If you suffer from anxiety, you are much more likely to fall ill

How many times have you believed that you had a fever during all this confinement? Thermometers are one of the objects that circulate the most right now in Spanish homes. The paranoia of having been infected with coronavirus is latent there and its first most noticeable symptom is fever. Added to this is the possibility of being asymptomatic and having the virus, as experts warn that many people will pass the disease almost without even realizing that they have had it.

For all this, it is frequent that nervousness at the possibility of being infected or infecting others in your closest environment is installed in you. What's more, there are certain levels of anxiety that can produce Febricles continued over time. Although in all diagnoses, fever is always the most immediate and reliable sign that an infection exists or that the body is fighting against a pathogenic element that is affecting its correct functioning, prolonged periods of stress can produce a rise of tenths on the thermometer.

Stress increases the amount of cortisol in the blood, which can lead to a weakened immune system

It is psychogenic or emotional fever, a condition whereby body temperature rises due to a stressful situation. Symptoms correspond to a feeling of intense heat, excessive sweating, or headache. It occurs in those people who suffer from generalized anxiety, mental disorders or physical illnesses like fibromyalgia. But obviously, this is a very isolated diagnosis, since at all times the rise in temperature clearly indicates that there is a bacterium or virus that is attacking our body.

However, the influence of the mental and emotional state on our physical health You can make a difference in fighting contagious agents. There are many studies that associate chronic states of stress with a deficiency of the immune system, in charge of generating the response against viruses and bacteria once they reach the body. For example, a 2015 'paper' published in the magazine 'Currents Opinions in Psychology' revealed the determining effect that anxiety has on a person's immune system.

"Stress increases the amount of cortisol in the blood flow, which can lead to a weakened immune system," he explains. Jared Heathman, American doctor, to the magazine ‘Best Life’. "This in turn causes an increase in glucose production, which produces a peculiar situation in which the defenses of the immune system act late in eliminating the pathogens that make us sick," he continues.

The importance of a good diet

Similarly, having low blood glucose levels deprives the immune system of adequate nutrition, so the person spends more time sick than normal or expected. However, this is not the only way that stress can make you more vulnerable to infection or disease. Heathman also observes that stress can lead to chronic insomnia states, which are also related to a low defense response capacity in the body.

If you really believe that you are going through severe periods of anxiety and need an urgent change, calm down. There are a number of tasks you can do to alleviate as much as possible the effects of these episodes and their duration. For example, perform regular relaxation and breathing exercises or also adopt a healthy and balanced diet, low in fat (which reduces cortisol production in the body) and rich in fiber, as well as avoiding alcoholic beverages.

We are what we eat, and in seasons like this there is no better help for defenses than consuming vitamin-rich fruits and vegetables

There are also many studies that reflect how regular physical exercise can help reduce the symptoms and effects of anxiety. Research published in the ‘Korean Journal of Family Medicine’ found that individuals who frequently engaged in physical activity were much less likely to experience anxiety, and not only that, but also grab some kind of cold or flu.

Therefore, the lesson we must extract here is quite clear: to protect your immune system in order to reduce the possibility of falling ill from some type of infection, it also involves taking care of our mental state. If you really think that you are suffering a lot of stress lately, try to remedy it through physical exercises and relaxation. If you do not know where to start, in this link we leave you a series of tips that will help you develop a training methodology at home.

Similarly, pay special attention to food. We are what we eat, and in seasons as critical to health as this, there is no better help for the defenses than fruits and vegetables rich in vitamins. Oranges, kiwis, apples, or green leafy vegetables (mainly broccoli) will provide the reinforcement that your immune system needs to fight viruses.