Overall evaluations of stress & immune system

Individual differences 

• Research has shown gender and age differences in stress/ immune system relationship
• woman show more adverse changes in way they react to marital conflict 
• as people age stress has greater effect on immune system making it harder for body to regulate itself 

Real world application 

• Knowledge of stress and immune system has led to new programmes for a 'healthy lifestyle' 
• Stress coping behaviours can be taught 
• Techniques include deep breathing and expressive writing 
• People who use stress coping behaviours report improvement in physical and psychological well being 

• Meta analysis on 293 studies over past 30 years 
• found short term acute stressors boost immune system prompting it to ready itself for infections 
• long term chronic stressors led to supression of immune system - most chronic stressors associated with global supression of immunity 
• longer the stress the more the immune system shifted from adaptive to detrimental chnages