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Sounds reasonable to think that being regularly exposed to sick people would help doctors and nurses build up a stronger immune system except we need to consider the type of sick people. To build up a stronger immune system, we need to be frequently exposed to a variety of infections, a situation that certain health-care workers share with daycare workers, kindergarten and primary school teachers, and funeral industry workers (1).All health care workers are not equally exposed to infections, some such as endocrinologists, oncologists and radiologists being less exposed and others such as doctors-in-training (interns), emergency doctors, internal physicians (general practitioners), pediatricians and infectious disease specialists being more exposed. Does their increased exposure to infections help these types of doctors build up a stronger immune system? What does the reported data suggest? Data is sporadic, not systematic.We cannot generalize because different countries have different risk-assessment and -alleviation measures, and different infections have different prevalence rates in different countries. For example, this 2007 study (2) states that Brazil did not have a national surveillance system for tracking occupational infections among health-care workers at the time of the study.There were two landmark meta-analysis studies published by Kent A. Sepkowitz at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering in 1996 (3, 4). He reviewed English-language articles and abstracts published between January 1983 until February 1996 on occupationally acquired infections among health-care workers. He found 'More than 15 airborne infections have been transmitted to health care workers, including tuberculosis, varicella, measles, influenza, and respiratory syncytial virus infection. Outbreak-associated attack rates range from 15% to 40%. Most occupational transmission is associated with violation of one or more of three basic principles of infection control: hand-washing, vaccination of health care workers, and prompt placement of infectious patients into appropriate isolation'. His compelling summation of the data speaks for itself (see below), and suggests that rather than protected, health-care workers are more at risk for many infections, and that prophylactic vaccinations have been most effective in reducing their infection rates.Airborne diseases: Inhalation most common reason.From 3.Blood-borne diseases: It's obvious why health-care workers are at increased risk, no? Needle-pricks.From 4.Oral-Fecal diseases: Insufficient hand-washing most common cause.From 4.Thus, health care workers are more, not less, at risk from blood-borne and airborne infections.Blood-borne infectious diseases spread by needle prickThe WHO estimates that occupational exposure of health-care workers to blood-borne pathogens is responsible for '66000 cases of hepatitis B, 16000 cases of hepatitis C, and 200–5000 cases of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) annually, as well as a smaller number of other infections such as tuberculosis or malaria' (5).Hepatitis B and C are typical needle-prick and blood-borne diseases. Studies suggest health care professionals have a four-fold higher risk of acquiring Hepatitis B, HBV (6). Among specializations, dentists, dialysis technicians, laboratory cleaning service employees, nurses and physicians have the highest HBV rates (7, 8). In the US, before mandatory vaccination policies, HBV infection rates were 3 to 10 times higher among dentists (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14) with 16 to 23% prevalence rates overall for health care workers (15, 16, 17). Since the 1980s, US HBV prevalence rates among health care workers have declined to about 9% following better HBV vaccination coverage (18, 19).Geographic differencesStudies from Nigeria and South Africa show that tuberculosis is a high risk for health-care workers (20, 21).Chicken pox; Varicella zoster virus (VZV)Causes herpes zoster, a painful skin rash, has both acute and chronic phases as well as nerve pain (neuralgia). Spread by aerosol droplets from coughs or sneezes, also from the patients' infected blisters and fomites (any inanimate object touched by the patient). Earlier, questionnaire-based studies suggested that health-care workers are more immune to VZV (22, 23). However, these studies had 3 key flaws: Low response rates, self-reporting, small sample