2015年职称英语复习题之卫生类阅读判断（5）

2014-12-08 16:48　　来源：职业培训教育网

Norman Cousins was a famous American magazine editor. In 1964, he returned from an overseas trip and then became very ill. In the hospital, he had terrible pain and couldn't move his body. Doctors told him he had a serious disease called ankylosing spondylitis(强直性脊柱炎)and said he had only 1 chance in 500 of surviving. They gave him powerful drugs, but his condition only got worse.

Cousins had read about a theory that negative emotions can harm your health. He believed that positive emotions were good for one's health, and he decided to try an experiment. He would fill his days with good feelings and laughter and see if that might improve his condition.

He left the hospital and moved into a hotel room. There, he got a large supply of funny TV programs and copies of old Marx Brothers movies and cartoons. He also hired a nurse to read funny stories to him. His plan was to spend the whole day laughing and thinking about happy things. On his first night in the hotel, Cousins found that laughing at the movies helped his body produce chemicals that reduced pain. For the first time in weeks, he could sleep comfortably for a few hours. Every time the pain came back, he watched another funny movie and laughed until he felt better.

Over time, Cousins was able to measure changes in his body with blood tests. He found that the harmful chemicals in his body decreased at least 5 percent every time he watched a funny movie. After a short time, he was able to stop taking all of his medications. Finally his condition improved so much that he could go back to work.

Cousins later wrote a book about how laughter and happiness helped him to survive a deadly illness. Many people didn't believe his story and said that his doctors were wrong about his disease. But since then, research has found that emotions do have a strong effect on physical health, and experiments found that laughter can help to reduce pain. Scientists today are working to understand the ways that our minds affect our bodies.

16. Norman Gousins became ill while he was traveling in another country.