How does the state of mind affect the immune system?
By Katherine Agranovich, DNH, PHD (c)
Recent scientific studies show that people who do not feel good mentally do not feel good physically.
There is a new science of Psychoneuroimmunology that explains the connection between our mental state, immune system and body.
The limbic area of the brain, that surrounds the hypothalamus is the actual seat of emotions, it controls motivational states and feeding behaviors. The limbic area connects directly to the hypothalamus, which sends out hormones. It takes care of thirst, hunger, blood sugar levels, growth, sleeping, waking, and keeping us happy or angry. When somebody cuts us off in traffic and we “go off”, the hypothalamus sends hormones and chemical messengers- neuropeptides into our bloodstream, affecting the physical state.
There is another aspect of hypothalamus; it affects the pituitary gland, which is responsible for other hormone producing glands- endocrine glands, such as thyroid and adrenal. So, any thought or experience that we perceive in the mind, creates a cycle of hormonal, chemical production, affecting our immune and psychological states in the end.
So, how does the state of mind affect the immune system?
Emotions are connected with an army of immune system soldiers: natural killer cells, interleukins, interferon, leukocytes, B and T cells, which all have the “macrophagic activity”. Not only does the brain send messages out, but it also receives chemical messages from the immune system, creating a continuous loop of communication. One of the hormones produced by the limbic area is cortisol; which is produced at times of stress, positive or negative. Chronic stress, negative mental state or depression will keep high levels of cortisol, causing protein depletion, decreasing the number of immune system’s disease fighting cells.
Another limbic system hormone is epinephrine, which is produced after the adrenal glands send out “fight or flight” responses which cause momentary changes in heart rate, breathing, muscle tone and internal metabolic processes. All of these can be triggered by a single thought or imagery perception. For our brain there is no difference between reality and imagination, the end result is the same on a physical level. This concept makes hypnosis extremely powerful since while in hypnosis we deal with the subconscious part of the mind, which is directly linked to the autonomic system, consisted of all the above mentioned glands.
Another example would be closing our eyes and imagining a very sad movie we have seen. The idea of sadness bypasses the critical mind, sinks inside the subconscious mind, connects to the autonomic nervous system, stimulates the hormonal production and triggers the response of shedding tears.
