Impact of Stress Immune System and Health Assignment Sample
Mental stress is a major concern for several individuals and this can have a toll on their health due to the fact that mental stress can lead to the declining effectiveness of the immune system. In this regard, the following essay is based upon the major impact of stress on mental health and the immune system, which directly and indirectly affects an individual’s overall health. The health and well-being of an individual are directly dependent upon how strong their immune system is and with consistent stress, the immune system declines in terms of functionality, which can have a major effect on the overall health.
In today’s rapidly upgrading lifestyle, mental stress has become the most common issue, which is taking over the heath of an individual’s psychological space. As mentioned by Sabel et al. (2018), stress is the response that is developed by the mind in order to protect the individual from certain situations. There are several causes that assist in generating the level of stress to increase in an individual’s mind. The situations and pressures are the major issues that act as the stressors for mental stress (Peters, McEwen & Friston, 2017). Extreme hectic work hours, busy lifestyles, negative relationships are the ones that put an individual to create a situation where it causes mental stress. However, anything, which puts pressure, can also lead towards stress of the mental space.
Mental peace is the most important part, which should be there in one’s life to be productive as well as innovative to lead life successfully. As demonstrated by Castaldo et al. (2017), if the mental peace is being affected then the all over lifestyle as well as the health will be affected significantly. Sometimes a positive situation can also cause mental stress issues such as getting married or receiving promotions in the workplace, which comes with many responsibilities in one’s life (Shah et al. 2020). One of the most common causes, which generate mental disruption, is excessive worrying over any situation, which has happened or may have the possibility to take place in future. The pessimistic and irrational thoughts about life can affect the mental peace heavily along with affecting the health of an individual as well (Ritsma & Forrest, 2020).
The stress at work is the most common factor, and it is normal, as it allows to improve the performance along with the productivity of the individual. However, too much work pressure can severely affect one’s emotional and physiological health that results in affecting the relations along with lack of attention towards one’s health. As suggested by Yu, Park & Hyun (2021), financial stresses are very difficult for those who are emotionally and mentally weak and thus, it puts pressure on the mental health of an individual. According to modern life, the stressors are the unexpected expense, loss of work and heavy debt, which are taking over the population’s mental health severely. As mentioned by Makhbul & Rawshdeh (2021), coping with the losses or the trauma which has been healed in the past are the stresses that make an individual overwhelming and psychologically weak over the passing period of time. In recent times, the emergence of Covid-19 has become one of the biggest stressors for all of the population as it comes with huge losses, unemployment, as well as the fear of death. Most people have lost their friends and family during this period of time, which automatically drives the stress in one’s mental space, which started to affect them vigorously afterwards (Makhbul & Rawshdeh, 2021). Furthermore, the fear of the pandemic is mostly associated with mental stress and anxiety among the population along with several mental health disorders. The impact of stress on the immune system in these cases can have a severe effect on health due to psychoneuroimmunology aspects that link the immune system to psychological factors like mental stress.
Stress is the issue that takes out the ability to adapt and cope with certain abilities in an individual life. Moreover, the high level of stress in an individual can also cause depression and increased inflammation as well (Peters et al. 2021). There are several diseases that will emerge if there is a high level of stress contributing to one’s life. Too much stress influences the body to have Arthritis, which leads to the painful movement and swollen joints of an individual. As mentioned by Butolo et al. (2021), the level of frustration will increase along with struggling to cope up with the regular simpler life routine. Stress allows the mind to be restless which ultimately affects sleep along with disrupting the digestive system as well. In relation to this, Doctor Alla Model asserted, “Being uncomfortable and in pain makes people more emotional and increases stress” (Cleveland Clinic, 2021). In these cases, the increased level of stress in an individual can lead to severe cases of trauma and reduce the effectiveness of the immune system to fight the pain. The immune system of an individual is active throughout the lifetime and therefore incidence, which causes physical pain, is often triggered as a part of the immune response. The immune system alerts the brain of any physical damage; however, this also increases the stress level (Xing et al. 2019). In such cases, doctors are often found to say that individuals should include anti-inflammatory foods so that their consciousness levels decline which is very helpful to reduce the stress levels. If the individuals are not put in an unconscious state then there are chances that they might suffer from mental stress and anxiety, which would reduce the body’s ability to fight against physical damage that the doctors are trying to treat (Mikkelsen et al. 2021). Therefore, this again proves the fact that increased stress levels can have a detrimental impact on the immune system reducing the body’s capability to remain fit. Primary health care respondents know an aspect quite well due to which sedatives are given to two people suffering from major physical damages. Another similar instance can be drawn during the time individual’s operation when they are sedated so that they are not aware of the operation that is done on their bodies (Rastogi et al. 2018). Adding to this, the stressful environments can also indirectly lead to the emergence and deterioration of diseases with which individuals are already inflicted or might be inflicted due to a dysfunctional immune system caused due to psychoneuroimmunology impact.
