**Abstract**

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) is a field that has developed significantly during the last three decades; it has come to scientifically demonstrate the importance of the mind in the prevention, development and treatment of diseases. Throughout this chapter, we describe the evolution of PNI, the interaction of these systems to actively develop them, not only in adults but also in children. Similarly, it explains the influence of stress on the health of the individual and the importance of knowledge of psychoneuroimmunology to achieve the proper management of disease and quality of life. It also accounts for how psychological interventions have been proven effective and can serve as a model for researching and treating other diseases.

**Keywords:** psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), stress, psychological intervention, children, quality of life

#### **1. Introduction**

This chapter will describe the main clinical implications of psychoneuroimmunology and how to improve clinical evolution, quality of life and immunity of adults and children. The investigation of the multiple relationships between emotions and human cognition and health is an area of study that involves much knowledge, such as neurosciences, endocrinology, immunology, pharmacology, psychology, and psychiatry. These knowledge areas provide a partial vision to make a complete approach to the relationship between the disease, the body and the mind-brain.

The concept of health is a complex process, and it is based on a balance between biological, social and psychological factors. Engel, in 1977 [1], worked on the recognition of the intricate relationship between disease, body and mind-brain, argued that biological factors, as well as genetic factors, are not enough to explain all the phenomena that have to do with health, and that if you want to understand the origin and evolution of the disease, you must take into account the interaction of psychological and social factors in addition to genetic and biological factors; He also emphasized his criticism of the traditional biomedical model that tends to separate the mind-brain and the body; model where the body is conceived as a machine that must be repaired, leaving aside the emotions; patients are seen almost as objects, and their subjective perception is not relevant in medical evaluation and management, contributing to the dehumanized procedure of traditional medicine.

Considering the relevance around the advances in the medical field, this chapter will provide a better understanding of Psychoneuroimmunology and describe the psychological protocols developed for adult and children, which has been proven to improve clinical evolution, quality of life and immunity.

### **2. Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI)**

Psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) consolidates itself as an interdisciplinary research field towards the end of the 70s. It owes its name to the psychologist Robert Ader, who first introduced the term in his presidential address of the American psychosomatic society in 1980 [2]. Later this neologism was presented more formally by Ader, 1981 as the title of a landmark book of this novel discipline in which state of the art was presented, emphasizing the central nervous system's role in the interaction of behavior and the immune system [3].

One of the newest research fields resulting from the biopsychosocial conception of health is psychoneuroimmunology (PNI), which embraces the main guideline of this model, such as the analysis of the interaction between psychosocial and biological factors in etiology, evolution and treatment of the disease. Psychoneuroimmunology is a prominent new scientific field where many sciences converge responsible for the study, analysis, understanding, and application of the complex interactions between behavior and the three systems that guarantee the human body's homeostasis, between the nervous system, the endocrine and immune system [4].

This hybrid new discipline tries to demonstrate if the mind-brain mediates the susceptibility to illness or intervenes to recover a physical ailment, an infectious or autoimmune disease. The relationship of some psychological processes with alterations of the immune system and the interrelation of mental illnesses, mainly emotional and affective, with impaired immune function [5]. Psychoneuroimmunology provides more detailed knowledge of the intricate biological dynamics of human health. It provides novel complementary medical options or techniques and invites exploring alternative non-linear models to address the health-disease process. PNI is thus a discipline that establishes a meeting point for the different traditional health fields [2].

PNI is thus a discipline that establishes a meeting point for the different traditional health fields. Many research pieces have proven the relevance to the scientific field, which has helped to acknowledge and understand these systems' link to improve adults and children's health integrally.

#### **3. Stress and psychoneuroimmunology**

Studies on the effect of stress on the immune system have allowed understanding the complex interaction between the nervous, endocrine and immune systems, which has allowed that in situations of stress, the human organism has protection mechanisms to preserve homeostasis.

In the fourteenth century, the term stress began to refer to difficult, adverse, suffering and negative situations. However, it was not until 1857, when Claude Bernard stated that environmental changes could alter the body. In 1929 the neurologist Walter Cannon recognized that stressors that cause physiological reactions resulting from threatening or adverse situations could be physical and/or emotional. Cannon also warned, later in 1932, about the importance of the person maintaining

#### *Psychological Intervention Based on Psychoneuroimmunology in Children and Adults DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.99501*

an internal balance that he called homeostasis and that in case of intense changes, a readjustment occurred through the endocrine and vegetative system [6].

