Can you exercise when you are sick? & bull; hello healthy

Doing sports when you are sick may sound strange. Many people say that people who are sick should not exercise. However, what if it turns out that exercising when you are sick can actually boost your immune system and help ward off disease in the body? It actually depends on the type of illness and the type of exercise you do. The following is a complete explanation.

When can you do sports when you are sick?

If the symptoms are above your neck, you are usually allowed to do sports, even though at a lower intensity than usual. Includes symptoms such as:

Runny
Nasal congestion
Sneezing
Sore throat
Headache

If you have enough energy to ignore the symptoms then raise your body temperature by sweating because exercise can help the body to kill many viruses. In fact, according to research, exercising when you have a fever is recommended. At the end of a 10-day trial, people who exercised 40 minutes daily using 70% of their maximum heart rate felt better, compared to people who didn't exercise, even though the clinical severity and duration of their symptoms were nearly identical.

The key to exercising when sick is to do it with care. Exercising excessively will put stress on your body, which can suppress the immune system. Get plenty of exercise if you don't feel well. Exercise and Sport Science Reviews , said that prolonged intense exercise causes immunosuppression, whereas moderate intensity exercise can improve immune function and reduce the risk of viral and respiratory infections.

When should you not do sports when you are sick?

Your doctor will generally advise you to avoid exercise if you have symptoms at the bottom of your neck, such as:

Fever
Coughing or tightness in the chest
Fatigue
Muscle ache
Vomiting, stomach pain and / or stomach cramps

No matter what your symptoms are, you have to be very careful and always pay attention to your body. If you don't feel these symptoms, but you just want to rest, then that's what your body needs. If you force your body to do something against your will, your disease will get worse.

How does exercise affect the immune system?

Exercise may play a role in both innate and adaptive immune responses. Here's how:

One prolonged strenuous exercise session will expose the body to infection. For example, running a marathon can suppress the immune system for up to 72 hours, and this is why many athletes get sick after racing.
However, one strenuous training session will not cause the same immune-suppressing effect. Just one moderate exercise session can actually boost immunity in a healthy person.
Interestingly, sustained resistance training can stimulate innate immunity (but not adaptive immunity). Meanwhile, sustained moderate exercise can strengthen the adaptive immune system.

Ultimately, moderate exercise and resistance training can strengthen the immune system over time. So, you can train hard when you're healthy, even though one strenuous training session can interfere with immune function. So, when you are sick, you can do light exercise.

The link between exercise, stress, and immune function

As a group of scientists collected data on exercise habits and influenza disease, they found that:

People who never exercise will get sick quite often.
People who exercise between once a month and three times a week are best.
People who exercise vigorously more than four times a week get sick most often.

So, in simple terms, people who are too lazy and exercise too often experience decreased immunity. However, exercise at a moderate level can increase immunity.

The link between vigorous exercise and infection

Sudden increases in the volume and intensity of exercise can be stressful, and allow viruses or bacteria to enter the body and cause disease. On Los Angeles Marathon In 1987, one in seven athletes fell ill one week after racing. And they run more than 68 km per week before the race, and they have twice the chance of developing disease than those who train less than 25 km per week.