What to Do About Your Flu and How It Relates to Your Fitness Regimen

Many have awoken to a strange yet familiar feeling in their body. It’s been happening more frequently as of late; it starts with just a small feeling and quickly transfers across the body. There’s this warm feeling in their head. Their body feels warm and/or a cough has started. Their body aches and their mind doesn’t need to race that far because it already knows what’s happening; it’s the flu.

It’s not the first time you got the flu nor will it be the last, but it certainly doesn’t feel good. The sickness leaves you feeling like you need to stay in bed. It makes you skip work and other activities, and it drains all the life from you. Work suffers, play suffers, and most of all you feel like all your hard earned gains are halted. What do you do now?

This may sound obvious, but it’s time to think about your health. No, seriously, I mean really examine how you’ve been holding up. What’s been eating at you lately? Where are your shortcomings and what can you do better? Sickness feels like we’re being buried; as if we’re going to lose precious time at work or with others, but it can also serve as an opportunity for growth if the focus is right.

For instance, if you’re getting sick often it’s highly recommended you take account for what’s going on around you and why you’re getting sick so often. Is it your office? Is it your routine? Have you really been taking the best care of yourself or have you been letting things slip and it’s now led to this? There should be no shame in admitting when you’re wrong and equally so when you’re feeling ill. You have to make some changes and this sickness could be a major indication of the how you’ve neglected your health.

Should you force yourself out of bed? Should this be a time where you muscle through because that’s the honorable thing to do? Absolutely not; there’s no shame in taking time for you, especially if it involves healing illness. You’re allowed to take time for yourself, so do so. This is for your benefit; you’re not proving anything by pushing through.

So, what about training? Should you hit the gym and sweat it out like everyone says? Well, it depends on the severity of the symptoms. If it’s all in your head, i.e. stuffy nose, mild headache, etc. you could get away with a light workout. However, if you’re feeling aches and pains, and typical flu like symptoms it’s not advised that you push through. You need to rest.

If your symptoms are severe then you most certainly need to take time off and you’re going to have to schedule a visit with your physician. This is no joke; the typical message is to push on through, but you may be pushing yourself over instead. If you’re concerned or it’s severe, acknowledge it and go see your physician. You may need medication or more time off than you realize.

As per usual, if you’re experiencing flu symptoms the best thing you can do for yourself is rest. Drink the right fluids for your condition, whether that includes medication or not, and take time away from everything and everyone else to recover. Curl up in your blanket; you won’t die from resting a day or two and understand that this sickness might be an indication that you’ve been pushing too hard. I repeat this and I mean it, it may be time to make some changes.

With all this said let’s shift focus to an area where we can all improve; our career. If you’re looking to make changes to your career or just step it up, I want to suggest looking into our NPI-Certified Posture Specialist™ program. The world needs more like you; people who understand posture and how performing activities of daily living in poor alignment affects them.

Remember, you could be the change for someone else. You could be the one that analyzes bad posture in a client, friend, or family member and help them overcome their back pain. It all starts with you, but you’ve got to take a moment to check out our program.

Here’s the program >>