The cold is a very common illness. However, the symptoms of a cold vary from person to person. Feeling lonely can make cold symptoms worse, a US study has found, suggesting people become more socially active.
Rice university researchers quarantined 159 cold patients between the ages of 18 and 55 in a hotel for five days and assessed their feelings of loneliness and sociability before and after the isolation period.
After controlling for factors such as gender, age and season of the year, the researchers found that feeling lonely did not make you more likely to catch a cold than other people, but you were more likely to feel worse after having cold symptoms.
People should be socially active, said angie Leroy, one of the researchers. “If you build those networks and keep cultivating relationships, you might not feel as bad when you get sick.”
The researchers also pointed out that loneliness does not depend on the number of friends you have, but the quality of your friends is more important than the quantity, as you can feel lonely even in a group of people
