I’ve been out of town a lot lately. Once to Vancouver to become a God Mumma. A second time to Vancouver for a conference. Once to Seattle for a workshop slash many fun good times, and once to Toronto for my 10 year naturopathic class reunion. (Also many fun good times.) In addition to all this travelling I have been packing up my house because my husband and I bought our own.
That’s a lot. Of things. Stresses. Good ones, but still stresses.
Sadly the body reacts the same way to good or bad stresses.
Stress shuts down the immune system.
To clarify, when your body is in a stressed state (aka when your sympathetic nervous system is active) cortisol, the active stress hormone, clamps down immune function. This has short term survival value. If you have been maimed by a flesh eating lion-o-saurus, the anti-inflammatory action of cortisol will prevent you from noticing the pain of the wound, so you can run to the safety of your cave-like dwelling.
Cortisol is a potent anti-inflammatory which is why it is used in overtly inflammatory reactions such as eczema and asthma, as well as in auto-immune diseases (it prevents the immune system from being active.)
I feel like I need to make an infographic, but in the essence of time and getting back to this epic packing project I’m going to write this out in a linear way.
Here are the steps of the stress response:
- Stress (lion-o-saurus maiming)
- Cortisol release (sympathetic response)
- Suppression of inflammation
- The maimed feels no heat, no redness, no swelling, no pain, and suffers no immobility
- The wounded sprints/hobbles to safety (thankfully they are still mobile)
- After some TLC, and deep breathing the nervous system switches back in to healing mode (aka the parasympathetic nervous system is active)
- The body can now heal the wound (and it uses inflammation to do this.)
The purpose of inflammation is healing. The immune system creates heat to kill infection. It creates swelling to contain said infection, and deliver healing nutrients to the area. The extra fluids also get released (pus, mucus) to eliminate the dead organisms. The pain and immobility force rest. So the body can heal.
Short term inflammation is totally amazing.
Unfortunately long term inflammation is pathological and related to most chronic illnesses including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer. The inflammation is a symptom of underlying root causes, typically a combination of reactive foods, toxic exposure, too much sugar, trauma, and/or emotional distress. Anyhoo… I’m getting off track.
Back to vacations.
Have you ever noticed that as soon as you finally make it to your vacation (even if it is just a staycation) that you immediately get sick? Here are two examples:
- A patient comes in and tells me she had a great weekend, camping, hanging out with her favorite people, spending time in nature, so relaxed and happy and then BOOM. Sick as a dog on Monday.
- A colleague / bestie after the reunion weekend in Toronto also icky sicky bleh bleh for the week following.
I mean, GAWSH! What’s the deal with that?
This is why you get sick on Vacations:
Most likely you’ve been stressed out. A lot. Especially before your time away from work. In the weeks before a vacation you’re piling extra work on, trying to get gazillions of boxes checked off your to-do list. Cortisol is in full-on, all systems go mode. That is except your immune system. It is in the opposite of go mode. (So is the digestive and reproductive systems but let’s try to stick to the topic at hand – that note is more for me than you. 😉 )
When you’re stressed, you can’t get sick because you don’t actually have the immune resources available to mount a response.
And then finally it’s time. You arrive on your white sand beach, are served your first lime margarita, and as you’re licking the salt off the rim you start to feel that tickle in your throat.
Bugger. It’s your one week away from the office and now you’re sick. Wah wah.
As soon as the stress shifts out of your life and your nervous system shifts back into parasympathetic mode, your immune system is finally able to mobilize. Inflammation is no longer suppressed and you get sick. You have a fever (heat to kill infection), you get stuffed up (swelling to contain and eliminate the pathogens) and you get achy and don’t want to move (you are forced to rest so you can heal.)
At least you’re sick on a pretty beach, right?
How to not get sick on Vacations:
Despite all this stuff going on in my life, and several vacays, I’ve haven’t been sick this year. Knock on wood.
In February, looking ahead at the calendar, I knew things were gonna be cray. I took preventative measures to decrease my body’s stress response as much as possible and I’d say so far so good. Here’s what I’ve been doing:
- Journaling for 15 minutes upon rising. This has been 85 days straight so far.
- Meditating for 30 minutes after journaling. Today was day 115 in a row.
- Taking extra nutrients. I’ve been doing this in the form of a greens powder (vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants as close to what nature intends as possible in a convenient mint tasting addition to my morning smoothie)
- Taking Vitamin D (more than what the bottle suggests – GASP!)
- Supporting my adrenal (stress) glands with various adaptogenic and immune boosting herbs including faves such as withania, astragalus, reishi, tribulus, B12, and siberian ginseng, and echinaecea)
- Prioritizing sleep quantity (8-9 hours for me) and quality (using herbs such as withania, skull cap, passion flower, and magnolia)
- Not over or under exercising (for me that means about 20 minutes 3-4 x per week)
- Making time for laughter, intimacy, creativity (even if that just meant colouring my Dr. Seuss colouring book)
- Generally avoiding reactive foods.
All this translated into my immune system not being suppressed and mounting mini little responses (sneezes, and blowing my nose) as it needed to to keep me clear of infections. Yay Hooray! (Side note… often the people who brag about never getting sick are the really stressed out ones!)
So, I encourage you to be pro-active in your self care routines and not just rely on vacation time as self care. It needs to be a regular occurrence. You can’t just do health once.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts. Have you ever had an experience like the ones I described? Tell me about it in the comments below.
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Here’s to your healthy, thriving, delightful life,
