Your Immune System Matters
The conversation around immunity is a big one right now. You’ve probably heard endless discussions related to herd immunity, vaccines, immune boosts, and all sorts. The coronavirus has re-opened the conversation about immunity and your immune system.
It has also re-opened the conversation about mental health, or more to the point – worry, depression and anxiety. With the global community in the same boat, fighting the same virus, and many people under pressure to balance work (whether from home or otherwise), home school children, and stay safe, we are all feeling the impact of worry, depression, and anxiety.
But here’s the thing… with a spike in all of this stress your immune system is working harder than normal.
When your immunity is low you are more susceptible to every illness going around and that includes COVID-19. Therefore, it is of vital importance to you to first understand how worry, depression and anxiety impact your immunity and more importantly, what you can do about it.
Worry, Depression, Anxiety and Your Immune System
Your immune system is closely linked to stress – which includes worry, depression, and anxiety – as they all feed off of each other. The big question is why?
Your immune system has one big job – it serves as the body’s first line of defence against viruses, bacteria, germs, etc. Your health depends on it. Your immune system is perched, waiting for health invaders to appear in order to attack them as swiftly and efficiently as possible to ensure they will not damage your health.
What the coronavirus has done positively, is highlight the need for hygiene. It has made everyone more mindful of how often they touch their face and how often they pick up objects that others touch. The cold virus can live on coffee mugs, pens, computers, and a wide range of objects for hours!
The flu virus can linger on money for weeks! So, think about how an office environment can affect someone with flagging immunity?
That’s why it’s important to wash your hands frequently. As great as your hygiene is, though, if you’re under stress, trying to cope with worry, anxiety, or depression, then you’re fighting a losing battle.
Worry, anxiety and depression weakens your immunity
Worry, anxiety and depression alone are not enough to make you catch every virus or cold passing through. However, as they all weaken immunity, your body struggles to deal with the invasion, which leaves you even more vulnerable to illness and infection.
There’s also the problem that recovery can be slowed by worry, anxiety and depression. Your immune system is busy dealing with the stress your body is under and can’t send resources to deal with the new invasion. Your body is essentially at war with itself and you’re the fall-guy.
In a perfect world, once a threat passes, cortisol and adrenaline levels drop, your heart rate returns to baseline, your blood pressure normalizes, and everything goes back to normal.
Your stress response system is self-limiting, or at least it should be. But when anxiety, depression or worry are present? You are constantly being plunged into “fight or flight”. The reaction remains in the on-position and your body is getting bathed in stress hormones.
How does your immune system cope? It can’t. It is unable to respond as it should and instead it inflames, leading to other health issues related to inflammation.
How do you respond to stress?
There’s another big issue when you’re dealing with anxiety, depression and worry. Your coping strategies. How do you respond to stress? Do you eat your emotions? Do you drink more alcohol? Do you smoke more cigarettes (or pick up a long-forgotten smoking habit)? Do you live on caffeine and junk food, just trying to get through?
We are all guilty of resorting to the most unhealthy coping strategies available to us because those strategies provide us with instant relief. Unfortunately, they complicate issues long-term. Not only can they contribute to ill health and other lifestyle diseases, but it makes the initial problem even worse!
Stress feeds worry, anxiety and depression, worry, anxiety and depression feed stress. It’s difficult to break free from a vicious cycle that feeds the way it does. Studies have shown that stress wreaks havoc on immunity, making you more likely to develop illnesses. In one study, scientists polled almost 200 participants. They were asked about their stress levels over the preceding 12 months and then given drops of the cold virus.
The participants who had reported being under stress in the last 12 months were twice as likely to catch a cold after being given the virus. In a second experiment, the scientists were able to confirm stress encourages the body’s inflammatory response.
In the short-term, worry, anxiety and depression increase your heart rate and breathing. It’s a physical response, one that is supposed to prepare you to deal with an intense event or situation.
Your blood flow is concentrated on your brain because that’s where your body believes it’s needed most. This is a positive reaction if you are, in fact, facing danger. However, if it continues you may start to feel nauseous and lightheaded. If anxiety, worry and depression become a persistent state of living for you, then it can take a toll on both your physical and mental health.
Sadly, this can happen to us at any age and at any stage of life
Central Nervous System
If you suffer from worry, anxiety, or depression for a long period of time then your body and brain are being exposed to stress hormones regularly which can increase the likelihood of depression, headaches, and lightheadedness.
When you’re feeling stressed out and anxious, your body floods your central nervous system with chemicals and hormones designed to help you deal with threats. The two best examples of this are cortisol and adrenaline.
As mentioned earlier, these are helpful when faced with a genuine threat and they are helpful for the short-term. The problem enters when faced with long-term exposure. While there are a host of symptoms related to this, one of the big ones is weight gain, which can lead to its own negative health effects.
