Meet a new branch of the: science or psychology? At the end you will tell me which of the two by @alanasteemit. Part I

Days ago, a topic that expanded my thinking caught my attention, since it is linked to the psychology and the immune system of people (you know, for all this pandemic) and I found a book that talks about the existence of a new branch that just deals with these elements:

Psychology + immune system = Psycho Neuro Immunology

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Okay! To be more exact, its name is even more complex: Psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology, since it includes the immune, endocrine and central nervous systems.

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When we refer to the central nervous system, we are talking about our brain, remember that it is the organ that gives orders to the whole body, it is also the one that connects us to our thoughts, emotions, the mind and the psyche. The endocrine system is linked to the glands and hormones and the immune system (one of the protagonists of this post) is in charge of protecting us from bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses (the latter being very fashionable these days).

Well then! Without further ado let's begin to understand what this is all about

Communication between systems

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The first thing we must understand is that the three systems mentioned above: the central nervous system (brain), the endocrine and the immune system are in constant communication and as if that were not enough, what one system does affects the other. This correlation influences directly and proportionally and hence the reaction that our physical body will have.

As a curious fact, the reaction of our body to disease will depend on how weak or strong our immune system is, because in fact our entire body prepares to face the disease through this system.

In this sense, I reiterate my opinion about the concept of "disease", starting with the symptoms, since these will become the alerts that will allow the immune system to face what is wanting to happen in our body, that is why we cannot as enemies but as what will let your immune system know that you have to get going to act.

In fact, I confess that my opinion about the disease goes a bit further, since it is our body's response to emotional conflicts that we have not been able to consciously resolve, but we will leave that topic for another post ;-)

The truth is that once we understand that the three systems are constantly in communication and that the performance of one will affect the others, we must positively appropriate our immune system to make it work in our favor.

How can we make the immune system work for us?

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I would say (according to what I understood in my reading) that the first way for the immune system to work in our favor is by understanding how it works and respecting this process.

Under normal conditions, our body absorbs nutrients from food and this is converted into energy, which helps us breathe, digest food, move, carry out the excretion process and also this same energy is used to activate the immune system.

When our body begins to feel discomfort, the immune system will need to start working and therefore will require the energy that we have talked about before, it is right at that moment that we must "respect the process" and make the immune system work easier. as? Well simply resting.

Rest, that little pause that we will take, will be our way of collaborating with the immune system to do its job efficiently, otherwise we will be competing with it because we will need energy for our daily work.

Remember! Understanding, respect and collaboration, your immune system will thank you.

Perfect! We understand how the immune system operates ... but what about psychology?

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Yes, yes, we know that you will be wondering what piece psychology plays in all this, do not eat cravings, I will explain it to you.

Before that, I would like to tell you what are the means that the three systems use to communicate, this to make the explanation easier, so take into account that the systems use a biochemical language to communicate, that is, through molecules of information:

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• The central nervous system (brain) uses neurotransmitters
• The endocrine system uses hormones and
• The immune system uses cytokines.

Returning to the point of psychology and the connection with the immune system, I must say that there are psychosocial, behavioral factors and situations of physical and emotional stress that are generated in our mind, we are responsible for the way we think, react, We affect ourselves and depending on the way we do it, we will be sending information to the immune system and with it, a state of health or, on the contrary, disease would be triggered.

How can these factors affect our immune system?

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And we got to the best part ... we now understand that there is psychoneuroimmunology, which is the result not only of two elements (psychology and immunology) but includes the endocrine system and the central nervous system.

That the central nervous system is represented by our brain, hence our thoughts, emotions and our actions in the face of the events of life.

That all systems communicate and the central nervous system is the one that directs the rest of the body.

That our psyche plays a fundamental role and we are subject to internal and external psychosocial, behavioral and even physical and emotional stress factors.

That each of us is capable of controlling and having a positive or negative impact on this and depending on this we will obtain two results: health or disease.

You see! how ProjectHOPE offers you pure knowledge

If you are interested in knowing how you can control these factors and have a favorable impact on your physical and emotional health, I invite you to read the second part of this post.

Our intention is to provide you with tools that you can apply and offer you a better quality of life.

So for now, we have to say goodbye and start writing Part II, so we keep reading and the title question remains:

What branch do you think Psychoneuroimmunology belongs to? To psychology? To immunology? to both?

We read you in the comments.