Supporting Immune Health In Anxious Times
Life’s uncertainty can feel overwhelming, and stress can take a real toll on your health. The good news is there are practical, effective steps you can take to support your well-being.
Welcome to the new normal: news is scary, weird or just plain unsettling. Add to that, flu and COVID season is right around the corner. So what can we do to protect and boost our immune system during uncertain times? While some things might be out of our control, here are two important ways we can support our health.
Get Enough Sleep
Shoot for getting seven or more hours of sleep each night. Sleep is an under-recognized pillar of health. Stressful, chaotic times can wreak havoc on our ability to get enough Zs, but protecting your sleep schedule can be a key component to protecting your health.
In this study from a team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, researchers intentionally exposed a group of 164 volunteers to rhinovirus, the virus that causes the common cold. They then randomized the group to differing amounts of sleep time. Those participants randomized to six hours of sleep or less were four times more likely to develop cold symptoms than those who got seven hours or more.
The mechanisms through which sleep impacts our immune system have been widely demonstrated. So though watching Netflix may provide a welcome distraction during anxious times, don’t let it interfere with your sleep. Turn off the devices and hit the sack by 10:00 pm to ensure you’re getting the longest and most restorative sleep possible.
Manage Your Stress
Modulating your stress response is as important for our immunity as it is for overall emotional health. Though it is simply not reasonable to eliminate stress in our current public health and political reality, it is possible, at times, to change our reaction to, and behavior around, stress. As with sleep deprivation, chronic stress is correlated with suppressed immune function, as well as numerous adverse health outcomes, from our ability to survive cancer and heart disease to our capacity for fighting acute or latent infections.
So how can we acknowledge and respond to stress, without allowing it to hijack our immune system? Stanford psychologist Kelly McGonigal PhD reminds us that our feelings about stress are as important as the stress response itself. “There is a reason stress has a bad reputation, and part of it is the evidence that chronic and traumatic stress can increase the risk of illness, depression and early mortality, among other things.”
But changing the way we feel about stress actually changes the way stress lands in our body. Stress that is associated with meaning and purpose- for instance, caring about our friends and neighbors- can have a positive effect. Viewing stress as a helpful part of life, rather than as harmful, is associated with better health and emotional well-being, even during periods of high stress.
Lastly, while chronic stress is associated with poorer outcomes, short term stressors actually provide an immune boost. A recent study in Psychoneuroimmunology showed that subjecting laboratory rats to mild stress caused a massive mobilization of several key types of immune cells into the bloodstream and other tissues. Firdaus Dhabhar, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and a member of the Stanford Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection, "Mother Nature gave us the fight-or-flight stress response to help us, not to kill us."
In Summary
These are uncharted waters for all of us. There is so much that feels, and may be, beyond our control. Yet coming back to the moment and making small changes and adaptations in areas where we do hold the reins will help us stay strong, healthy, and resilient.
References
Study explains how stress can boost the immune system. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2012/06/study-explains-how-stress-can-boost-immune-system.html.