sizes. The first population-based study comparing VZV incidence between health-care workers and the general population in Taiwan 'did not find any protective effect against herpes zoster among health-care workers. In our study, the health-care workers had a higher incidence of herpes zoster than the general adults for the 20-49 year age groups. After controlling for sex, age and other factors, health-care workers had a higher odds chance of getting herpes zoster than the general adults' 'Health-care workers, who work long hours in hospitals, have a greater chance of exposure to VZV compared to general adults. Transmission of VZV poses a major infection risk for health-care workers in the hospital environment' (24).BibliographyDavidson, Susan Salter, and William H. Benjamin. "Risk of infection and tracking of work-related infectious diseases in the funeral industry." American journal of infection control 34.10 (2006): 655-660 Page on www.kiza.nlPage on ajaums.ac.irSepkowitz, Kent A. "Occupationally acquired infections in health care workers: Part I." Annals of internal medicine 125.10 (1996): 826-834.Sepkowitz, Kent A. "Occupationally acquired infections in health care workers: part II." Annals of internal medicine 125.11 (1996): 917-928.Prüss-Üstün A, Rapiti E, Hutin Y. Sharps injuries: Global burden of disease from sharps injuries to health-care workers. WHO Environmental Burden of Disease Series, No 3. World Health Organization, Geneva, Switzerland. 2003.E. Dannetun, A. Tegnell, A. Torner, and J. Giesecke, “Coverage of hepatitis B vaccination in Swedish healthcare workers,” Journal of Hospital Infection, vol. 63, no. 2, pp. 201–204, 2006.EPINET, “Needle stick prevention devices,” Health Devices, vol. 28, pp. 381–407, 1999.Jha, Arun Kumar, et al. "Hepatitis B infection in microbiology laboratory workers: prevalence, vaccination, and immunity status." Hepatitis research and treatment 2012 (2012).Mosley JW, White E. Viral hepatitis as an occupational hazard of dentists. J Am Dent Assoc 1975;90:992–7.Mosley JW, Edwards VM, Casey G, et al. Hepatitis B virus infection in dentists. N Engl J Med 1975;293(15):729–34.Feldman RE, Schiff ER. Hepatitis in dental professionals. JAMA 1975;232:1228–30.Smith JL, Maynard JE, Berquist KR, et al. From the Centers for Disease Control: comparative risk of hepatitis B among physicians and dentists. J Infect Dis 1976; 133(6):705–6.Hollinger FB, Grander JW, Nickel FR, et al. Hepatitis B prevalence within a dental student population. J Am Dent Assoc 1977;94:521–7.Wei RB, Lyman DO, Jackson RJ, et al. A hepatitis serosurvey of New York dentists. NY State Dent J 1977;43:587–90.Schiff ER, Medina MD, Kline SN, et al. Veterans administration cooperative study of hepatitis and dentistry. J Am Dent Assoc 1986;113(3):390–6.Gerberding JL. Incidence and prevalence of human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B, hepatitis C and cytomegalovirus among healthcare personnel at risk for blood exposure. Final report from a longitudinal study. J Infect Dis 1994;170(6):1410–7.Rose, Gregory, and Virginia R. Roth. "Infections in healthcare workers." Evidence-Based Infectious Diseases (2009): 291 Page on yimg.comCleveland JL, Siew C, Lockwood SA, et al. Hepatitis B vaccination and infection among US dentists, 1983–1992. J Am Dent Assoc 1996;127: 1385–90.Mahoney FJ, Stewart K, Hu H, Coleman P, Alter MJ. Progress toward the elimination of hepatitis B virus transmission among health care workers in the United States. Arch Intern Med 1997;157:2601-5) Page on hr.hku.hkMalangu, Ntambwe, and Adelaide Legothoane. "Analysis of occupational infections among health care workers in Limpopo Province of South Africa." Global journal of health science 5.1 (2012): p44 Page on ccsenet.org)Salami, A. K., and P. O. Oluboyo. "Health careworkers and risk of hospital-related tuberculosis." Nigerian journal of clinical practice 11.1 (2008): 32-36 Page on www.ajol.infoSolomon BA, Kaporis AG, Glass AT, Simon SI, Baldwin HE. Lasting immunity to varicella in doctors study (L.I.V.I.D. study). J Am Acad Dermatol 1998; 38: 763.Terada K, Hiraga Y, Kawano S, Kataoka N. Incidence of herpes zoster in pediatricians and history of reexposure to varicella-zoster virus in patients with herpes zoster. Kansen Zasshi 1995; 69: 908–912.WU, Chen‐Yi, et al. "Do the health‐care workers gain protection against herpes zoster infection? A 6‐year population‐based study in Taiwan." The Journal of dermatology 37.5 (2010): 463-470.Thanks for the A2A, Anonymous.

