How Could That Be? Flu is an infection. What's stress got to do with it? The answer is the field of psychoneuroimmunology. For more information about the mind-body connection click here. There's a tremendous amount of science proving that things like stress change immune functioning. And there have been many studies proving that people under stress are more susceptible to the flu. You can use this information to your benefit.

Let’s start with a little neurophysiology. The information on this page is fundamental to living well in the face of viral pandemics like the flu, and also coping with the inevitable challenges and difficulties of life in the 21st century. You may already know this, but please review it. The main point is this: The central nervous system that regulates the whole body has a ‘stress response’ and a ‘relaxation response’. In health, these two are in balance. When they get out of balance, it moves us towards disease and suffering. There are easy and inexpensive ways to bring the system into balance.

THE STRESS RESPONSE
The stress response is the ‘get up and go’ response. It mobilizes every one of our organ systems for action. Most of us are familiar with the ‘adrenaline’ feeling when something particularly stressful or frightening occurs—the racing heart, increased respiration, dilated pupils, increased muscle tension, etc. This is called the acute stress response. Most of us are familiar with it because we can feel it. There are associated effects on all the organs of the body. The acute stress response increases muscle strength, mobilizes biochemical energy stores to increase blood sugar, diverts blood away from organs of digestion and waste elimination, and sends blood and oxygen toward the brain and large muscles of movement.

While fearful and dangerous cir circumstances can elicit the acute stress response, pleasurable activities can also. For instance, playing sports, running after a bus, climbing the stairs are acute stressors. Acute stress is not necessarily bad. It’s a normal part of life. The acute stress response is important and valuable because it enables our body and mind to adapt to danger or need for physical exertion.

THE RELAXATION RESPONSE
Stress is normal, and our body and mind have a system for dealing with it. It’s called ‘the relaxation response’. It does the exact opposite of the Stress Response-- a whole other set of physiologic changes. It is sometimes called the ‘rest and digest’ response. It’s the way that we recover from stress. In healthy stress, there is balance between stress and relaxation, so our overall stress level stays under control. This is reflected in stable cycles of stress and relaxation over time.

LIFE OUT OF BALANCE
What many of us don’t know is that the stress response can on low-grade overdrive, and not be noticeable. We can be completely unaware and be way out of balance. We call that chronic stress. Chronic usually stress results from what we perceive to be less intense stressors—work deadlines, traffic, conflict with family, health issues. None of these are overwhelming—they may not cause the racing heart, tight muscles, etc, so we might not even notice the physiologic changes. However, the subtle physiologic changes build on each other and then we suffer. Chronic stress can also come from intense and overwhelming stressors like severe pain, health crises, and trauma. Whether the stressors are intense or subtle, the key element is that the relaxation response doesn’t kick in and balance things out. There can be genetic predispositions, early life experience can contribute, or our lifestyles may be full of too many stressors without enough time in between. Our modern society is plagued with chronic stress. We don’t have as many acute and life threatening stressors as we once did, but we have an epidemic of chronic stress.

I’m recalling one of my patients with chronic back pain. She was working two jobs, had three kids, her husband wasn’t much help around the house, she had financial problems. Every hour there was something else. She was burning out and her pain was getting worse. It seemed like life was spinning out of control.

The diagram indicates that the body and mind are unable to recover between the stressors. So the stress level continues to build. This is the kind of stress that is dangerous and problematic. Because of the richness of communication between the body and mind. chronic stress has implications for many health conditions.

The part that is most relevant to this website is the fact that chronic stress impairs the immune system. The research has been accumulating for many years and goes way beyond cells in a petri dish. Compared to people who are not under chronic stress, stressed individuals typically have reduced responses to vaccines and more infections with viruses. In the case of the flu, research studies showed that chronic stress caused impaired immune responses, and increased rates of influenza infection, and also prolonged illness. (J Neuroimmune Pharmacol. 2006 Dec;1(4):421-7)

If that’s not enough reason to do something about chronic stress, here are some others. People with chronic stress have been shown to have a greater incidence of chronic pain, stickiness of their platelets that predispose toward strokes and heart attacks, insomnia, depression, anxiety, high blood pressure, urinary dysfunction, unstable diabetes, slower wound healing, substance abuse, domestic conflict, and so on.

HEALING CHRONIC STRESS, FIGHTING the FLU
The good news is that there are simple techniques to cut through and reduce chronic stress. Based on twenty years of experience with various meditation practices and my experience of working with thousands of people, I want to suggest a few principles to help you cut through chronic stress. These will be covered in more detail with practical suggestions. Here are the main things to address:

• Learn to elicit the relaxation response—intentionally create the ‘rest and digest’ physiology
• Become aware of how your body and mind expresses stress—we’re all different. When you know yourself, you can constructively work with your pattern.
  
• Become aware of the stressors in your life, and distinguish the ones you are willing to change from the ones you’re not willing to change.
  
• Make it a practice to bring relaxation and freedom into your daily life.

My patient with the back pain learned to let go of stress and evoke the relaxation response. In the process she learned to identify stressors in her life and respond to them more effectively. While her pain didn’t go away completely (she had some structural issues in her spine) it was significantly reduced and she was better able to cope with life and her responsibilities. You can also benefit from stress reduction techniques that we will discuss in the next section.

We started by noting that that chronic stress is harmful in many ways, including increased risk of flu and worse flu symptoms. The research also shows that safe, proven techniques can elicit the relaxation response, help you be aware of stressors, and cope with them more effectively. The result is a balanced stress/relaxation response that will improve your health and quality of life. Please read cutting through chronic stress for more about how you can boost your immunity, improve your health, and increase your sense of well-being.