Everyone reacts differently in times of crisis. For many people, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused stress levels to spike. Some may have difficulty sleeping. And many of us are struggling with feelings of isolation and loneliness as the necessity of social distancing keeps us physically apart.
And, paradoxically, some research suggests that these factors — stress, loneliness and lack of sleep — can all weaken your immune system, making you more vulnerable to diseases such as COVID-19.
“Stress impacts the immune system in a way that impacts a variety of different diseases,” says Christopher Fagundes, a psychological scientist at Rice University who studies the link between mental and immune health. “It’s common for people to think about susceptibility to colds and viruses, and stress not only does that, but it also impacts our inflammatory system.” When people are chronically stressed, he continues, the inflammatory system becomes over-activated, which in turn can trigger disease.
While Fagundes says much of this prior research revolves around different cold and upper respiratory viruses, he believes those consequences would be no different for COVID-19.
