Washington, Aug 6 - Positive expectations can help people recover from a number of health conditions, including whiplash, say researchers.

Until recently, not much was known about the correlation between positive beliefs and recovery from injuries such as whiplash.

Symptoms of whiplash injury range from headaches to low back pain and stiff necks, caused by car accidents.

Two University of Alberta (U-A) researchers and a colleague from Sweden have found some answers to that question in three different studies on expectations for recovery.

Linda Carroll, from the U-A School of Public Health, looked at a cohort of over 6,000 adults with traffic-related whiplash injuries. She found that those who had positive outlooks towards their recovery actually recovered over three times faster than those who did not.