Can being happy help me fight infection?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 5 February 2021
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Could being happier help us fight infectious disease?
As the world embarks on a mass vaccination programme to protect populations from Covid-19, Crowdscience asks whether our mood has any impact on our immune systems. In other words, could being happier help us fight infectious diseases? Marnie Chesterton explores how our mental wellbeing can impact our physical health and hears that stress and anxiety make it harder for our natural defence systems to kick in – a field known as psychoneuroimmunology. Professor Kavita Vedhara from the University of Nottingham explains flu jabs are less successful in patients with chronic stress.
So scientists are coming up with non-pharmacological ways to improve vaccine efficiency. We investigate the idea that watching a short feel-good video before receiving the inoculation could lead to increased production of antibodies to a virus. And talk to Professor Richard Davidson who says mindfulness reduces stress and makes vaccines more effective.
[Image: Happy couple wearing masks. Credit: Getty Images]
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that |
| 0:25.4 | calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:29.8 | It goes in waves and at the beginning it didn't bother me much at all but it's sort of built and I thought to myself what happens if I get sick? I mean, I have two adult children who are back in school, |
| 0:48.0 | and I thought, if I get sick and I die, that's one thing. But what am I going to do about them? |
| 0:53.0 | Welcome to Crowd Science from the BBC World Service. |
| 0:57.0 | I'm Marnie Chesterton. |
| 0:58.0 | These are types of things that sort of go round and round in my head, so it sort of whittles away at your confidence. |
| 1:07.0 | Crowd science is the show that scours the world for answers to |
| 1:10.1 | listen to science questions, and occasionally we hear from people with a really |
| 1:13.6 | personal reason for being in touch like Stephen although his question is |
| 1:17.9 | very relevant to all of us right now. A lot of our patients are reticent to come in because they're afraid as well. So I have to |
| 1:26.2 | project an aura of overconfidence to reassure them. Sometimes it's I feel like a bit of an imposter if you understand what I mean. |
| 1:38.0 | I definitely do understand what Stephen means because whilst we've heard a lot about doctors and nurses and care |
| 1:43.7 | home workers during this coronavirus pandemic, Stephen does something else |
| 1:47.3 | I would find terrifying. I'm a 65-year-old dentist from Quebec in Canada. I want to know whether our psychological state affects |
| 1:56.4 | our immunity. I imagine being a dentist during a global pandemic affects your psychological state in a fairly major way. |
| 2:05.3 | I've seen a photo of Stephen in full PPE and not only is he wearing a gown and gloves and a cap and |
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