation.
Depressed people can also transmit the blues to colleagues, family and friends, psychiatrists have discovered.
The Flinders University research paper says psychiatrists should check the social networks of depressed patients.
"If friends or family are depressed, this might cumulatively increase the chance of the (patient) being depressed," the paper says.
"Equally, the person's depression could have measurable long-term effects on the moods of his or her contacts for three degrees of separation."
One of the authors, Associate Professor Stephen Allison – the clinical director of child and adolescent mental health at Flinders Medical Centre – said happiness was catching.
"Happiness does tend to spread through networks," he said…
…keep reading the full and original article HERE