Health Psychology

HEALTH PSYCHOLOGY
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After completing the scale “Health Locus of Control,” I scored 16 in “Internal Health Locus of Control.” This means that I am moderate on this particular scale and that I believe that my health is dependent on my internal mechanism to a certain extent. Although my actions determine how well I recover, I cannot say that I am always in control of my health. Furthermore, in some cases, I blame myself for getting sick, but sometimes it is out of my control. However, I strongly believe that I will avoid being sick if I take care of myself. Nevertheless, I being healthy doesn’t really, depend on the actions I take. On subscale 2, “Powerful Others Health Locus of Control” I scored a 20. This means that other people affect my health moderately as well. Although I believe that health professionals and my family play an important role in my health, I don’t think that my health is extremely dependent on them. Sometimes they might insist on one or two things that might boost my health, but that doesn’t mean that if I don’t do it, I will fall sick. In addition to this, I believe that I am in control of my health more than the health professionals. Nevertheless, whenever I fall sick and recover, I owe it to my friends, family and the health professionals. This is because they all take excellent care of me. On the last subscale, “Chance Health Locus of Control,” I scored 11 points. This means that I don’t believe in the chance that something will affect my health at all.

I firmly believe that I have better control of it at any given time. However, in some instances, I feel like I accidentally fall sick and it is beyond my control. Nevertheless, I stay healthy because of the choices I make rather than depending on chance or luck to keep me healthy.
A person’s psychological state can directly affect their immune system. For example, stress affects the human endocrine system in various ways. The most known effects are the flight or fight mode activation within the human system (O’Leary, 1990). Thus, internal factors in the human body like stress have been known to cause a deficiency in the immune system. This is mainly related to how the body responses towards a given external or internal condition. The strength of the immune system is greatly diminished after they are frequently activated over and over again. Thus, stress in one way or another downgrades the body immune system hence affecting the way it functions. A person’s moods will play an essential role in the effectiveness of their immune system. Therefore, if one has a positive attitude, they are likely to boost their immune system in fighting any illness. However, in a case where a person has fear especially before undergoing surgery, they take a long time healing afterward. Therefore, if a patient’s level of optimism is high, the numbers of white blood cells will be equally high. Cardiovascular is one condition that requires a patient to be optimist. Stress has always affected the patient negatively. However, the level of stress will also play a central role even in less dangerous diseases. A study carried out in 2003, showed that patients with common colds were in a position to fight the flu off if they exhibited happy emotions. The reverse was true to those that were sad and dull (Jones, 2003). Therefore, the locus of control has and will continue to affect how the immune system operates.
References
Jones, J. (2003). Stress responses, pressure ulcer development and adaptation. British Journal of Nursing, 12 (Sup2), S17-S24.
O’Leary, A. (1990). Stress, emotion, and human immune function. Psychological bulletin, 108(3), 363.