Why Your Mood Can Boost or Weaken Your Immune System

However, a growing body of research indicates that your mind plays a profound yet overlooked role in your health—that thoughts and feelings can boost wellness or chip away at health even with the best treatments modern medicine can offer.

Even Occasional Positivity Uplifts Immunity

Beyond medical treatments, there are many factors that contribute to immunity, including age, genetics, sleep, diet, exercise, social interaction, and mood. This last factor is underappreciated as we hustle through demanding days.

Yet studies show that frowns hamper the immune system while smiles provide a boost—which affects both natural defense and how likely a flu shot is to help. This mind–body dynamic is especially urgent given surging depression rates in the United States.

Like a booster shot in itself, the benefits of a positive mood are many, according to the American Psychological Association.

Research shows that happier individuals tend to enjoy these advantages:

• Stronger immune response
• Less disease
• Decreased pain
• Better prognoses
• Lower mortality rates

Now, you may be thinking, “But I haven’t been feeling very positive lately.” The good news is it’s never too late to turn your outlook and, consequently, your health prospects around.

Even brief bumps in happiness—for example, from watching a comedy, positive journaling, or a yoga session—still contribute to boosting health markers. These include better central nervous system parasympathetic activity (“rest and digest” instead of “fight or flight”), lower cortisol (the “stress hormone”) levels, greater natural killer (immune cell) counts, lower inflammation, and less mucus.

How a Happy Mood Suppresses Immunity Threats

Mood affects the immune response at the surface—through lifestyle habits—but also by “turning on” or “off” a number of key biochemical reactions, according to a body of research.

Every time you smile, your brain is at work, not just in expressing your happiness, but also in promoting your well-being. It activates what is known as the endogenous opioid system—our body’s intrinsic mechanism for creating and regulating feelings of pleasure and pain relief. Unlike synthetic opioids, which can be addictive and dangerous, these natural compounds promote health.

The enemy of your enemy (stress) is also your friend. Feeling good curbs stress-related hormones such as cortisol and catecholamines. At high loads, these compounds both increase inflammation and blunt the production of immune cells and antibodies.

5 Ways to Use Positivity to Strengthen Immunity

Although you could take a pack of prescriptions to fight infection, a positive mood could be the most natural starting place, with little downside!

Here are a few ways to boost your immune system with a good mood:

Make Time for Comedy

As the adage goes, “laughter is the best medicine.” Time dedicated for comedy and humor may surprise you in reversing a difficult day while simultaneously bolstering immunity.

When you’re feeling down, it can be hard to pull out of it because it feels incongruent. Stand-up specials, funny movies, or learning some jokes inject absurdist joy. Look for the funny side to things (even very frustrating situations can be hilarious when viewed from the right angle).

Pause to Savor Joy

Taking time to intentionally appreciate positive moments has the benefit of increasing their value. By savoring these experiences, people can enhance positive emotions and prolong the emotional benefits derived from positive experiences.

From relishing the taste of a favorite meal to appreciating a beautiful sunset, savoring offers a simple yet powerful tool for cultivating a more positive and resilient mindset.

Be Present Through Mindfulness

Mindfulness complements savoring, training nonjudgmental attention on the current moment rather than getting tangled in regrets, worries, or other negative tunnels of thought.

Mindfulness encourages a non-reactive and accepting stance toward thoughts and feelings, fostering a more balanced perspective. Engaging in mindfulness practices, such as meditation and yoga, has been associated with reduced symptoms of anxiety and depression, increased feelings of calm, clarity, and contentment, and enhanced immunity.

Try Journaling

As humans, a sense of integrity is important. Journaling brings clarity by funneling thoughts onto paper.

Not only is journaling about gratitude a great way to boost awareness of the positive, but also it can help us focus on what we’re doing well in life. By reflecting on how we are living up to our values, we can increase our determination to do more. The sense of self-congruence we can obtain from journaling has been found to be great for health. The alignment of behavior with personal goals has significant physiological implications, especially for immune function.

Embrace Conscientiousness

Decades of research has shown that lowering overly negative moods is most effective when paired with cultivating conscientiousness—the tendency toward diligence, organization, and detail orientation. In fact, many of us may mistake negative stress reactions for “taking things seriously,” when in fact we are far better off simply getting things done.