I'm Sick Should I Exercise?

When you are sick it's hard to know if you should exercise or not?

As a general rule of thumb if your illness has moved into your chest and affects your breathing then you should stop. You should also stop if you have a temperature or are feeling dizzy and have body aches.

When you should carry on: a simple cold that is only giving you the sniffles, a mild injury where you can still use other parts of the body, or times of stress.

It is important to keep up activity, but you don't have to keep it up at the same level. When you are sick just take an easy walk, do some activity round the house, take it down a notch. Some fresh air and movement is still benefiical but you don't want to risk injury or make yourself even sicker!

It's hard to know when to exercise if you are tired. There are different levels of tired. Are you tired because in general you are feeling low on energy, sluggish or stressed, or are you tired because you haven't slept 4 nights in a row due to a sick child or massive work deadline.

If it's the former then exercise will help, it will give you energy, help you sleep better and in turn help adjust thought patterns, if it's the latter then your best exercise is to sleep and watch your nutrition.