JUST SEEING A SICK PERSON’S FACE WILL KICK YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM INTO HIGH GEAR
It’s interesting how many things we assume (or should) are obviously true, only lacking our actually thinking about them first. And this seems to be one of those things. My apologies to those who already thought about this…. Because if you did, and made the logical assumption, you were right. Because science has confirmed the case after researchers found the goods. Namely, that if you just see a sick person’s face, it triggers a natural response in your body that kicks your immune system into gear. So if you just see someone who looks like they have a bad cold or flu, your body reacts to try to prevent you catching it, too.
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RESEARCHERS USED VR HEADSETS SHOWING SICK PEOPLE’S FACES AND MEASURED RESPONSES
Researchers in Switzerland did the heavy lifting in this discovery. Which means they used VR (or virtual reality) headsets on volunteers that showed them computer-generated faces of people that seemed to be obviously fine, or sick. And while these volunteers viewed these faces the Swiss researchers also monitored their brain activity and immune responses. And they quickly realized that if your brain perceives a threat of some kind of infection from seeing a sick person’s face, it mobilizes to protect you from it with a boost to prep your immune system.
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YOUR BODY AND IMMUNE SYSTEM LITERALLY HAS YOU WIRED TO AVOID AND PROTECT
In other words, their findings seem to strongly indicate that “our immune system adopts fight anticipatory strategies, allowing our organism to react to immune threats not only once they are in the body but also when they overcome the primary functional boundary of self-environment interaction.” This may explain that your natural inclination to avoid someone you think is sick isn’t a social response; it’s literally hardwired into your brain. You see someone who’s sick and your lizard brain prompts you to move as far away as possible, even as it kicks your immune system into high gear just in case!
You can read more about the new study in Nature Neuroscience.
