How your mind affects your immune system

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Came across this interesting link very useful information I must say tell me what you think and enjoy.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city ... 343929.cms

when one is depressed everything hurts all over and nothing anywhere feels remotely good.

Then there's also the increasing amount of peer-reviewed reputable research over the last 10-15 years, which appears to show the contrary, ie. that depression is actually caused by inflammatory illness/disorders, such that doctors are amazed when patients taking anti-inflammatory medicine for x, y or z disease report suddenly feeling lots happier, and on the other hand cancer patients taking drugs to increase cytokine production ( because need to boost the immune system damaged by chemotherapy ), which is responsible for defensive/protective inflammatory reactions in the body, sink suddenly and in some cases fatally into suicidal depression ... ... ... In fact the tendency is towards classifying depression as an inflammatory disease/disorder, and to the rather unnerving suspicion that many of the millions of people currently depressed in the industrialised west are in fact suffering from undiagnosed/unnoticed inflammatory disorders ... ... ... :lol
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The thing is that this sort of division of illness/dis-ease into mental and physical is not useful.

Our brains are often/usually/even inevitably affected at the same time as the rest of our body. The person with undetected gluten-intolerance ( which can cause chronic elevated cytokine production and widespread inflammation of many different organs not only the intestines, but also the thyroid, pancreas and heart among others, aswell as the joints ) suffering from depression is a perfect example of how helpful it would be for this connection to be understood. eg. I cured myself of a manic-depressive breakdown, and again later of recurrent depression and anxiety, by excluding gluten, to begin with for short periods only, ( I love pizza too much! ), but in the last few years for much longer periods of time. Basically cytokines affect the brain too.

It wouldn't be half so good for pharmaceutical company profits of course.

PS. Regular appropriate-intensity exercise also helps to reduce inflammation, it triggers chemicals which help regulate cytokine production.
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People need to stop thinking mental and physical health are completely separate when they are very much connected. They also need to totally smarten up and realize most people with mental illness are not like the ones depicted in the horror movies and are no more at fault for their suffering than people with diabetes or heart disease. Like that'll ever happen.

Having a helathy mind is good for your immune system depression can create hazzard health results keeping your mind healthy will help keep your body healthy.

My point was that *having* a healthy mind may depend to a very great extent on *having* a healthy body ( ie. not suffering from chronic or acute inflammation, as a result of diet for instance ) incl. the brain ... that mental and physical health will be simultaneously affected by whatever environmental or other pressures are present. ie. The mind will be in the same state as the body.

Can a healthy mind exist in an unhealthy body/a body suffering from chronic inflammation?

PS. Writing/reading that last sentence I was suddenly reminded of a phrase about "good fruit" and "bad trees" which on googling turns out to be from Luke 6:43 "For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit". ... :lol
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Last edited by ouinon on 01 May 2012, 3:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If your mind is healthy then your immune system will not weaken you can be some what unhealthy but as long as the mind is sharp and in good health you should be okay.

My point was that the two things are intrinsically linked/entwined/not in fact two things but one whole; your mind *will* be healthy, "sharp" etc IF your body is.

ie. The mind will think "healthy thoughts"/positively etc IF the body is healthy. The brain will "carry"/vehicule healthy thoughts/positive attitudes IF the body is healthy; it will not "pick up" negative/unhealthy thoughts or attitudes if the body is strong/healthy.

But if the body is suffering from inflammation of some kind, is unhealthy, then the brain will "pick up"/collect negative/unhealthy thoughts/beliefs from the environment. Negative thoughts/destructive beliefs etc will "adhere" to brains which are part of unhealthy bodies. eg. someone who experienced abuse/trauma/loss as a child will grow up with lots of negative/destructive beliefs and behaviours IF their body was/still is ill/unhealthy/inflammed by bad diet for instance, or by an apparently healthy diet which just doesn't suit their body. This would explain why not everyone who experiences trauma/abuse/neglect etc as a child becomes a serial killer or a sociopath or a bully etc.

A physically healthy brain can not "take-in"/form the neurophysiological substrate for negative beliefs etc.

That was my point ... but is it true? :lol Or is it possible to be significantly ill in some physical way, eg. suffering from an autoimmune disorder ... and at the same time to be psychologically in good health? For the body's ill health to *not* be accompanied by/associated with some sort of mental illness/weakness/negativity?

Anyone?
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Jean-Dominique Bauby, as described in "The Diving Bell & the Butterfly," seemed to me to have quite a level head despite the circumstances he found himself in shortly before his death. just my opinion.