Other Systems in the body are affected
Worry and anxiety can also influence your digestive and excretory system. It can lead to symptoms of stomach ache, diarrhoea, constipation, nausea and related digestive problems.
It can also result in a loss of appetite. It’s theorized that there could be a connection between irritable bowel syndrome and anxiety. IBS can present with diarrhoea or constipation, as well as stomach aches, abdominal cramps and vomiting.
Respiratory
Worry, anxiety, and depression can result in shallow, rapid breathing. This increases the risk of hospitalization for those with existing respiratory issues including asthma. Anxiety offers complications to existing illnesses.
Immunity
As we have already discussed, worry, anxiety and depression can trigger your body’s fight or flight response, releasing a flood of adrenaline and cortisol.
While this causes an increased pulse and impacts your breathing, in the short-term this is beneficial because your body is ensuring your brain gets what it needs to deal with what’s about to come. In fact, you may even enjoy a brief immunity boost in this type of situation.
Your body should return to normal once the worry, anxiety, or stress passes. Unfortunately, many of us get trapped in a fight or flight cycle that is difficult to break, weakening your immunity.
Additional Issues
The symptoms discussed thus far aren’t the only outcome, you may also experience muscle tension, social isolation, headaches, sadness, nightmares and insomnia. All of this combined contributes to feelings of worry, anxiety, and depression. It is incredibly difficult to break out of this cycle without help.
Signs of Low Immunity
How do you know where your immunity sits?
Low immunity is the term that we use to describe a poor-performing, under-active immune system. This might be due to stress or other lifestyle factors, but it can also be due to other illnesses. Regardless, it leaves your body unable to fight infections and diseases the way it should.
There are signs of low immunity you can look out for. If any of these symptoms sound familiar, then you might want to review your worry, depression and anxiety levels.
- Do you catch every cold that passes through?
- Do you fight off more than two colds annually?
- Do you suffer from a chronic infection?
- Do you often have sore or swollen glands?
If you suffer from chronic (or recurrent) infections, even if they are only mild, they do so when your immune system is weak or low. Once your immunity has been weakened it makes it difficult to overcome. It’s that vicious cycle we were talking about.
It’s difficult to break out of it when everything in your life is pushing you further into that cycle. Low immunity begets infections, infections begets immunity damage, which begets an even lower immunity. Therefore, one of the biggest factors in getting on top of your immunity to fight illness is learning effective stress management.
Support Your Immunity
Your immunity is directly influenced and impacted by your emotional state. It’s directly impacted and influenced by your lifestyle, nutritional status, dietary habits, stress levels and beyond.
So, if you want to support your immunity, then you have to address all of these areas. If you are only as strong as your weakest link, I would encourage you to consider what your weakest link is. Once that link weakens and breaks your chain, the rest of the links will follow. So, address the weakest link first and go from there.
How effectively would you say you manage stress?
Your attitude and mood heavily influence your immune system. When you’re optimistic, upbeat and happy then your immunity is likely higher. When your mood is low and you feel negative, your immunity follows. There could be dozens of reasons for this. However, we can probably agree that a low mood is a symptom of worry, anxiety or depression.
So, it checks out. Stress management is one of the most important tools in your arsenal. If you learn to manage stress, you will improve your sleep cycle, which will improve your diet, which will improve your stress levels, which will strengthen up those weak links while helping you get your immunity back on track.
Stress and Anxiety Triggers
The reality of life is that it comes with highs and lows, some of which can be profound.
Chronic, long-term stress is detrimental to your immunity and it’s feeding your worries and anxieties. So, learning your triggers is a big part of boosting your immunity and stress management.
The most common stresses we face involve family, romance, work and money. Major life changes (bereavement, divorce, ill health, moving, etc.) can also trigger bouts of anxiety, depression and worry.
Ultimately, many of these stressors are external. You may not be able to control them, you can only be able to control your response.
You can learn more about your triggers by answering the following questions for yourself. It’s a good idea to write down the answers rather than just think about them.
- What are the most stressful events I have experienced in my lifetime?
- Which issues or problems seem to recur?
- When was I last stressed out?
- What caused this?
- Was there a particular person in my life at that time who causing or adding to the stress?
- How did I react emotionally, mentally, and physically?
- What helped me overcome the stress?
Often, the consciousness we awaken in ourselves on this subject can help equip us with the tools necessary to overcome this.
Mind And Body Are Connected
Physical improvements to combat stress
The first step is choosing an activity you enjoy or one which appeals to you. Physical activities can help you rebalance the glut of stress hormones flowing through your body and help you bust emotional tension as well.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s yoga, walking, hiking, running or salsa dancing. It should always be something that will keep you coming back for more. You’re more likely to continue with physical activity if it doesn’t always feel like a chore.
