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Allergies and Your Emotions |
 Positive thinking gurus and holistic healing advocates would promote the idea that allergies and almost every over kind of illness can be controlled or eliminated through thought control of manipulation of the emotions. We know that this is not entirely true.
When you are allergic to something, it is a malfunction of the immune system that is reacting to the allergen. An allergen is something in our environment that is not by itself harmful and in many cases is something that is very good for most people. But because your immune system has identified that allergen as something dangerous, it attacks it whenever you come in contact with it. It is the attack of the immune system that generates the uncomfortable and sometimes dangerous allergy symptoms.
This is a physiological function, not a psychosomatic one. However, research in how allergies demonstrate themselves both in symptoms and severity indicate that mood and emotions do play a role in either the acceleration an allergy or in how well you recover from an allergy attack. Even medical experts who are in no way associated with the holistic movement cannot ignore the effect of emotions on any form of illness, even allergies. As an allergy suffer, you and I can also testify that when you are tired, run down or distressed, very often that seems to have a role to play in the outbreak of allergy symptoms and in their severity.
The relationship of emotion to the ability of our bodies to fight off disease is well known. People who are emotionally distressed often have malfunctions of their immune system. Negative emotional activity can cause the heart to function differently, it can disrupt the digestive system, raise or lower the body temperature and it can disturb sleep, which is crucial to a body that is in balance with itself. Small wonder that allergies that are additional malfunctions of the immune system become more severe when the allergy sufferer is going through strong, negative emotions.
Medical science has staged a heroic battle against the detrimental effects of allergies on their patients. While the causes of allergies have been defined, the ability to "cure" allergies is limited. Further, how allergies behave in one person may differ tremendously from person to person or even in a single allergy sufferer depending on what time of day the allergy surfaces and other factors in your life. Medical science alone has not been able to isolate in specific terms how much emotion can change how your allergy affects you.
It is wise to pay attention and even document if you can spot a trend in how your allergies affect you when you are in different emotional states. If you do that, almost inevitably you will find that allergy symptoms do not surface as often when you stay in a state of emotional calm or in an upbeat emotional state. Is the verdict, then, that we all must "stay happy" to avoid the suffering allergies bring?
To an extent, the more that can be done to avoid negative emotions is healthy in terms of allergy symptoms and in terms of your general health. The things that we do to sustain a positive emotional life can be beneficial in fighting allergies as well. Simple things like maintaining a healthy diet, exercise and rest schedule and living a balanced life of work, play and time with family and friends can keep your emotional system healthy, which will have a positive effect on you physiologically as well. Additional steps such as exploring meditation can only make a positive contribution to your health and your ability to battle allergies as well.
They say that living well is the best revenge. When it comes to fighting back against allergy symptoms, that is a good motto to live by.
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