STRESS; THE THREAT TO WELLNESS

As I go around the country talking about wellness and the threats to maximum wellness, invariably the bias or understanding many people have regarding the health of mind, body and spirit is related to exercize, nutrition and disease. While each of these issues are subsets of a much broader understanding of the vital human being we must remember one key fundamental precept:

When it comes to healing, only our own body, with its magnificently designed auto-immune system can heal us of our maladies. Therefor our goal is to care for it and protect the most vital system we've been blessed with.

Building on that thesis, one of the greatest threats to the well-being of our auto-immune system is STRESS. Therefor any prevention program should make stress reduction and stress education a fundamental tool in our wellness programming.

I have included below, an excerpt from a web article entitled:

"STRESS AFFECTS IMMUNITY IN WAYS RELATED TO STRESS TYPE AND DURATION, AS SHOWN BY NEARLY 300 STUDIES".

Here is an exerpt:

"CLEAR PATTERNS EMERGE OUTLINING GREATER DAMAGE FROM CHRONIC STRESS -

WASHINGTON — Psychologists have long known that stress affects our ability to fight infection, but a major new “meta-analysis” – a study of studies – has elucidated intriguing patterns of how stress affects human immunity, strengthening it in the short term but wearing it down over time. The report appears in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin, which is published by the American Psychological Association.

Major findings are three-fold.

1. First, the overlapping findings of 293 independent studies reported in peer-reviewed scientific journals between 1960 and 2001 – with some 18,941 individuals taking part in all -- powerfully confirm the core fact that stress alters immunity.
2. Second, the authors of the meta-analysis observed a distinctive pattern: Short-term stress actually “revs up” the immune system, an adaptive response preparing for injury or infection, but long-term or chronic stress causes too much wear and tear, and the system breaks down.
3. Third, the immune systems of people who are older or already sick are more prone to stress-related change."
   
   "The most chronic stressors – which change people’s identities or social roles, are more beyond their control and seem endless -- were associated with the most global suppression of immunity; almost all measures of immune function dropped across the board. Duration of stress came into play: The longer the stress, the more the immune system shifted from potentially adaptive changes (such as those in the acute “fight or flight” response) to potentially detrimental changes, at first in cellular immunity and then in broader immune function. Thus, stressors that turn a person’s world upside down and appear to offer no “light at the end of the tunnel” could have the greatest psychological and physiological impact."
   
   Finally, Segerstrom and Miller found that age and disease status affected a person’s vulnerability to stress-related decreases in immune function. They attribute this to how illness and age make it harder for the body to regulate itself."
   
   http://www.apa.org/releases/stress_immune.html
   
   The implications of this dimension of the study of prevention and wellness are huge. I encourage everyone to read this article, related links, and see our other links regarding stress and wellness as well.
   
   This underscores even more why the Vital Life Community Wellness Program which promotes nurturing, socialization-based programs as a priority, have such tremendous potential influencing human wellness and vitality.
   
   Share with us any programs your are employing on this subject in your community.
   

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