Stress making you sick?

Your immune system operates as a microscopic army fighting a silent, relentless war against invading microorganisms and renegade cells turned cancerous. Like a xenophobic vigilante posse, it protects us against infections and malignancies by destroying, deactivating, or eliminating the enemy, searching relentlessly for strangers and either lynching them or riding them out of town on a rail.

There are two parts to the immune system: humeral and cellular. The humeral part floats through the body's fluids. It is composed mainly of antibodies that fight bacterial and viral invasions. The cellular part fights viruses that get inside your body's cells, transplanted tissue, fungi, protozoa, and cancer cells. When the humeral part breaks down, you are easy prey for infections such as colds or flu. When the cellular part breaks down, you are at risk of developing cancer, among other things.

Stress powerfully influences your immune system's efficiency. Day in and day out, your immune system works quietly and independently to keep you healthy. If it's overreactive, it may attack normal body tissue and you develop allergies and autoimmune diseases.

The cortisol and adrenaline that stimulate the physiological arousal of the stress reaction negatively impact the immune system. Numerous scientific studies show that stress can make the immune system either under- or overreact. Stress precipitates and/or exacerbates many infectious, malignant, allergic and autoimmune diseases.

One recent study demonstrated that stress increased susceptibility to the common cold. People with and without high levels of stress were exposed to the same cold viruses through a nasal spray. Those with high stress showed symptoms at a significantly higher rate of infection than low-stress people.

Stress-reduction strategies increase the efficiency of the immune system and alleviate the symptoms of disease. Nowhere have the effects of stress-reduction techniques on the immune system been shown as dramatically as in the behavioral treatment of malignant diseases such as cancer.

Click on other stress symptoms you may have experienced to learn more about what you can do about them as well.

Neuromuscular
Parasympathetic
Sympathetic
Emotional
Cognitive
Hormonal