Attitude and Immunity

Deepak Chopra, an authority in the field of mind-body healing once said “learning to meditate, to still the mind, and slip into the cracks between the emptiness where you can discover the universe of infinite possibilities, can be the best medicine ever prescribed. It is free and powerful, and if you don’t go within, you go without.”
 
What Chopra is referring to is Psychoneuroimmunology, a relatively new field in the era of modern medicine. Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) examines the connection between the mind and body as it relates to health and disease and how our emotions affect our immune system. In other words, the way that you think or interpret your physical symptoms can have a direct impact on your immune system.
 
Many of the studies in this area of research have focused on the subject of dispositional optimism. Dispositional optimists generally expect positive outcomes for any given future experience, including health outcomes. Researchers have shown that dispositional optimists usually experience happier moods, have fewer psychiatric symptoms and have the ability to manage difficult life transitions more easily than those who don’t have such a rosy outlook.
 
There is evidence that optimistic individuals reported better physical health because of their enhanced psychological adjustment and hopefulness even after receiving a poor health diagnosis. These outcomes include lower blood pressure, lower risk of re-hospitalization after surgery, lower mortality rates after receiving diagnoses of both HIV and cancer, and higher levels of immune cells.
           
Another factor in psychoneuroimmunology has been the importance of having a strong social support network. Researchers are showing that the more love and support a patient with a diagnosed illness has in her life, the stronger her potential health outcomes and ability to fight disease. In fact, social relationships have been found to have a strong association with all mortality, and have been shown to have a larger effect on longevity than factors such as physical activity, body-mass index, air pollution and drug treatment for hypertension. So get out there and connect with your family and friends, make plans you will look forward to.
 
Becoming more positive cannot happened overnight. The first step is to acknowledge what kind of feelings you are experience. Become more aware of your reactions; if you reacted unfavorably to a situation (anger, sadness, extreme frustration), take note and when the dust settles see if you can look at the same situation from a fresh perspective and see how you can change your reaction next time. Becoming a more positive person will not only make you a happier person, but a healthier person.