Too much stress can wreck your health. But scientists have found an uncomplicated approach that can take the bite out of its destructive effects.
It may not always be easy, but if you can keep calm, cool and collected in the face of the stress that frequently confronts you, you can tamp down stress’s ill effects on your immune system and avoid its long term influence.
Researchers at the Center for Healthy Aging and Department of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State have found that folks who lose their cool when stressed have immune systems that become overheated with inflammation. And women, according to their results, are particularly at risk for the resultant autoimmune problems like arthritis and heart disease.
So even if you feel like stress is attacking you just about every day, if you can chill out and not let it get to you, your body fares better.
“A person’s frequency of stress may be less related to inflammation than responses to stress,” says researcher Nancy Sin. “It is how a person reacts to stress that is important. Positive emotions, and how they can help people in the event of stress, have really been overlooked.”
In this study, the scientists showed that when you blow your top because of unpleasantness, your immune cells go a little berserk, too. They go on alert, looking for a fight even if there are no pathogens in your body with which to do battle.
The consequences can lead to those immune cells attacking the body itself when they can’t locate an appropriate foe.
But if you can stay focused on positive emotions, your immune cells are less inclined to act unreasonably.
So next time an uncaring motorist cuts you off on the highway or you get into an argument at home or at work, remember that the real winner – and the one who stays healthiest – is the person who can laugh it off.
