How stress messes up your immune system

And what to do about it

Here’s a challenge – you know stress is bad for you (it’s linked to heart disease, metabolic disease and neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s, it exacerbates already existing diseases, including autoimmune diseases like inflammatory bowel disease and rheumatoid arthritis).

But do you know why?

I’d like to invite you on a little journey through the world of stress and explore one of the ways that it makes us sick – by messing up our immune system, which, as I keep banging on about, is the answer to whatever the disease question. This will hopefully then shine some light on why yoga and other mind–body practices can help us stay mind–body healthy.

Get ready because this is a long post! But it’s worth it, I promise.

What even is stress?

The challenge is that it’s not actually one clear-cut thing. In fact, stress is lots of things. Yes, it’s the constant nagging feeling in your chest when you have lots of work deadlines or an overwhelming number of tasks. And it’s the feeling in your body that you might get with public speaking. But it’s also going for a run or lifting weights or practicing sun salutations. It’s sitting in the sun for too long. Anything that puts some sort of strain in your body is, well, stress. Or, to be more accurate, it’s a stressor that is detected by the central nervous system and starts a cascade of events that optimises our chance of survival. It can be physical (as might be the case if you are practicing your sun salutations) or psychological (as might be the case when you are about to get up and talk in front of lots of people).