The Stress Response Was Built to Save Your Life, Not Your Future

I think the answer is yes.

I think that's a really great question.

So a lot of the work that I've been involved in has been focused on understanding the influence of the immune system beyond immunity.

So, um, when we're sick, when we have the flu, or when we have a really bad cold, we know we have a whole lot of physical symptoms.

We have the stuffy nose and the, um, maybe a cough, a sore throat.

And at the same time that all that's happening, we actually have a lot of psychological symptoms happening as well.

So we are less interested in things that we would usually enjoy.

So when you feel-- when you have a virus, it's not only that you can't go out to a party and have a great time, it's that you don't want to.

Your brain processes things differently, um, when you have an infection.

And decades of research in rodent models and, and cell models, and now more recently human models, is helping us to understand why that might be.

And a major reason is that your immune system produces proteins called cytokines that signal around the body and to the brain and actually change the functioning of your brain, change how you process information, and change-- and can change the structure of your brain as well in the long term.

So I think the immune system is a really underappreciated influence on our brain, on our mind, and psychological processes.

And by harnessing an understanding of how the immune system affects the brain, we may actually be able to get to higher levels of functioning.

And that may actually be very adaptive, uh, uh, in terms of stopping us from thinking, stopping us from focusing, stopping us from going out there and doing things.

We actually need to slow down.

We actually need to recover and not be going to that party, right?

Yeah.

I think that's such a good point.

Almost everything that happens to us psychologically, physiolo- physiologically, um, comes from a place of trying to protect us, trying to enhance our survival or enhance our ability to pass on our genes, and that's true for the immune system as well.

So in our evolutionary past, our ancestors who sh- shut down a little bit psychologically when they were sick would've had a survival advantage.

So by staying home, by hiding, by stopping engaging with other people, you would use less energy.

You would run a lower risk of getting another infection on top of the one that you have.

Um, and by, you know, reducing our appetite, for example, the need to take in food was lower, so you didn't have to go out and search for more food.

And all of this would've enhanced survival in our evolutionary past.

I think the key thing-- so, so we know that that's all happening in the context of an infection.