As someone who grew up with several food and environmental allergies, I grew a significant interest in the immune system and why my body reacts the way it does to viruses as well as some foods. In my undergraduate studies, I have chosen to pursue immunology research as well, learning more about some of the proteins and transcription factors related to the allergic response.
As academic pressure starts to build approaching midterms, I started to think about how chronic stress can affect our immune systems. In reflection, I recognize that illness starts to peak around heavy exam weeks, and I notice some of my peers experience frequent viruses when they don’t get enough sleep for a prolonged period of time.
We likely have all heard our teachers and professors advise us to get quality sleep and a good breakfast before a significant exam, but sometimes that advice can feel hard to follow when the reasoning behind it is misunderstood. Sometimes the natural instinct is to attempt to stay up late to cram more information.
In the short term, stress can increase our innate immune response, which is our more immediate non-adaptive immune response. More specifically, the activity of natural killer cells and inflammatory chemical messengers (cytokines) is enhanced by acute stress. However, chronic stress can have a suppressing effect on the immune system. More specifically, studies suggest that our T cells (considered the helper cells of adaptive immunity) have a decrease in activation and proliferation in cases of chronic stress. Research also suggests that insomnia causes HPA dysregulation, which affects the immune system by decreasing lymphocyte proliferation in response to vaccinations.
What this means is that, in the situation of heavy exam weeks, students who experience chronic stress during exam week have a weakened immune system, ultimately making it harder to fight off some of the viruses that circle around. Therefore, managing psychological stress and physiological stress (such as lack of sleep and lack of nutrition) as much as possible during exam weeks can help to prevent getting sick.
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I love this deep dive into why we get sick during midterms! I remember that 2 years ago I got covid right after finals ended (it was my worst finals week), and it was partyl due to my lack of self care during this time. My consistent lack of sleep, nutrition, and water played a huge role in this. However, what I found interesting was the effect of insomnia of the HPA axis! I never realized that sleep would have such a big effect on so many things inside the body! With our weekly challenges I've been taking so much into consideration and how its been affecting my health! With our sleep challenge I've found that I'm able to get more task done efficiently and effectively which in the long run is pretty good!
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