Heightened emotional responses during illness (purely out of curiosity)

[Ceke2002]

Like it says in the title, this is purely out of curiosity. I've tried Google, but all I seem to be getting is search results related to anxiety or panic disorders, and I'm not exactly about to go traipsing along to my GP just to ask him some random question. So anyway, what exactly causes heightened emotional responses during illness? I'm not talking about anxiety or conversion disorder type situations, but viral or bacterial type infections where you're potentially running a fever, have nausea, vomiting, coughing fits, a sore throat, joint pains, etc, the usual viral/infectious type symptoms one might expect in such a circumstance, and suddenly you randomly find yourself getting over emotional at the drop of a hat ('oh look, that advert has an adorable little puppy in it, quick let me burst into tears for no apparent reason'). Is it a physiological response, or psychological, or a combo of both? And what purpose does it actually serve (for example in terms of immune system response), if any?

Curiosity cat seeks to know.

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[AcronymAllergy]

One possible general reason--regulating emotions is hard work; it takes energy and patience. When you're sick, you have less of both (in no small part because you've likely been sleeping poorly and you're uncomfortable/in pain), and a resulting reduced tolerance for distress.

 

[EpiIV]

One possible general reason--regulating emotions is hard work; it takes energy and patience. When you're sick, you have less of both (in no small part because you've likely been sleeping poorly and you're uncomfortable/in pain), and a resulting reduced tolerance for distress.

I think AcronymAllergy hits this one on the head. Adding to this, from a biological approach, the inflammatory process produces a lot of stressful hormones itself like increased cortisol which could contribute to a higher than normal emotional base line. From a cultural aspect, I would say that many people are sheltered from sickness and death, so serious illness is a confusing, complicated mess that exposes us to vulnerability we were unprepared for. People tend to panic when they're powerless and confused in the face of a mysterious, negative force.

Finally, I think the relationship we do have with being ill is pretty complicated. We get coddled quite a bit when we're young, and we grow to expect that. Except once you're an adult admitting you're sick and you want to be coddled...it's a weakness. The world keeps turning and your responsibilities don't go away. So I see a lot of people that just push and push themselves until they're at the brink of burnout. So once they do speak up...it seems like a huge difference from their normal behavior.

Edit: Looking back on this, I realize I got off on quite a bit of a tangent from the OP's original line of thought with the common cold. I guess I was thinking of what I've seen on the inpatient unit where people are in lost in the hospital system and don't even have the familiarity of home.

 

[Ceke2002]

Thanks for the responses, that definitely makes sense with both the lowered energy/patience levels, and the release of stress hormones like cortisol.

 

[AcronymAllergy]

And somewhat relatedly, there's all sorts of literature on the back-and-forth between emotional state and chronic pain, and the intricate relationships between peripheral and central nervous system components in that whole feedback and feedforward process (e.g., changes in the periphery at individual/groups of nociceptors, in the spinal cord such as at synapses in Rexed's laminae where there's also downregulating effects from periaqueductal gray and cortical areas, and at the afferent synapses in the aforementioned cortical areas, which also happen to be involved in volition and emotion, such as cingulate gyrus, SS2, and insular cortex).

Basically, being sick makes you feel bad, and feeling bad physically makes you feel bad emotionally and/or taxes the "reserve" you have to be able to regulate emotions and tolerate distress.

 

[birchswing]

Well, what I know is only things I've heard through the years. One is that cytokines are related to depression in some way (not sure how), and they go up when you're sick. I think both are related to inflammation. I also know from personal experience that when a person isn't well for almost any reason, their body stops sending resources to functions that are less necessary to survival. So for example, according to my endocrinologist at least, a person who is chronically ill for any reason will have lower sex hormones (e.g., testosterone) because survival is more important than fertility. That may be one of those "truthisms" that doctors tend to tell to oversimplify something for patients, not sure.

Maybe there's also some evolutionary benefit to being whiny/fussy when you're sick. It gets you attention from the tribe around you.

 

[Armadillos]

I like to keep things simple.My money is on sleep. Sleep has a profound impact on mood and we all know sickness disturbs sleep. Pharma recognizes this, the big selling OTCs for colds/etc. are essentially sleep aids.