Stress is bad for you — you’ve heard it a thousand times. But it can be good for your immune system, says a study.
Short-term stress, the fight-or-flight response, a mobilisation of bodily resources lasting minutes or hours in response to immediate threats — stimulates immune activity, said Firdaus Dhabhar, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences and member of the Stanford University Insti-tute for Immunity, Trans-plantation, and Infection. And that’s a good thing. The immune system is crucial for wound healing and preventing or fighting infection, and both wounds and infections are common risks during chases, escapes and combat, the Journal of Psychoneuroen-docrinology reported.
Working with colleagues at Stanford and two other universities, Dhabhar showed that subjecting lab rats to mild stress caused a massive mobilisation of several key types of immune cells into the bloodstream and then onto the skin and other tissues, according to a university statement. This migration of immune cells was comparable to the mustering of troops in a crisis, Dhabhar said. He had previously shown that a similar immune-cell redistribution in patients experiencing the short-term stress of surgery predicts enhanced postoperative recovery.
Investigators were able to show that the redistribution of immune cells was orchestrated by three hormones released by the adrenal glands in response to the stress-inducing event. These hormones are the brain’s call-to-arms to the rest of the body, Dhabhar said.