There is no easy answer. Take my families.My father’s people were intellectuals and wealth - that is: My father’s father, more of an idealist dreaming of the rebirth of the nation, returning from WWI had married a young rich girl from Osnabrück - of the rich household that had accommodated him as soldier of the defeated army on their return to Germany. Both, born in the late 1890s, brought 5 children into the world, before he died of cancer in 1932 . Her father secured the widow - buying a farm and putting a real farmer on that land. The considerable rest of the money was invested in shares - all with extreme farsightedness before he died in 1936.My grandmother, the widow with 5 children, resided in a villa on the estate and earned the regime’s “mother’s cross” for extra fertility. She became an ardent Nazi full of admiration for Hitler. Her two elder sons became soldiers, one died in Africa. The daughters became Flak-Helferinnen - protecting Frankfurt’s skies in the days of the air raids with an anti-aircraft gun stationed in the area. My father was 15 in 1945 - and had been dreaming of Hitler’s miracle weapon until the regime had officially collapsed.All this was near Frankfurt/Main, so American forces took over and the family did what it had learned to do: One had to anticipate things to get hold of the better end. The family had been Nazi, but the farmer’s family had been Catholics and critics - that had to become a plus. It was feared that the Americans could confiscate the villa. The new plan was to anticipate that expropriation and to turn the house into an orphanage. Many children had lost their families in the air strikes (often separated from their families and secured on camps in the country). That was actually done - and the house was gone for good.Everyone had to answer a questionnaire, to determine who needed to be punished or re-educated - this is not of my father’s family but from the web:People sat together and made up their minds what could be said to be unburdened of any personal guilt. Downright lies - like a false denial of memberships in Nazi organisations - would be detected, but all other things needed a bit of coordination in order to harmonise these questionnaires with others.My grandmother was judged to be a “Mitläufer” - someone who supported the regime without an active role. People had attested her good manners. The family had employed prisoners of war for farm work, and had treated them well. These people were now witnesses in the denazification. The entire farm was crowded with “guests” who realised that there was food on such a farm. The elder daughters married ex-soldiers who had returned to Germany with my surviving uncle and who stayed on the farm as they did not see any better place to stay. (remember: all bigger cities lay in ruins).My mother’s mother was born in 1917 as the daughter of a roofer in Kassel - lower end of middle class, a craftsman’s household with just that one daughter who had visited a school for girls where she had learned basic French and English. She had married in 1935 an officer, an upstart with a village background, 11 years older, and had become a widow in the last days of the war. The mother with three children had already left Kassel, a major city in north Hesse, before her parent’s house was destroyed. Her husband, a soldier, had known that she would be safer in his village in southern Hesse where she was an outcast.The high ranking soldier was an issue in the expected denazification but more so his father, the father-in-law, who had been the Nazi Mayor of that village. American soldiers arrived after they had turned Büdingen, the next small town, into their regional base. They visited the Nazi house. My grandmother, being a city girl, was the only one who could speak English. The soldiers confiscated some of her furniture - which she would later fight for and get back. The father-in-law was interrogated but allowed to stay in his house for the time being. A couple of days later the Americans returned and dragged him into a car. A local steel factory had used forced laborers and had them executed before the arrival of the US-troops. My great-grandfather was ordered to excavate the remains together with other Nazi-officials of the area. My grandmother recalled that he was shocked - but did no speak a word about it.<A typical publication of the era: “These heinous atrocities: Your guilt” - note that it does not say “our guilt”>Denazification was not a bigger issue for her as she had not been a party member. Neither had her husband, the soldier, been a party member and she had been blunt: “Don’t you dare to touch his personal belongings (like his beloved saddle)! He was a soldier just as you, and there is a certain amount of honor in that!” The Americans seem to have been impressed but they imprisoned the Nazi Mayor, her father-in-law, who would not show the slightest remorse. He was put into a re-education camp and my grandmother began to run his business for the insurance company he had represented in the area. The village was flooded with refugees from Frankfurt and Hanau who had lost their homes, and soon also with families from what was now to become Poland and Czechoslovakia. Food was scarce but still available in a village like Eckartshausen (Büdingen) – Wikipedia.My grandmother would visit her father-in-law with food packages from the village on Sundays and saw a man who would not bow his head. The