Stress and Allergy

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you're having a really tough day, you sneeze a lot and your skin feels itchier? It's not a coincidence, your emotions may have been the trigger. Researchers are now finding that certain allergic disorders like hay fever, eczema and asthma are regulated, in part, by hormones and brain chemicals released into the bloodstream in response to stress. When it rains, it really does pour.(1)(2)(3)(4)

The nervous system is the interpreter of which events are "stressful" and determines how the body responds to the stress. Negative emotional responses disturb the carefully constructed equilibrium of the brain systems, putting some parts into overdrive and others into underdrive. The body produces a number of factors including hormones (e.g., cortisol) and neurotransmitters (e.g., adrenalin) which, in turn, can influence other systems in the body such as the immune system. If this imbalance goes on unchecked and becomes persistent, long-term damage and disease can result. In other words, it is the wear-and-tear from chronic overactivity or underactivity that is potentially damaging.(5)

In other words, it is the wear-and-tear from chronic overactivity or underactivity that is potentially damaging.

Researchers have found that allergies often involve a complicated relationship between mobilized white blood cells, T lymphocytes, and chemicals ("cytokines") produced as a result of the activation.(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) The cytokines cause other immune cells or white blood cells, e.g., mast cells and basophils, to release additional inflammatory substances that bring on an allergic response in sensitive tissues, for example, nasal and sinus passages ("rhinitis"), skin ("eczema") and airways ("asthma").(13)(14)(15)

Another possible mechanism linking stress to allergy is through so-called oxidative stress pathways. It has been speculated that people who suffer from allergies are unable to detoxify certain oxygen molecules that arise from normal metabolism or from outside toxins such as tobacco smoke or air pollution. Psychological stress may be an additional environmental factor that worsens this oxidative toxicity and increases airway inflammation.(4)(23)