Emotions do affect our immunity: Optimism Pays By Antony Chatham, M.Phil., MSW, LCSW We are constantly protected from invaders like bacteria, virus, fungi, and toxins, by our immune system. But can our thoughts and emotions affect our immune warriors? Yes.
A group of Harvard University scientists,
the body’s ability to resist disease. The
simply recalling an angry experience from
processes once thought not to be
for example, found that in healthy people, their past caused a six-hour dip in levels of
the antibody immunoglobulin A (IgA) which is the first line of defense against infection. Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), over
the last 40 years, has already established that our thoughts affect our immune
centrally regulated. The researchers in
Affective Immunology: is a relatively
psychological factors on many diseases
dedicated to the study of the link between
the field found that there are effects of
including rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and inflammatory bowel disease.
system. PNI researchers study how
One of the new findings in the field,
brain, hormones, and nervous system
psychology at the University of Colorado,
our emotions and thoughts impact our and also our immune system’s ability
to protect us. In addition, these studies have pointed out that changes in the
immune and endocrine systems create
changes in our nervous system which lead to changes in our emotions. The study of the connections between the mind
and the neural, immune, and endocrine (hormonal) systems is the core of the
discipline of psychoneuroimmunology. The basic premise of this approach is
the concept that the mind and body are
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brain influences all sorts of physiological
inseparable. It follows that stress affects
as reported by Maier, S., professor of is that what we call sickness is an
orchestrated process designed by the
immune system to produce energy for
fighting infection and to preserve energy
through behavior changes. Knowing that signals from the brain--in particular the hypothalamus--trigger these sickness
responses, Maier and his colleagues set out to tear apart the molecular machinery at
work. The first step was to figure out how
the brain knows there is an infection in the first place.
| hippocratesinst.org | Immunity and well-being
new interdisciplinary area of research
emotions, affects, and immunology. A
number of studies have shown that both an imbalanced or improved emotional
state can significantly influence the way our immune system works. D’Acquisto, F., University of Roehampton, London,
finds a parallel between emotions and
immune system - emotions and immune
responses are the ways in which a person responds to the environment: they mirror each other, and they are dynamic and
continuously changing. Further research,
the author noticed, that living in a mentally and physically stimulating environment has a beneficial effect on the immune response.
There are some current researchers, like
Klæbo Reitan, of the University of Norway, who study the connection between
