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May 21 2005
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Why Being Lonely Makes You Get Sick Faster

 
Lonely

The pangs of loneliness can certainly take a toll on your health. According to a study, lonely first-year college students had a weaker immunity after taking a flu vaccine than other students did.

Not only that, researchers found that social isolation--measured by the size of a student's social network--and feelings of loneliness independently negotiated the students' immunity.

Running the Study

The study involved 83 students--mostly 18-19 years old--who were recruited in their first term of college:

  • For two weeks, starting two days before vaccination, the students recorded their emotional responses four times a day on palm computers.

  • For five days during that period, researchers collected saliva samples four times a day to measure levels of cortisol, the stress hormone.

  • Students also filled out questionnaires that calculated the size of their social networks when the study began, and during a four-month follow-up period, to assess loneliness.

  • Researchers reviewed blood samples taken just before the flu shot and one and four months after for antibody levels--which indicated how well the students' immune systems acted in response to the multi-strain flu vaccine.

What did the data reveal? Researchers found that light social ties were connected at a level of statistical significance with poorer immune response to one component of the multi-strain vaccine, separate from feelings of loneliness. In addition, loneliness was linked with a weaker immunity to the same strain as late as four months after the shot.

Thus, the findings emphasized the knowledge that social factors are important to one's overall health.

Health Psychology May 2005;24(3)



Dr. Mercola Dr. Mercola's Comments:

Every feeling you have affects some part of your body. Not only that, the results of another study I reviewed in this issue confirms that if you are pregnant, these effects extend beyond the limits of your own body and into your unborn child.

The fact is that negative emotions, like loneliness and unresolved anger, are some of the most fundamental causes of disease yet to be discovered.

Another confirmation of this is a recent study that describes how physical wounds can take much longer to heal when you find yourself in a marriage plagued by hostility and conflict, rather than one filled with pleasure and happiness. The implications of this study's results are very clear:

If you can't find ways to accommodate to the stress in your life, you may never heal.

There are a number of ways to address the effects of stress, and eating isn't one of them. One of the most effective tools you can use to protect your health while bolstering your self-esteem is something I use daily in my practice: the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT).

EFT is a psychological acupressure technique based on the same energy meridians used in traditional acupuncture to treat physical and emotional ailments for over 5,000 years, but without the invasiveness of needles. Simple tapping with the fingertips is used to input kinetic energy onto certain meridians on your head and chest while you think about your specific problem.

To learn more about how to use EFT, please refer to my free online manual.

Gary Craig's Comment:

We see repeatedly that unresolved emotions such as loneliness, anger, trauma and fear show up in the body as physical ailments. As an example of this, here's an excerpt from one of many cases on the EFT Web site. It involves someone with severe neck pain and was written by EFT'er Catherine O'Driscoll from Scotland:

"Tapping his karate chop point, Glen repeated after me (whether he agreed or resonated with what I was asking him to say or not):

'Even though I have this incurable neck pain ... And even though I let my mum down when I was younger ... I love myself... I'm OK ... And even though life is a tremendous burden. And life is a pain in the neck. And I can't fix everything for everyone. And I can't stop people suffering. I'm OK. I accept myself. And even though I can't cope with everything and I feel unsupported ... I matter... And I thank my body for giving me this gift ... For telling me I have to stop and think of me too ... And even though I can't fix everything ... I'm a good boy ...'

At which point, Glen burst out laughing and his neck pain lifted. We walked into the garden giggling like little children, with sparks of light flying around us.

The next day, Glen had no need of his neck collar."

To most people, the link between our unresolved emotions and our physical ailments is intuitive commonsense. Most of us can cite many personal examples of this ranging from "tension headaches" to ulcers. Further, once EFT is properly applied to the emotional issue(s), the physical symptoms frequently subside or DISAPPEAR. As Dr. Eric Robins, MD says ...

"Some day the medical profession will wake up and realize that unresolved emotional issues are the main cause of 85 percent of all illnesses. When they do, EFT will be one of their primary healing tools ... as it is for me."

Gary Craig

Gary Craig is a pioneering developer of EFT, a profoundly effective emotional/mental healing approach. I learned it from Gary and have taught it to patients in my clinic for years, and they have experienced truly incredible and permanent results with it.

Read more about Gary Craig's EFT Course.

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