The effects of the psychological stress and training on immunologic parameters in different trait anxiety athletes

Introduction

The changes in neuroendocrine factor and immune system and their possible relationship after psychological stress and training were investigated in the different trait anxiety athletes. The subjects were divided into high and low trait anxiety by Sport Competition Anxiety Test (SCAT-A). There’re two steps in this experiment.

Methods

Step1: 32 subjects were divided into high and low trait anxiety groups and then each of them was randomly redivided two groups. Four groups were named A, B, E, F. The subjects accepted responsible match with first, second and third awards arranged. During the experimental procedure, A and B were given to extent linguistic stimulation, which were defined to high psychological stress, E and F named as low one without the stimulation.

Step2: 32 high and low trait anxiety groups were randomly redivided into two subgroups, the psychological training group and the control group. The psychological training groups have accepted the psychological training including relaxing training and image training.

The data of two steps were analyzed using standard software (SPSS for Windows, Version 10.0).The level of statistical significance was set at P<0.05.

Results

The results of step1 show that: (1) at the high stress condition, CD₄⁺ numbers were significantly decreased in the high anxiety group (P<0.05), CD₄⁺/CD₈⁺ ratio was descended (P<0.05). (2)At the normal condition, GC secretion was not different, but after the stress, was distinctly ascended, particularly for the high anxiety group.

The results of step2 show that: to the high and low trait anxiety athletes, the T-lymphocyte proliferative response decreased and plasma interleukin-1(IL-1) activity increased after the psychological stress in the high trait anxiety athletes; but the plasma IL-1 activity in the low trait anxiety athletes was no different.

Discussion/ Conclusions

It shows that malfunction of the cell immunity mainly results from high anxiety person in the high stress. And the personality has something to do with the neuroimmune response. Through the psychological training, the athletes adapted to the psychological stress and then the change of T-lymphocyte proliferative responses and IL-1 activity were not significantly different compared with the pre-stress.

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