Balanced Immune Health

I’ve written a fair amount on this blog about stress and its impact on immune health. There’s a lot of science out there documenting how prolonged stress or chronic stress can impair immune function, even to the point of inducing serious health conditions and disease. “Chronic or long-term stress can suppress immunity by decreasing immune cell numbers and function and/or increasing active immunosuppressive mechanisms (e.g. regulatory T cells).”

However, a lot of people may not realize that bursts of short-term stress–taking a final exam, getting scared out of your wits at a movie, sweating a job interview, watching your kid’s first piano recital, walking down the aisle at your wedding–may actually improve your immune system.

Me, I just got a new car. I’m going to let my daughter’s prom date drive it to the prom, to the pre-prom dinner and to the post prom. They’ll have it back home by 6:30 in the morning. This before I’ve even put 500 miles on it. Oh well, at least my immune system will thank me for that stressful episode. Just as long as I don’t put myself through that kind of stress every day.

A meta analysis aggregating 293 studies on stress and immune response showed some surprising findings:  “The study confirmed that severe stresses over long periods of time were indeed bad for the immune system. These situations usually caused a wearing down of the immune system.

“The real surprise, however, was that short bursts of stress, like one might experience in a test or public speaking, jump-started the immune system response. The two psychologists surmised that this was the fight-or-flight response which helps the body react to danger. They actually likened this response to a workout for the immune system.”

So when someone says “don’t sweat it,” don’t worry. If you actually do sweat, your immune health should be just dandy.

Filed under Immune Balance, Immune System, Research, Stress, Stress-Related Illness, Uncategorized, immune