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A number of scientific studies over the years have shown that maintaining a positive attitude can keep a person healthy. Richard Davidson, PhD and colleagues from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, conducted a study showing that brain activity influences immune function. They looked at 52 individuals between the ages of 57 and 60 who were recruited from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study - a long-term study of more than 10,000 people who graduated from Wisconsin high schools in 1957. The scientists look specifically at whether there was more activity in the left side of the prefrontal cortex and if it also showed a greater immunity to an influenza virus after vaccination.
They vaccinated all the subjects against the flu virus. Before vaccination, they measured the study participants' brain activity, both at a baseline state and during memory tasks that elicit emotion. The participants were asked to recall two events - one that made them feel intensely happy and another that left them feeling intensely sad, fearful or angry. As the respondents focused on the emotion experienced for one minute, the researchers measured the electrical activity in both the right and left sides of the prefrontal cortex.
After the subjects spent five minutes writing about the particular events, the information was again collected. At this point, they also measured the participants' eyeblink reflex in response to sudden noises. This test is used to evaluate how negatively or positively a person reacts to a stimulus. Serum samples were collected over 6 months to track the volumme of flu-fighting antibodies in the blood to determine immune function.
Results show that 6 months after being vaccinated against the flu virus, the subjects who had greater activity in the left side of the prefrontal cortex, instead of the right side, also had a greater rise in the number of antibodies for influenza.
Researchers conclude that these result begins to suggest a mechanism for why subjects with a more positive emotional disposition may be healthier.
In a related study in the current Psychosomatic Medicine Journal, people with a positive attitude -- energetic, happy, and relaxed -- are less likely to catch colds than people who are depressed, nervous, or angry. The study even reported that those who are tense or sad are also more likely to complain of cold symptoms even when they don't have a cold.
10:22:08 PM 
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