Imagine walking down a dark corridor, filled with looming shadows and jump scares at every corner. Your heart is rapidly beating in your chest, and you feel twitchy and ready to flee at a moment’s notice. Then suddenly a person dripping in “blood” rushes towards you carrying a loud chainsaw. You are in a haunted house that you voluntarily went into. Other than being a fun experience (for some), researchers have discovered that wandering into a haunted house can also provide substantial health benefits.
It seems that going to places that you know will scare you (like a haunted house) can help activate the adrenergic system, which triggers the hormones needed for the body’s ‘fight-or-flight’ response, preparing you for stress or danger. This system not only affects how you feel (increased heart rate, alertness, etc.) but also influences immune function by modulating inflammatory markers.
When the adrenergic system is activated, it can temporarily reduce immune system activation, possibly leading to a decrease in low-grade inflammation, which is linked to chronic health issues.
Recreational fear has been a focus of interest for scientists over recent years. This is when fear is mixed with enjoyment, like in horror movies, extreme sports, or haunted attractions. Even our team at IFLScience experienced it when we decided to go to a haunted house and get our hearts monitored for science.
A new study at a haunted house attraction examined changes in participants with low-grade inflammation during and after exposure, and explored alterations in inflammatory markers and immune cells over time.
This very small study took 113 volunteers (64 females and 44 males, all with a mean age of 29.7) to a haunted house attraction in Vejle, Denmark. This specific haunted house is organized annually during the Halloween season and attracts 4,000-5,000 paying guests each year, which is not surprising. In issue 27 of our e-magazine, CURIOUS, we explored the question “Can Fear Be Fun?”, the resounding answer being… yes, yes it can be.
This specific haunted house had visitors walk through attractions that contained killer clowns, chainsaw-wielding aggressors, and decomposing zombies. The volunteer participants had their heart rates monitored and blood samples were drawn at three different times: pre-event, immediately after exiting the house, and three days after the event.
The samples were analyzed for inflammatory markers (hs-CRP) and immune cells (leukocytes). The study itself found no proportional difference in the hs-CRP levels at the event and three days later. However, the data suggest that fear exposure can help attenuate inflammation.
Among participants who had elevated CRP levels at the event, 82 percent showed a decrease in hs-CRP levels after three days, suggesting a reduction in inflammation. So, it looks like recreational fear exposure appears to reduce inflammation and immune cell counts in some participants. Low-grade inflammation is a known risk for chronic diseases so this may have an additional benefit.
There were some limitations to this study: not all external factors (e.g. alcohol and smoking) were considered, there were no control groups, no baseline inflammation data for the participants, the study was only short-term, and some demographic influences were missing. Despite this, the results of this study indicate that more research on recreational fear and the immune system may be needed.
So, if you decide to push your screaming friends into a haunted house with a killer clown… remind them of all the health benefits that they will potentially get. After all, you do care about their immune health (but perhaps not their mental trauma).
For more spooky stories and research, be sure to listen to the October 2024 Halloween special of The Big Questions podcast:
The study is published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
[H/T: MedicalXpress]