Later, Hans Seyle, physiologist and physician, considered by many to be the father of the modern concept of stress, defined it in 1936 in the British journal Nature the General Adaptation Syndrome (SGA), also known as Seyle's Law, as an automatic mechanism that is triggered by any stressful situation and that involves a set of reactions that mobilize energy reserves that implies activation of the hypothalamic-hypophysical-adrenal axis and the central nervous system, which makes the body go through three phases: alarm, resistance or adaptation of the organism and exhaustion, being able, if the threat is sufficiently severe and prolonged, even cause death [6].

When stress exceeds certain limits, the immune system is affected, numerous organs of our body, and there is a propensity for the appearance or aggravation of diseases by weakening certain immune cells that make people more susceptible to the pathogens that cause infections such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, herpes simplex, tuberculosis, cancer and the progression of HIV to AIDS, among others [6].

Among the consequences of chronic stress on the immune, central nervous and endocrine systems, Ortega Navas, M, 2011, highlights the following:


On the other hand, stress is also necessary and positive in our lives' evolution at certain levels since it constitutes an essential part. Positive stress is a means of adaptation to daily situations, a means for productivity, creativity, increases alertness, improves concentration, and decision-making, making us feel safe and better prepared to face and definitively find ourselves in a more balanced situation the face of adversity and disease.

Sometimes we adults have the fantasy that children are not stressed because we see them playing or entertaining themselves in their activities, which is absolutely false since, on the contrary, the fact that the child has a high power to imagine also causes you to present abundant thoughts and that when events are not clearly explained or because of your cognitive level, you cannot interpret them clearly, it is possible that the thoughts are negative, which generates high stress and therefore also affects your immune system.

In this sense, it is essential to provide children with information, according to their age, of the events that are being generated, whether they are associated with themselves, as in the case of their health, as if it is about the people around you. It is recommended to address critical situations such as divorces, moves, bereavement and maintain close contact, with the openness to answer any question that arises at the time, to reduce the anxiety of uncertainty that is very harmful to the child.

#### **4. Emotions and psychoneuroimmunology**

Emotions govern all the organism's systems. The field of psychoneuroimmunology is studying how emotions are translated into chemical substances (information molecules) that can trigger chain reactions that affect internal chemistry, optimizing or weakening our functional state. Furthermore, that impacts our immune system, endocrine system, nervous system and other systems of our body. In fact, if we repress the expression of emotions, we also repress our organic functions, which in the long term translates into discomfort or diseases [6].

Research indicates that positive emotions can be enhanced and help prevent certain diseases' appearance. What we do and what we think has positive and negative effects on our physical and emotional health. Positive emotions allow us, in addition to supporting the difficulties of an illness and facilitating its recovery by triggering a series of positive effects on our metabolism that strengthen our health, achieve, among other goals, healthy self-esteem, satisfaction for the work well done and making more effective decisions and ultimately, improve our quality of life. In fact, positive emotions also help make people more resistant to adversity and help build psychological resilience [7].

Maruso in 2009 [8], considered that emotions influence immunity and that the third revolution in medicine is precisely psychoneuroimmunoendocrinology. He insists that the mind and the body are intrinsically linked and that as a result of the mind–body interaction, reactions are triggered that affect internal chemistry, optimizing or weakening our functional state and that it is in our own hands to launch a new culture of health which implies that people are capable of maintaining and ensuring health on a physical and mental level.

Advances in psychoneuroimmunology indicate that emotional states can modify and alter health in general so that positive emotions help the person be better able to overcome diseases that may arise in life. Likewise, Ortega Navas in 2009, affirms that emotions play a vital role in health, "they are an undeniable part of our lives and are fundamental for its positive state by helping to promote healthy behaviour; on the contrary, if they are negative, they are a risk to our health, they can constitute an activating or inhibiting signal of health symptoms or a disease".

The emotional attitude directly relates to the immune system, harmonizing better with good health than a negative attitude. A person who normally expresses happiness, good humor, love, friendship, joy and positivism is much less likely to contract a serious illness than another who, on the contrary, is angry, fearful, angry, depressed or apprehensive. In fact, when states of mind such as anger, fear, or hopelessness seize us, cortisol levels rise, which hinders the immune system's functioning.

In sum, although emotions play a decisive role in the onset and/or course of numerous diseases, among cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal, endocrine, muscular, dermatological disorders and alterations of the immune system stand out, it is important to highlight that emotional education as a subject. The current debate is increasingly being debated in educational settings, a consequence of the need to educate people to know themselves and others better to face the challenges of their

daily work better and adopt healthier lifestyles. Its purpose is to help people prevent and reduce risk behaviors through skills training or avoid possible consequences.
