United States: Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark say that scary experiences, like going to haunted houses, might help reduce inflammation in some people. They found that short bursts of fear or stress can actually improve the immune system by activating the body’s natural “fight-or-flight” response.
While long-term stress can cause harmful inflammation, brief fear might help lower low-grade inflammation and boost health.
As reported by the Medicalxpress, the Aarhus team was curious about the potential effect of voluntary fear exposure on the human inflammation levels.
In their study, “Unraveling the effect of recreational fear on inflammation: An article titled “A prospective cohort field study” appearing in the Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, the researchers enrolled 113 adult visitors of a high-intensity haunted house in Vejle Denmark.
Participants’ ages ranged between 18 and 52 years, with the mean age of being 29.7 years of age; 69 of the participants were female while 44 were male participants. Participants’ heart rates were recorded during the event and it took nearly 51 minutes on average to complete On average, the participants’ self-reported fear level was obtained by the Likert scale, ranging between 1 and 9.
Before and after the event and three days following the event blood samples were taken to determine levels of high-sensitive C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) and count of immune cells. Low-grade inflammation was categorized as hs-CRP above the recommended cut-off of 3 mg/L.
Before the event, 22 participants presented low-grade inflammation markers. Among them, 18 participants were below the normal limit of hs-CRP three days after the event, going down from a mean of 5.7 mg/L to 3.7 mg/L Of the inflammatory markers, total leukocytes and lymphocytes significantly decreased in the participants before and three days after the event though their mean values were within normal range.
Reduced inflammatory signal markers in participants exhibiting initial low-grade inflammation indicate that the recreational fright experience might dampen immunity. Additionally, no significant proportional change was observed between participants with low-grade inflammation at the event (19.5%) and those at 3 days post-event (16.8%).
These results are consistent with previous research in animals that demonstrates that acute stress can activate circulating inflammatory cells and reorganize the immune system for possible injury or infection.
For fun nowadays, people go for things that cause them to feel afraid such as telling of horrors, jokes that involve a jump scare, and even real movies and places. This kind of haunted house experiment implies that such experiences give not only pleasure but also possible wellness benefits regulating immune system.