Several other diseases that emerged after the increased level of stress in an individual’s body such as Fibromyalgia, Lupus, Heart Diseases, and Psoriasis affect the immune system severely. As mentioned by Correia, Cardoso & Vale (2021), the immune system is the force that helps in protecting the body from falling sick and getting other diseases. The immune system has the ability to fight off the virus and bacteria, as it is the combination of several white blood cells. However, stress creates a hormone in an individual body named cortisol (Menke et al. 2021). The cortisol suppresses the effectiveness of the white blood cell in the human body, which negatively affects the immune system of an individual.
Usually coming out and recovering from a stress-related illness are very complex emotional and psychological factors. As mentioned by Robles (2021), when the body adapts to the level of high stress it starts to release cortisol into the body, which further starts to affect the immune system continuously. The people who are facing mental stress problems are unable to have peaceful thoughts rather they are irritable, anxious and have several panic attacks, which compromises the mental, as well as the physical health of the person (Abo-Al-Ela et al. 2021). Furthermore, the level of stress impacts the immune system indirectly through several habits which have been adopted by the individual in order to relieve themselves from the stress such as alcohol consumption, smoking and substance use as well. As demonstrated by Bitola et al. (2021), this unhealthy consumption are the major factors that are undertaken by an individual which later affect the immune system and cause serious diseases such as asthma, cardiovascular disease, flu, diabetes and gastric ulcers. The systems of low immunity are such as catching a cold easily, chronic condition, cold sores and swollen lymph nodes, these are the several signs which makes evident that the immune system is getting compromised (Peters et al. 2021). Furthermore, mental stress is correlated to the immune system, which affects the entire body if the level of stress is increased. This creates a declining psychoneuroimmunology effect leading to reduced capacity to fight diseases.
Mental stress can have a detrimental impact on the immune system, which reduces its capacity to fight disease. The immune system of an individual is responsible for identifying external threats that enter the body from different means and therefore a weak immune system would not be able to identify an external thread, which includes mostly germs pathogens viruses and bacteria. This leads to the occurrence of regular diseases that can have an overall impact on individual health. Therefore, it is essential for individuals to identify if they are under extreme stress or pressure due to social causes or professional causes (Rohleder, 2019). The increased level of mental stress also hampers an individual’s immune response time severely. This again proves that an increased amount of mental stress can hamper the immune system by psychoneuroimmunology means leading to deteriorating immune response time.
The immune system also has a response time to react to external threats due to induced stress, which reduces the capacity of the immune system to respond to such threats; the response time of the immune system can greatly decline. Reduced capacity and increased time to respond to external threats can have a major impact on the health and well-being of an individual and can often lead to serious illness (Varol, 2020). The immune system is also responsible for hormonal regulations and balance in the body. Therefore, disturbances in the immune system caused due to mental stress can create irregularities in hormones. Irregularities in hormones especially in women can trigger negative health issues.
As already mentioned increased level of stress in individuals can also create irregularity in hormones and this can lead to changes in individual’s behaviour in their social surroundings. While on the other hand, it can also happen that due to inappropriate social surroundings an individual can suffer from stress, which again initiates the same cycle of irregularities in hormones thereby deteriorating the overall social interactions. People can suffer from anxiety and if left untreated it can cause depression. Stress can hugely affect the way the individual is reacting with the other surrounding individuals (Xie et al. 2018). It has been observed very often that a person with stress often behaves irrelevantly with other individuals, which were unnecessary in that situation. However, a stressed person will never be able to behave the same as a stress-free person and thus considered to be different from the others. The physical issues can be seen quite naturally from the appearing physical changes within the person. This includes weight loss and increased paleness. This can also lead to skin problems and deteriorating physical impressions. Therefore, this again proves the statement that high mental stress levels in an individual can have a negative impact on the immune response thereby causing hormonal changes that have a negative impact on the health and appearance of an individual.
From the above discussion, it can be said that a certain amount of stress can be beneficial for individuals as it challenges them and brings out the best in them. However, too much stress can severely hamper the mental and physical health of the individual and might need immediate treatment. There are different types of stress prevailing in the surrounding area. This reduces the immune system’s ability to function properly and thereby the statement can be proved which states increased stress levels can have an impact on the immune system and overall health of an individual.
References
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