Fear and Immunity: How Deep Breathing Can Put You Back in the Driver Seat

Anger, sadness, depression, fear, joy, or love…

We have been endowed with the ability to experience and express a plethora of emotions. A wise professor shared once, “ all emotions are appropriate in there own time..” The current climate of our world, our economy, our health resounds FEAR!!

Take a deep breath.

Fear of lack, fear of infection, fear of isolation, fear, fear,…At the root many of the travesties engulfing our minds and space is fear….How does this fear impact our immune health?

As stated above, every emotion is appropriate in its own time. There is a time to mourn, a time to cry, a time to be afriaid, a time for everything. However, being trapped in one negative emotion such as fear for a prolonged period is detrimental to your mental health and your physical health. Fear can be immobilizing to your thoughts and your heal ---- fear has the capacity to produce worry.

The body recognizes this fear as an external stimulus that mandates a response. In essence, the body translates this emotion into a type of stress. So our body elicits a response known as the fight-or-flight response, also known as the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system operates involuntarily when faced with dangerous or stressful situations. This system sends a chemical message from the brain to various parts of the body to increase our vigilance and alertness so we can respond.

Typically, this hypervigilance leads to an increased heart rate and increased blood pressure while immobilizing the digestion and immunity. The immune response is suppressed leading to an increased risk to invasion from foreign particles such as bacteria and viruses.

In other words, our immunity is compromised when our body remains in a stressful state. So as fear engulfs us in an attempts to grasp our thoughts and our health, it is imperative that we assert our power to control the controllables. And one thing we can control is our response to fear. This is a dynamic response that requires us to acknowledge the fear, address the fear, and make a plan. This plan should include breathing exercises, physical exercises, journaling/blogging, or using visualization tools to decrease the chemical messages of stress while inducing the chemical messages of immune function and overall optimal health!

Now take 5 deep breathes. Hold it, each breath and release slowly!

Hello control – goodbye fear!!