Happiness and Immunity
A growing body of research evidence is pointing to the importance of our mental state to the healthy functioning of our immune system - the system that defends us from threats like unfriendly bacteria and viruses, and pre-cancer cells.
Typical is a study into how positive mood on the day of influenza vaccination predicts the effectiveness of the flu vaccine, appearing in the scientific journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, in January 2018.
This underlines how much cooperation exists between what we might regard as our “psychological immune system” - centred around the prefrontal cortex - and its bodily partner... through calming stress and toning down its immunosuppressant effects (not least through lowering cortisol, the stress hormone produced in the adrenal cortex).