Stress Can Make You Sick

How to Handle Anxiety

The phone’s ringing, the kids are screaming, you’ve just argued with your husband, and now you have a telltale tickle in your throat, a definite harbinger of a nasty cold. Is it just a coincidence? Psychoneuroimmunology ~ a fast-growing science that measures the link between feelings and the immune system.

According to experts, anxiety can literally make you ill. The spleen, thymus, and lymph nodes, all organs that store white blood cells (the immune system’s main weapon) are connected by nerves to the hypothalamus, a region of the brain that regulates feelings. Therefore, moods can alter the body’s ability to fight infections, diseases, and even certain cancers. Ohio State University Medical Center’s husband and wife team, Janice Kiecolt-Glaser, Ph.D., and Ronald Glaser, Ph.D., studied this phenomenon in medical students. Their findings: Students under the most stress had the poorest immune response to a Hepatitis B vaccine. “We defined stress as high anxiety and low social support,” says Dr. Ronald Glaser. “Students who were less lonely fared much better physiologically.” A study of women with advanced breast cancer at Universite Laval in Quebec, Canada bears this out: The more people subjects had to confide in, the longer they lived. Networking with family and friends to increase social support is important in dealing with anxiety. The key: “Seek people out,” says Dr. Ronald Glaser. “It can make a difference in your health.”

In a 24-hour study of 90 newlywed couples, the Glasers and William Malarkey, M.D., professor of Medicine at O SU Medical Center, asked subjects to discuss relationship problems. Blood and hormone levels were monitored before, during, and after the conflict behavior. The result: “The couples who were most negative and fought dirtiest showed the biggest changes in immune and hormonal response,” says Dr. Glaser. “The women’s anxiety hormone levels were higher and stayed up longer than the men’s.” To avoid this anxiety:

• Learn how to fight fair.
• Don’t hold on to old arguments ~ or chronically bad relationships.
• If you can’t sort things out yourselves, by all means get professional help.

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