Lot of people think they will have a chance to have rest during their holiday: only 1-2 weeks and everything will be fine again. Well, we have bad news: that is not really like this. Actually lot of people get sick during their holidays. It’s long been known that stress can lead to illness but only recently has evidence emerged that some people tend to get sick after a pressure-packed period has ended. There’s even a name for this affliction – leisure sickness. To understand how and why this can happen, it helps to review how stress affects the body.

Everybody needs some stress for the everyday life, the stress hormones in small quantity and short-term are very useful. One of the main stress hormones is the cortisol which can act on many different parts of the body, increase your body’s metabolism of glucose, control your blood pressure and reduce inflammation. The other important stress hormone is the adrenaline. Adrenaline participates in the sympathetic nervous system’s “fight-or-flight response” to situations that are high-stress, dangerous. Also triggers the blood vessels to contract to re-direct blood toward major muscle groups, including the heart and lungs. The body’s ability to feel pain also decreases as a result of adrenaline, which is why you can continue running from even when injured. Adrenaline causes a noticeable increase in strength and performance, as well as heightened awareness, in stressful times.

So we can see basically nothing is bad in stress; we need this. The problem starts when you live in stressful situation for a long time.

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