Italy, morningI spent the majority of my time in Italy being sick. A reason could be that a) I don't like to take medications and so when I get sick I just increase the uptake of vitamin C and wait that it goes away, and b) if I don't have high fever, I keep going on with my normal life, which means that I go out and all the rest.
The olandesino has always told me that stress for me does what smoking hundred of cigarettes and drinking a lot of alcohol do to the rest of the world. He basically always complained that my level of stress well compensated for my very healthy life style. Anyway, I am not sure of what it is going on with my immune system, but my thought before the Christmas holidays was to wait for the beginning of my new contract in February, relaxing a bit in Italy.....I managed to not work for a total of three days in about a month, which is already a success for my standards and I also relaxed and had fun with family and friends. However, I can't deny that I have also felt stressed for different reasons, one of which that I felt that I needed to relax much more of how I relaxed (very smart reason to get stressed, I know...). The conclusion of this month of forced-relaxation has been that I got sick with a flu three times. The point is, I almost never get a flu.
I think that till I am totally stressed out, my immune system does not have the time to let me get sick....all my body is working to keep me going....as soon as I relax a little, boooooooooooom.....I get any possible virus or bacteria that is in the air as my body get confused on what it is going on...I am still stressed, but I am trying to relax.....so it is neither one or the other....
End of the story seems to be that from now on, I should just avoid to try to relax even a little....my body is just not used to that :-)
PS. In this month the best part of my relaxing plan has been sleeping a lot....now I am used to sleep at least 9 hours a night.....it will be interesting to see how I will manage to get back to a normal working schedule....
PPS. One of the good things of being sick is that I can stay in bed watching movies. I just saw a movie I loved. Great sound track. Of course, I cried for it. I know how it feels being with someone who apparently can never be sure about you, while you think that he is the person for you.....
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2 comments:
I've heard so many times that once you relax after a long period of stress you get sick, but I always thought it was ridiculous. But now I believe it's true. Actually, stress depressed the immune system. So while you are stressed you are probably easy to infect. And then once the stress stops, the immune system starts working and produces all the symptoms you see.
Scott thanks for the scientific insight on why I get sick so often. So stressing is bad, but relaxing is even worse as I get all the symptoms that I couldn't have while I was so stressed :-) ..... maybe in this new year I should learn how to chill out in a better way to avoid to get to this point!
Thanks!
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