The Mind-Body Connections Norman Cousins was a famousAmerican magazine editor. In 1964, he

The Mind-Body Connections

Norman Cousins was a famousAmerican magazine editor. In 1964, he returned from an overseas trip and thenbecame very ill. In the hospital, he had terrible pain and couldn't move hisbody. Doctors told him he had a serious disease called ankylosing spondylitis c强柱炎)and said he had onlyI chance in 500 0f surviving. They gave him powerful drugs, but his conditiononly got worse.

Cousins had read about atheory that negative emotions can harm your health. He believed that positiveemotions were good for one's health, and he decided to try an experiment. Hewould fill his days with good feelings and laughter and see if that mightimprove his condition.

He left the hospital andmoved into a hotel room. There, he got a large supply of funny TV pro-grams andcopies of old Marx Brothers movies and cartoons. He also hired a nurse to readfunny stories to him. His plan was to spend the whole day laughing and thinkingabout happy things. On his first night in the hotel, Cousins found thatlaughing at the movies helped his body produce chemicals that reduced pain. Forthe first time in weeks, he could sleep comfortably for a few hours. Every timethe pain came back, he watched another funny movie and laughed until he feltbetter.

Over time, Cousins was ableto measure changes in his body with blood tests. He found that the harmfulchemicals in his body decreased at least 5 percent every time he watched afunny movie. After a short time, he was able to stop taking all of hismedications. Finally his condition improvedso much that he could go back towork.

Cousins later wrote a bookabout how laughter and happiness helped him to survive a deadly illness. Manypeople didn't believe his story and said that his doctors were wrong about hisdisease. But since then, research has found that emotions do have a strongeffect on physical health, and experiments found that laughter can help toreduce pain Scientists today are working to understand the ways that our mindsaffect our bodies.

Norman Cousins became ill while he was traveling in another country

A.Right

B.Wrong

C.Not mentioned