American officers demanded that the German inmates would clean their own lavatories. “Who do they think they are?” - so my great-grandfather. “What did you do, to avoid the community service?” - my grandmother asked her father-in-law on such a visit. “Nothing. I stared into the officer’s eyes until he broke the eye-contact and left.”My grandmother was shocked about the lack of solidarity among the inmates - but she also admired the standing of the old man who could exert such an authority on the enemy’s forces. My great-grandfather did not change a bit in his re-education, instead he made became, while still in the camp, a member of this group: Unitarier - Religionsgemeinschaft freien Glaubens - Wikipedia (the English article is short, the German equivalent tells you that they were forming nationalist cells in the American camps of the area at that time).The central problem of the denazification was that it was enforced. Germany was practically destroyed. Most people felt that the country would remain in ruins for a century to come - and that it would become the Pariah state in the world community for the rest of human history.The expectation was unpleasant and perceived as a gross collective injustice. People filled the denazification-forms with contempt. They lied and they collected testimonies on their behalf wherever they could get them without a feeling of cheating the authorities. The allied forced did not deserve a show of remorse - they had won the war, but that did not turn them into moral authorities, so the widespread feeling (which I collected in personal talks).The era of collective shame came in the 1950s and 1960s - spiced with a sentiment that this was something to acknowledge only personally never publicly. Publicly you would try to make careers - in Western Germany and in Eastern Germany - on a course of lies and hidden guilt.All this began to change after 1968/69 with the student rebellion and the new intellectual elite that would ask all the unpleasant questions publicly, now from within, now in a generational contest over the future moral high ground.My grandmother, mother’s side, born in 1917, reconsidered the Nazi era only in the 1980s. The American Holocaust series was aired in Germany in January 1979 - and controversial. It had an American flavour, it did not really look German and it was not clear whether this should not have been better done by Germans - but then: it had not been done by Germans… My grandmother watched it and it triggered memories of Jews disappearing and of her being silent as a young girl. She became very critical of her own past - and died age 95 in 2013.My grandmother, father’s side, born in 1899, had been far more flexible. She had not heard of the atrocities, so no personal affair, and she would have opposed any bestiality, certainly. She became a liberal in the late 1960s when her grandchildren joined the student rebellion. She would understand their eagerness to have a fresh start and to reconsider the past. That was something every new generation had to do, so her view. She was flexible and had always been flexible, so my impression - she died age 102 in 2001.

it's of no use unless you practice it and experience it. don't go for book yoga or you tube yoga, find a right guru who teaches classical yoga and benefit immensely.Benefits of meditation #1: Improved cardiac healthTwo studies published in 2008 and 2012 examined how Shambhavi Mahamudra supported cardiac health. The studies showed that participants had a more well-balanced Cardiac Autonomic Nervous System and an overall increase in Heart Rate Variability (HRV) during the practice. A higher HRV has been linked to better immunity to stressful situations, and is said to bestow a greater survival advantage on individuals. A lower HRV on the other hand has been linked to various heart diseases such as coronary artery disease, hypertension, chronic heart failure and myocardial infarction. The researchers conclude that practitioners of the Shambhavi Mahamudra and other Isha Yoga practices have higher exercise tolerance, better cardiac response to stressful situation, lower probability of undergoing hypertension of cardiac troubles such as ischemia or infarction.Benefits of meditation #2: Greater coherence within the brainA study from the Centre for Biomedical Engineering, IIT Delhi, looked at EEG (Electroencephalography) data from practitioner’s brains before, during and after practicing the kriya. The results show that practitioners experienced a greater level of coherence between the right and left hemispheres of the brain. EEG coherence is known to be a measure of how well connected various regions of the brain are. Higher coherence indicates greater exchange of information between various regions, as well as improved functional coupling and coordination. Higher levels of coherence are also correlated to higher scores on IQ and creativity tests, as well emotional stability and cognitive flexibility.The researchers also measured signals at various prominent EEG spectral bands known as the alpha, beta, delta and theta. Shambhavi practitioners were seen to have higher alpha band power in general, indicating that they experienced lower stress levels. There was a high increase in delta band power and theta band and a notable reduction in beta band power. A reduction in beta band power indicates reduced susceptibility to mental tension, excitement and anxiety. Higher theta and