Article Title: How your mindset determines your health
Article Summary
This article describes the study showing that the health of a person depends on how he thinks of his exercise compared to his peers. There is a direct correlation between the way people think about their physical activities and their life expectancy. People who think positively about their exercise seem to live more, even when their background of smoking and other health status is taken into account. This clearly shows that our perceptions of exercise make a difference too.
The author analyses three possible reasons for the same. The whole study, however, leaves public health officials in a tricky position. It is required for them to know, which of the two mechanisms is making the biggest difference to life expectancy – knowing the amount of exercise required to stay fit or as the study suggests, taking things positively and not getting discouraged by the high targets that we set for ourselves.
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Words to learn from this Article:
Chronic – persisting for a long time or constantly recurring
Placebo – a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit to the patient rather than for any physiological effect
Nocebo – a detrimental effect on health produced by psychological or psychosomatic factors such as negative expectations of treatment or prognosis