Your diet matters. Reduce your intake of caffeine, sugar and alcohol. These are stimulants that result in more cortisol pulsing through your system. Even if you do get immediate relief from tension, it’s only temporary and in the long-term, it’s making everything worse!
Do yourself a favour and get a change of scenery, whether it’s meeting up with a friend, communing with nature, or just getting out of your neighbourhood.
Emotional Improvements
Do not underestimate the power of great people! The relationships you have forged throughout your life aren’t just for entertainment. This is a support network.
You have ‘collected’ a group of like-minded friends, people who can offer a shoulder to lean on, people who understand what you’re going through and will help you search for solutions to reduce your anxiety, worries, or depression. Don’t be afraid to reach out to them, wouldn’t you want them to do the same if your positions were reversed?
Do take a timeout to breathe. You deserve to enjoy quality time for yourself and it’s part of a healthy self-care routine (at least it should be).
Whatever is going on in your life, always make time to do the things you enjoy.
Mental Improvements
Your mindset matters. Put your attention on the positive aspects of your life. This takes the attention off of negativity and helps to improve your mood and your outlook on life.
Some additional questions you can ask include:
- What lesson is there in this about myself and my situation?
- What is the greatest act of self-care I could practice right now?
- What support am I in need of?
- What options are available to me?
- What can I take control of in my life right now?
Any questions you ask along these lines should be about empowerment. You should be moving yourself away from feeling like you’re a victim and get back into the driver’s seat.
At the end of the day, you control what is going on within you. That might be a tough pill to swallow but try these exercises and see if it works for you. Your response is your own and modifying this response can go a long way to relieving anxiety, depression and stress.
You’re not alone in this. We all experience worry, depression and anxiety during our lifetimes. It doesn’t mean you have a mental illness.
If you find it difficult to work this out on your own, talk with a friend. It helps to have someone to listen to you – they don’t need to offer their opinion and tell you what to do, they just need to listen.
How To Beat Worry, Depression and Anxiety
At the core of all of these issues is stress. So, it wouldn’t be right to provide you with all of this information and advice without offering you some helpful tips on how to beat stress.
Exercise to beat stress
A great workout is an excellent way to boost your feel-good hormones, yes, but it’s also an excellent way to release frustration. If you are struggling with anger, frustration and other similar negative emotions, consider a stress-relieving exercise like boxercise, boxing kickboxing, etc.
A long walk is also a great way of calming yourself. Put on your favourite playlist, tie your most comfortable pair of shoes and take a long walk to de-stress. It isn’t just the exercise that helps you beat worry, anxiety, and depression – it’s getting your attention off of your problems and out into the environment (and the extra vitamin D from being outside is helping, too!).
Just minutes into your exercise regiment, your body experiences an increase in white blood cells, which fight sickness. They’re like your body’s soldiers, immediately going into attack mode to deal with any threat. Therefore, the more active you are as a person, the stronger your immunity is.
Distraction by Laughter
Don’t underestimate the power of a good belly laugh. What makes you laugh? Seek it out as often as possible. Comedy doesn’t just provide us with an outlet to work through emotions, it also offers a great distraction from what’s going on which allows you to take a break from the seriousness of your life.
Speaking of distractions, what activity, toy, gadget, or hobby holds your attention? We all need something and it’s even better if it’s something you turn to only when you need to think clearly and bust anxiety, worry and depression. A slinky, a yo-yo, a book that makes you feel good… they are all great ways to distract yourself from stress.
Deep-Breathing for stress
Any type of exercise or activity that focuses on your breath is a positive way to relax your muscles, to calm your mind and provide you with some distance between you and all of the anxiety in your life.
Deep breathing exercises are very effective. When we worry and stress, when we’re dealing with anxiety and depression, we often alter our breathing pattern without realizing it. Your breathing tends to become shallow, which only exacerbates the symptoms you’re experiencing.
A deep breathing exercise helps you kick your breathing back to normal, but also provides you with a bit of relaxation as you do so. The best part is you can deep breathe stuck in traffic, at your desk, or even on a literal rollercoaster (tactically, of course).
The simplest deep-breathing exercise is to breathe in for a count of 4 and breathe out for a count of 4.
Another one is the 4-7-8 method. Close your mouth and inhale through your nose to a count of 4. Hold your breath for a count of 7. Exhale completely through your mouth, making a whoosh sound to a count of 8. This is one breath. Repeat 3 or 4 times.
Hydration and stress
Since you’re been exercising more, be sure to increase your hydration as well! Granted, all of us could benefit from an extra glass or two of water daily but the thing is dehydration (even the slightest level) can result in heart palpitations. There are sensors throughout your body and hydration is a key way to ensure that your hormones retain it instead of stress hormones.
