Should You Exercise When You Have A Cold Or Flu?
| 16 December 2009
You have just started on a fitness kick and you wake up one morning with what seems to be a really bad cold. You are coughing and sneezing, and it is hard to breathe. Should you work out? And if you do, should you push yourself as hard as ever or take it easy? Will exercise have no effect, or make you feel better or worse? It is a question, surprisingly enough, that stumps many health professionals but more seriously it often derails attempts of those trying to get into the habit of regularly exercising.
It turns out that two little-known studies that were published a decade ago in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise addressed this question. Results from the studies were so much in favor of exercise that the researchers themselves were surprised.
Why getting sick when you are on holidays may be a sign that you're getting healthier
| 14 December 2009
I use to end up coming home from holidays more exhausted than when I left. I used to get frustrated that my wife would just laze around doing nothing at our holiday destination. “We can just lay around when we are at home, so why do that on holidays,” I said as I tried to cram every day of my holidays with various activities. But one Easter my wife, Angela took me to her family’s beach shack in a sleepy seaside village. The first few days I nearly went out of my mind with boredom and I was at a loss to understand why this tiny country hideaway held such a special place in Angela’s heart.
On the fourth day I finally succumbed to the pedestrian pace of this quiet coastal nook. I went for long aimless walks along its pebbly shores looking at nothing in particular. During the afternoon I began to feel tired so defying my feelings of guilt that I should be productive in some way, I indulged myself in a 2-hour afternoon nap. I have to admit, I didn’t feel very refreshed upon waking so an early night to bed soon followed.
The following day, I woke to a continued feeling of fatigue despite a 10-hour sleep. As the day went on, bouts of sneezing became more frequent as my sinuses became more congested. Great. I was coming down with a cold.
You may want to reconsider what causes the flu
| 06 November 2009
I was recently reading Exercise and Sports Sciences Reviews which is the official review journal of the American College of Sports Medicine. It was an article about the effects of exercise on the incidence of respiratory tract infections that caught my attention. It wasn’t that they concluded that mild to moderate exercise seemed to improve immunity against infections that surprised me. It was a particular study (1) that should have us all question how governments, businesses and individuals are responding to the flu. This is particularly relevant considering the recent hysteria surrounding the swine flu....
Pigs can fly and now they kill ... the return of the fear mongers
| 05 October 2009
Ask any marketing executive why companies rush to have their products associated with gorgeous models and sexy movie stars and they would probably reply, “Sex sells.” If you look at the recent machinations behind the recent Swine Flu outbreak the advertising executives new mantra may become “Fear sells even better.”
Within two days following news of the outbreak, Biota, the Australian company that developed the anti-viral drug, Relenza, has seen its share value rise around 80%. Rather than accurately presenting the facts, the media hysteria behind the Swine Flu is more like a promotion for the first two instalments of The Attack of the Killer Flu trilogy. The original episode was SARS which was followed by the Bird Flu.
One of the original sequels that capitalised on the emotion of fear was the movie, Jaws. In fact, many of the underwater scenes were filmed at a place called Dangerous Reef, near my home town of Port Lincoln. I remember as a youngster, seeing the actual manikin and shark cage they used in the film. Both the manikin and the shark cage were half the normal size in order to make the 12 foot white pointer sharks look as though they were twice the size. Media outlets are using similar tricks to sensationalize and magnify feelings of fear throughout the community.
This climate of fear may well result in improved ratings, improved share prices of drug companies, as well as improved newspaper and magazine sales but it also helps the spread of such conditions. If you want to experience an emotion that helps to drastically lower your immunity, try living in fear.