And so I switched the radio off.  Once I had pulled myself out of the unconscious haze of just inactively listening and realised I was sitting in my car, being an inactive receptacle to the broadcast, I realised that although my mind might have been ‘inactive’….more like switched off, but I felt my heart racing and my chest tightening. It was these bodily sensations that drew my attention to the impact the words from the radio were having on my body, even if my mind was not quite conscious of the words… due to my mind being distracted with to-do lists and what I was going to cook for supper. What were these sensations in my body drawing my attention to? I was feeling anxious, fearful. These are not things I experience often. Ah, but the news on the radio. War there. Drought here. Economy collapse imminent. Food shortages. Fear. That is what was oozing out the broadcast and subliminally filtering into my brain.

Fear, a primal emotion designed to keep us safe from danger, to alert us to threat so that we can prepare a response. However, fear, can have a surprising downside: it can weaken our immune system, leaving us more susceptible to illness. While short bursts of fear can be beneficial, triggering the fight-or-flight response and mobilizing the body for immediate action, chronic fear takes a toll on our internal defences. Chronic fear can sometimes also be the kind that is low grade,  we live with it, but it is there all the time. Stress. Stress being the fear of something happening…. All the time. This has a terrible impact on the body.

One key player in this dynamic is the stress hormone cortisol. When we experience fear, our bodies release cortisol, preparing us for a perceived threat. This hormone has a wide range of effects, including increased heart rate, blood sugar levels, and alertness. When we are faced with a threat, use the produced cortisol in the body, we can then reset and come back to bodily homeostasis.  However, chronically elevated cortisol levels, a hallmark of chronic fear and anxiety, have a detrimental impact on the immune system. And when there is cortisol flooding the system all day due to stress the impact on the body and immune system is devastating. Cortisol dampens the inflammatory response, a crucial aspect of the immune system’s initial attack on pathogens. This can leave us vulnerable to infections, especially those caused by viruses and bacteria. Which is why when you are stressed you are more likely to get sick. (Seems a bit counter-intuitive then to constantly broadcast news reports instilling fear in the population during an outbreak of some pathogen, when you want the population to avoid getting sick through having a strong immune system! I wonder if broadcasts of upliftment would have been a better choice? Something to consider in the future!)

Furthermore, chronic fear disrupts the production and function of immune cells, the foot soldiers of our internal defence system. Natural killer (NK) cells, the white blood cells responsible for identifying and destroying infected or cancerous cells, become less active under chronic stress. Additionally, the production of cytokines, chemical messengers that orchestrate the immune response, are also suppressed. This disrupts communication between immune cells, hindering their ability to mount a coordinated defence against pathogens.

The impact of fear on the immune system is not just theoretical; research provides compelling evidence. Studies have shown that individuals experiencing chronic stress or anxiety are more susceptible to upper respiratory infections, including the common cold. Additionally, fear and anxiety can hinder the body’s ability to heal from wounds and illness.

And so….. every day, if I am surrounded, indeed dare I say, bombarded with bad news stories how does this impact me? If I am in fear all the time whether that fear is about financial risk, the political climate, the environment, family, society, crime, collapse…what is the impact on me? On my system? On my health? What happens if I turn the news off? How would my health and vitality improve. There is no denying that bad things happen. BUT there is a lot of good that happens too. Why are the good news stories not put on the news, on the billboards on the side of the road? What impact would that have on me? On society as a whole? Gosh, we may even have less of a need for pharmaceuticals……