Relax by Dancing
Crank your favourite playlist and dance like nobody is watching (even if they are!). If this isn’t your cup of tea, try any activity that allows you to properly let loose. Even sitting quietly with a cup of tea can provide you with stress relief!
Diet and stress
Eating a healthy diet isn’t just about weight loss, it also supports immunity. Whole foods are always better – in terms of fruits and vegetables, you should eat a rainbow (lots of different coloured fruits and veg). As for the rest, look for as few ingredients or processed food involved as possible.
You don’t have to cut entire foods out, but you should limit refined sugars, processes food, caffeine and alcohol.
Eating an unhealthy diet can make you tired and more stressed. It affects your gut (digestive system) and has a knock-on effect resulting in anxiety, depression and more.
Lifestyle
As far as lifestyle goes, how would you rate yours? Do you spend time with your family? Do you indulge in hobbies and find time to play each day? Or do you spend all your time working and stressing?
It’s beneficial to laugh and enjoy life, so instead of feeling guilty about taking time for yourself, start prioritizing it in your schedule. It can be a false economy if you just work-work-work. Taking some time out to do something you enjoy, meet friends etc. recharges your “batteries” and helps you be more productive when you’re working. As I said above – take some time to breathe.
Sleep is another key issue we have already touched on. The average adult needs around seven hours each night for optimum performance. If you can improve your sleep, you can improve the other aspects of your lifestyle where you may struggle. If you have trouble with sleep read this article on 7 Ways to Prepare for a Good Night’s Sleep and What to do When You Can’t Sleep?
More Key Actions to Reduce Stress
Here are some key actions to help boost your immune system:
- No smoking
- Regular exercise
- Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables
- Maintain your weight (once you reach a healthy level)
- Adopt a healthy sleep cycle
- Learn to manage stress
- Drink alcohol in moderation
- Take care to avoid illness by following food safety rules, practising personal hygiene, and making good decisions
Ultimately, your first line of defence to boost your immunity is adopting a healthy lifestyle. Good-health guidelines should help you keep on track.
Try using the power of pausing.
When you’re faced with a destabilizing emotion, try responding differently. This destabilizing emotion could present as fear, worry or anxiety. You can disengage by pausing and observing the situation as though you’re an objective witness. You do not suppress, you do not judge, you do not engage. This is where a deep breathing exercise will play an important role as you aim to calm yourself to provide space and engage your discernment to respond appropriately.
There are also tools such as becoming more aware of the present moment.
This is a grounding technique to help you gain awareness of the moment and your surroundings. It takes your focus away from the escalation of negative thoughts and encourages calm.
First, you have to disengage from the reaction, relaxing your shoulders and above as you take deep breaths. Then pause to experience all of your senses – notice the sights, the smells, sounds and details going on around you. By becoming aware of the present moment, you’re taking control of and bringing calm instead of allowing a state of overwhelm to set in.
An excellent way of becoming more aware of the present is Self Analysis.
When you’re faced with negative emotions you can be intentional about engaging in positive emotions as a way of both stabilizing your emotional state and also healing it.
As you engage intentionally in positive emotions you move from a state of chaos to a place of calm. A way to do that is to smile. Another way is to decide to be cheerful. If you’re walking along the street and people see you smiling, they respond differently, maybe smile back and before long you start to feel like you mean it!
Final Thoughts
Right now, it may feel as though we live on ‘planet fear’. We are being battered with negativity on a daily basis and worry, depression and anxiety are growing.
While the coronavirus has shifted the conversation and forced everyone to face the state of their physical health, there has been very little done to address emotional and mental health.
As panic takes over our immunity is dropping, which is only leaving us more vulnerable to the spread of all illnesses, including COVID-19.
One can have thousands of thoughts in a day and if these are affected by negativity the thoughts result in low-grade cortisol baths – meaning small increases of cortisol all day long – that only add to your worry, anxiety, depression and stress.
Now, consider how much worse it is when the entire world is in a stressed panic. With so many people dealing with unchecked worry, anxiety and depression it is having a serious impact on immunity. Your immunity matters all the time, but it’s particularly important right now and so protecting yourself at these times is of major importance.
Your health matters and with the uncertainty of the times we live in don’t let worry, anxiety and depression run rampant in your life, especially now that you have some tools and knowledge necessary to manage them more effectively. Once you master the art of stress management to improve your immunity, you can help others do the same.
Need help dealing with stress?
The 10 day Stress Detox course gives you 10 days of practical things to do to reduce stress – one each day.
If you need help please do get in touch.
References:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5476783/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5958156/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120402162546.htm