delta activity have been noted in previous research as indicative of conscious access to deeper states of meditation. “Delta rhythms combined with alpha are known to reflect an inner intuitive empathetic radar, a kind of sixth sense” the researchers note.Benefits of meditation #3: Improved sleepA study presented at the 20th Congress of the European Sleep Research Society, Lisbon, Portugal compared the sleep patterns of 15 male meditators with a control group of 15 age and education-matched, male non-meditators. Participants were aged between 25 and 55 years. The meditators had practiced Shambhavi Mahamudra as well as other Isha Yoga practices.Whole-night polysomnographic measures were recorded in participants and EEG data was recorded, along with other parameters. The results showed that the percentage of REM sleep, sleep efficiency and total sleep time of meditators was significantly higher as compared to the control group of non-meditators. Meditators also experienced better sleep quality as evidenced by fewer awakenings after sleep onset.The study concludes that consistent practice of the Shambhavi meditation has a positive impact on quality of sleep.Benefits of meditation #4: Improved attention and focusA study, published in the journal Perception, looked at how 89 participants performed in the Stroop task and attentional blink task before and after a 3-month Isha Yoga meditation retreat. The Stroop task looks at interference in the reaction time of a task. For example, when the name of a color is printed in some other color (for example, “red” is printed in black), respondents can make errors in identifying the printing color. Participants of the study were prone to fewer errors after the retreat than before it.Similarly, the attentional blink task involves participants identifying various visual stimuli presented to them within extremely short durations. Participants showed 58% correct detection during pre-retreat tests and 69% correct detection in post-retreat tests. The researchers conclude that “the hypothesis that meditation tends to improve allocation of attentional resources.”A similar study by a team from the Université de Toulouse, Department of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour, UC Irvine and the Indiana University School of Medicine looked at how Isha Yoga practices improve performance in attentional tasks due to better allocation of attentional resources, an ability to sustain attention and focus, faster re-allocation of attentional resources, greater cognitive flexibility and a reduction in automatic response. The study observes that these improvements are likely due to structural, anatomical and functional changes in meditators’ cognitive systems as compared to control groups drawn from the general population.Benefits of meditation #5: Reduced menstrual disorders75% of women are thought to experience problems related to menstruation, which has a huge physical, psychological, social and economic impact on their life. The primary means of treatment for such issues are known to offer less than satisfactory relief, even when patients choose surgery as a last resort. Currently, Yoga has become very popular as one of the mainstay alternate treatments for many disorders. The benefits of meditation and yoga in relation with such ailments have been under study for a while and show great promise.A team from the Poole Hospitals NHS Trust, UK, and the Indiana University School of Medicine, conducted a questionnaire survey of 128 female practitioners of the Shambhavi Mahamudra between the age group of 14 and 55 years, from the USA, UK, Singapore, Malaysia and Lebanon. 72% of the respondents practiced every day and the rest practiced 1-3 times in a week.The questionnaire asked respondents about the prevalence and impact of various menstrual disorders before they began the kriya and after they had practiced it for at least six months. Disorders covered included Dysmennorhea, symptoms of premenstrual syndrome, heaviness of menstrual flow, irregularity of menstrual cycle, the need for medical or surgical intervention for disorders, and the impairment of work during the menstrual period.The results showed a 57% decrease in the impact of Dysmennorhea, a 72% decrease in psychological symptoms such as irritability, mood swings, crying spells, depression and arguments, a 40% decrease in breast swelling and tenderness, and a 50% decrease in bloating and weight gain. There was an 87% decrease in the incidence of severe menstrual flow and an 80% decrease in the irregularity of the cycle. There was a 63% reduction in the need for medical or surgical interventions, and an 83% reduction in the number of instances of impairment at work.The authors conclude that the kriya “can be considered as an adjunct therapy for menstrual disorders given the improved symptoms in all the parameters.”Other benefits of meditationIn a questionnaire asking about improvements in life experienced from practicing the Shambhavi Mahamudra, 536 respondents indicated how the kriya had helped reduce medication and eliminate problems such as depression, allergies, asthma and other ailments. 91% reported greater inner peace, 87% reported improved emotional balance, 80% experienced greater mental clarity, 79% experienced increased energy levels, 74% reported improved self confidence and 70% reported better concentration and higher productivity.Source: Benefits of Meditation | Dhyana - Isha