Stress And The Immune System
The immune system is a very important part of our bodily functions as its main function is to protect the body against millions of antigens, which attack our cells and try to reproduce viruses and diseases. The immune system can protect the body in three different ways, in which are:
1. It creates a barrier that prevents the antigens from initially entering the body.
2. If the antigens do manage to enter the body, then your immune system will try to detect the virus and abolish it before it begins to spread.
3. If the virus does reproduce and begins to cause problems, your immune system is then responsible for eliminating it.
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They have also found that there are strong links between prolonged stress and disorders, mentally and physically. Kiecolt-Glaser et al 1995 also carried out research into the relationship between Stress and the Immune System.
Kiecolt-Glaser et al 1995 =========================
Aims ----
The aim of this experiment was to determine the effects of stress on the immune system. This was determined by analysing how quickly a person’s wound healed. It naturally is clearly difficult to create stress within a group of participants to examine how stress does affect your immune system. Hence Kiecolt-Glaser required seeking a group of participants in which naturally have high levels of chronic stress.
Procedures
Kiecolt-Glaser et al 1995 used a group of women who were caring for relatives suffering from a rare disease called senile dementia. This responsibility has been known to be associated with chronic stress.
Kiecolt-Glaser et al used a matched participants design, which is where the participants are matched together based on for example age and height. A volunteer sample was used as the participants were recruited using advertisements.
There were thirteen women aged between forty-seven and eighty one year and who were all carers and so they were placed in the experimental group. An additional thirteen
Schneiderman, N., Ironson, G., & Siegel, S. D. (2005). STRESS AND HEALTH: Psychological, Behavioral, and Biological Determinants. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology, 1,
Stress has a huge impact on the immune system. The immune system is interconnected. For example the immune, nervous, and endocrine system is linked through specialized communication pathways involving hormones, neurotransmitters, neuropeptides, and immune cell productions. Stress reactions can directly affect the various response systems and how they handle the neuroendocrine-products. This stress reaction directly affects the hypothalamus and pituitary peptides through the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system. Some of these stressors might be life events, anxiety, and excitements.
The video “Stress Portrait of a Killer” was enlightening. The correlation between each individual’s placement in the hierarchy and their level of stress was not surprising. In fact, it made a great deal of sense. When one is on the lower end of the spectrum, it is a reasonable to anticipate higher levels of stress than when one is at the higher end. The latter, has more control over what is happening in their lives which in turn eliminates that stress. What I found most interesting, is that stress lowers the body’s immunity. I had no idea that the brain cuts non-essential systems like the immune system when stress is present. I found this fact fascinating and rather concerning. For as long as I can remember, I have been very susceptible to
Most studies of the relationship between stress and the immune system have focussed on acute(i.e. short lived) stressors and have found a decrease in immune cell function.
Stress can get bad enough to where it starts to affect your body system. Things like depression, heart attacks, diseases, rashes and a low immune system can all occur to people dealing with stress bad enough. The number of common signs and symptoms is outrageous and is depressing to see that there are so many people dealing with this and how it’s such a common thing in this world. On stress.org, they talk about the different body systems and how they’re affected. The nervous, musculoskeletal, respiratory, cardiovascular, endocrine, gastro and reproductive systems are all affected in some way and in many ways to say the least. If your stress ever gets so bad, I consider seeing a doctor or specialist seeing how dangerous this can get.
Getting sick is another negative factor of being overly stressed. Chronic stress compromises your immune system and stress hormones affect the body’s ability to fight off illness due to the fact that thymus’s ability to stimulate and coordinate the white blood cell activity.
Although gross medical advancements have allowed the human population to live longer and fuller lives without the threat of death from infectious diseases, it is apparent that we are now dealing with a different phenomenon that may be just as harmful to our health. The impact of psychological, social and environmental factors from our daily lives is having a drastic impression on the mental and physical wellbeing of our society. It has been shown in various studies that psychological and neurological factors influence the immune system and can have an effect on our health (Breedlove, Rosenzweig & Watson, 2010). As we allow various stressors, poisonous substances, unhealthy diets and lack of rest to overwhelm our existence, we are
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Most of the time nonspecific defenses keep pathogens from getting into the body. Sometimes one can break through and cause a disease. This is where the immune system comes into use.
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Chronic stress can also interfere with the body’s immune system directly through hormonal changes. Glucocorticoids-a hormone
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Stress can cause many things that affect a healthy body. Stress causes quick yet shallow breathing in which case, the body's cells are being deprived of oxygen. Stress will increase cholesterol levels and can also cause indigestion, heartburn, a decreased sex drive, and also arteriosclerosis (the hardening of the arteries). While these symptoms may seem minimal, stress can decrease the activity of white blood cells. Since the white blood cells fight off sicknesses and diseases, the immune system is affected by stress and can make the body more susceptible to colds, viruses, flues, and diseases (Morrison 2).