How Stress Increases Your Risk Of Getting Long COVID
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 15, 2022
- 5 min read
Updated: Feb 1, 2024
Written by: Dr. Don Wood, PhD, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
A recent Harvard-led study (Psychological distress long COVID-19 | News | Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health) reports increased risks of contracting Long COVID if a person is suffering from loneliness, anxiety, or depression. The study suggests that people who were suffering psychological distress prior to getting infected with the COVID-19 virus were at risk of developing long COVID. The study was published online in JAMA Psychiatry. It’s important to note that these increased risks were not connected to people with asthma, smokers, or other physical health conditions.
The Harvard study also determined that people dealing with psychological distress prior to becoming infected with COVID-19 had a 32% to 46% increased risk of developing long COVID. In addition, there was a 15% to 51% chance of experiencing “daily life impairment” due to long COVID.
The researcher who led the study at the Department of Nutrition at Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health, Siwen Wang, expressed her surprise at the strong link between psychological distress and long COVID. She added, "Distress was more strongly associated with developing long COVID than physical health risk factors such as obesity, asthma, and hypertension." The study conducted by Wang and her colleagues enlisted more than 54,000 people in April 2020. Participants were asked about their psychological distress and then monitored for over a year.
These findings are in line with a British study published in late July that discovered people with long COVID experienced a much wider array of symptoms than previously thought. Some of these symptoms included hair loss, sexual dysfunction, fatigue, breathing difficulties, and brain fog.
These studies corroborate what we see at The Inspired Performance Institute on a regular basis. Our work centers around assisting people that have experienced traumatic or disturbing events and helping them reset the way their minds manage the associated stress. The Harvard and British studies are in line with what we have concluded about psychological stress associated with trauma. Our conclusions center around how the resources required to heal the body are often drained when the mind gets stuck in a trauma loop, causing a depletion of energy resources that are necessary to fight infection and disease.
People who maintain their optimal psychological and mental health can prevent the development of symptoms and illnesses associated with the common cold. This lifestyle helps strengthen the immune system. I often say, when you change the way you feel, you’ll change the way you heal. Of course, most people have difficulty with this because we experience stress and emotional challenges on a daily basis, which lowers our immune system's defensive energy. Current stress, along with chronic stress from previous traumas, interferes with the resources needed to fight infection and disease. Psychological stress is an energy drain. Hence, we need to eliminate the effects of stress in order to maintain a healthy body rather than wait until our body frequency has dropped so low that it becomes a friendly host for microscopic invaders. Psychological stress ‒ particularly the chronic type that may accompany a personality with a negative outlook can be a risk factor for contracting colds and flu. If you can maintain an optimistic outlook and outgoing personality, you should be able to maintain better physical health. Research indicates that high levels of psychological stress are closely associated with contracting the common cold. The common cold is rarely a serious health hazard for most healthy people, although it does account for almost 30 million days of lost work in the U.S. alone each year.
Studies are confirming that individuals with a negative outlook were at the greatest risk of developing colds ‒ regardless of their intake of vitamin C and zinc or their smoking and drinking habits. Also, individuals who believe that they are under stress are at higher risk. According to studies on this subject, these people were nearly three times as likely to develop a cold. I’m using the common cold to help illustrate some important information. What’s the first thing we do when we feel the effects of a cold? We reach for something to suppress the symptoms. Would you be surprised to hear that may not be your best option? Colds are typically contracted as the result of contact with more than 200 different viruses. Of all the cold viruses out there, the rhinovirus and coronavirus cause the majority of colds. When you contract a cold, it is caused by a distinct virus (e.g., adenovirus, rhinovirus, parainfluenza virus, and coronavirus). Viruses are much smaller than bacteria. They are made up of tiny clusters of genetic material surrounded by a protein wrapper. The chances of contracting the cold virus increase, however, if you are overtired and physically exhausted. Did you know that cold viruses do not reproduce at higher body temperatures? In fact, when you develop a slight fever, that should help you get rid of the virus quicker. It is the way your body helps get rid of foreign invaders. When you take regular medications like Aspirin and Tylenol, you suppress your body's ability to produce antibodies that destroy the cold virus. In fact, this tactic can cause the body to take longer to fight the cold. It's understandable why we want to reduce symptoms, no one wants to feel bad, right?
A pioneer of electrical technology, Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943), said that if we could eliminate certain outside frequencies that interfered with our bodies, we would have greater resistance toward disease. If outside energy has an effect on our bodies, imagine what happens to the energy required to maintain a healthy body. Now imagine how much our stress alone can drain the energy our body needs to fight infections and diseases and why that drain has so much effect on our health, including COVID and Long COVID.
It’s important to understand that your Conscious mind establishes your goals – the subconscious determines your success.
So, if you think, “I’ve thought of everything I needed to be successful, and I keep failing, I don’t know why.” The issue is the thought process. You may not think of something as beneficial if your mind wants to avoid hurt or pain – the thought process is limited by beliefs and experiences. The good news is that it’s possible to change the thought process by understanding the science behind how your mind works. Then all you need is to REBOOT your Mind! This will allow you to maintain better health NATURALLY!
And there it is!
Dr. Don Wood, PhD, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Don Wood, Ph.D., author, speaker, Founder & CEO of the Inspired Performance Institute, and creator of the patented TIPP method. TIPP is a cutting-edge method inspired and developed through the newest developments in neuroscience and designed to clear away the effects of disturbing or traumatic events, repurpose old patterns and set the individual’s mind up for peak performance. In essence, it “REBOOTs” the brain’s stuck thought pattern, making it possible to enhance alpha oscillations with a noninvasive and effective shift in brain wave activity. Author of two top-selling books, Emotional Concussions and You Must Be Out of your Mind.
