What to do When You’re Sick (and Why It’s So Important)

Hello everybody! Good to have you here! Many countries around the world celebrated Easter last weekend and most children have been home from school for a week or 2. Did you have a nice Easter? If you have children, have you all been busy enjoying the school holidays? Got any chocolate left? 😉

Our holidays have been pretty good. I wrote last week about (amongst other things) the almost non-stop entertainment our daughters were enjoying. What, between cooking classes and church groups and parties and sleepovers, I hardly saw them at all in the week leading up to Easter!

Our Easter weekend itself was lovely. Plenty of gloriously warm sun and blue skies, making the outdoor Easter egg hunt an urgent affair. Take too long to look for your eggs and you would have ended up with a basket of hot chocolate! We went a-visiting (to my mother-in-law) for a couple of days and then back home received our own visitors (from my Australian family) for a couple of days. A perfect weekend all round, if I do say so myself!

Remember how I had been fantasising about enjoying some good quality dark chocolate (which I did indeed receive 😉) and a glass of chilled sauvignon blanc? Yes? Just one stumbling block though…

I was sick throughout the entire thing. ☹

You see, when I wrote last week that I was all recovered from the previous weekend of being feverish and ill, I thought I was. But my body was just playing peek-a-boo. For the entire Easter long weekend I was feeling, well, like crap. For a start, I had tonsillitis. I had earache. I had headaches. I had muscle aches. And of course alternating fever and high temperatures for days on end.

So, um, no. Zero interest in delights such as chocolate and wine. Goodbye decadence! Hello indifference!

What You Should Not Do When You’re Sick

So what did I do about all this? Well of course, what plenty of busy women do. Kept on powering on. ‘Cos that’s what’s we do, right? A full week of school holidays ahead of me? Keep right on buzzing around the house and looking after the children. Cooking. Tidying. Washing. Appointments. Everything.

Certainly, I did sleep later than during school term. And yes, I did also take a nap in the afternoon some days. But as we all know, there are still jobs that need doing. Who was it that said that “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” thing???

This latest infection is not the only one of my current concerns *dramatically brings back of hand to forehead and sighs*. Remember weeks ago I mentioned having to give up sports for a while because I hurt my knee? I have also been diagnosed with tennis elbow. Clearly because I was practicing for my Wimbledon debut (er, not!). And they are just the latest in a line of things going on.

So. Surely any medical doctor would support keep-going-til-you-just-want-to-faceplant-the-bed as a winning tactic in regaining good health, right? The body is an amazing thing and can rebuild and recover yada yada yada. Right?!? No?!? What?!? I should have chilled out and rested and given my body a chance to fight off all those nasties? Oh… That’s what I was doing wrong…

What You Should Actually Do When You’re Sick (& Why It’s Important)

Well that is, unless you enjoy feeling like crud and unable to do all that cool fun stuff you usually like to…

1. Get Enough Sleep

When coffee is your best friend and you feel like you need a nap at 9.30am already, you might want to take a look at your sleep habits. Decades of actual scientific research reporting that adult humans need a good 7 to 8 hours sleep each night weren’t fudging their findings. It’s true. For your body to recuperate from the previous day and have the best chance of functioning properly the following day, you really do need to regularly get that much sleep. And if you’re sick it’s even more important.

Of course we all know people (or you yourself perhaps???) that claim to operate just fine on 5 or 6 hours a night. Maybe it works for a few days, or weeks or perhaps even months. But burning the candle at both ends can’t last forever. And then poor concentration, increased stress levels, decreased productivity, fatigue, illness and more set in. Lack of sleep leaves not only you feeling lousy, but can then negatively affect those around you. A stressed you leads to more tense interactions with loved ones and colleagues. Which is surely not how you want it to be, right?

And too little shuteye can even be dangerous. Like those warnings on some medications. You know, “do not drive or operate heavy machinery if drowsy”? Same thing with lack of sleep. I had an acquaintance a couple of years back, working 2 jobs- one of them shift work- who was always so exhausted and distracted. She only decided to give up one of the jobs after completely losing concentration whilst driving and wrecking her car.

To summarise: Do what any good doctor would tell you. Or remember back to what your own Mama told you (probably with wagging finger too 😉). Get.More.Sleep.

2. Drink Enough Fluids

Is vodka a fluid? Is coffee a fluid? Is an energy drink a fluid? Yes to all. IF you are in high school and studying the chemical states of gas vs fluid vs solid. But coffee, energy drinks and all forms of alcohol actually dehydrate you. So no, these are not the fluids any good doctor would recommend.

Water is definitely best (although juices and some teas are also helpful). 8 glasses a day when you are well and even more when you are feeling under the weather.

I tell you, it can be easier said than done. For a few days this past week when my tonsillitis was at its worst I had no appetite and couldn’t have swallowed much food anyway. But even drinking was like swallowing razor blades and I know that I drank waaaaay less than I normally do. Our youngest daughter even ended up in hospital a couple of years back because she was so mega dehydrated during a particularly nasty battle with tonsillitis. It was so painful to watch, she just looked so pitiful *sniff*. Dehydration can happen faster than you think ☹.

But why is it important to focus on drinking? Your body is made up of about 60% water. When you are sick, fever, sweating, extra mucus production, more frequent or laboured breathing and any of those unpleasant gastro-type infections all lead to extra fluid loss from the body. What you lose, you need to make up for. Plus, while drinking water will not flush out any germs from your body, the extra fluids will help remove any toxins and waste products being created in your body more efficiently.

All in all, that means: Drink more!

3. Take Your Medicine

Nobody really likes lining up at the doctor’s office for an appointment. I know that I don’t (especially during school holidays with 3 bored kids having been dragged along). Not too many people enjoy taking medicine either. We’d all just rather be healthy and get on with it.

But if you are feeling unwell and you do need to go to the pharmacy or doctor. And you do need to take some sort of medicine to get better. You’d better damn well do it! There, I said it! Ha!

There’s a reason you’re sick. Often your body is strong enough get healthy again on it’s own. And sometimes it’s not. There’s a reason the doctor says that you need to take medicine X- to help your body fight back and get well again. So it’s important you remember to follow doctor’s orders. If it were your child or a sick parent, you wouldn’t forget to give them their meds or just decide after 3 days of antibiotics that everything must be alright afterall. No! Remember to look after yourself too and get well!

I am going to sound like an hypochondriac here, but this week alone I have been using 2 different sorts of antibiotics, a throat spray, nose drops, plus throat lozenges. I also still (11 months post-surgery) have to use steroid eye drops every day. And I like to try and take a multivitamin. I’m like my own personal pharmacy, LOL. Thank goodness they are not all in tablet form otherwise I’d be rattling around the house like an old pillbox. I’ve got all my goodies lined up near where I keep my phone so I cannot possibly forget that they are there, lying in wait for me 😉. If you are not good at remembering, maybe set an alarm for yourself. Find your own way to best remember what you need to do.

Bottom line: If you need meds, take them and hopefully you’ll be well in no time.

4. Get Any Other Help You Need

Of course there are times when you are ill that you can skip the whole medicine thing, because it’s not what you need. We all know medicine isn’t there to solve all problems. Or maybe you need medicine plus X.

By help, I mean just about anything other than popping a pill! Can’t get the kids to school? Ask a neighbour to help out. Can’t get to the supermarket for groceries? Ask your partner to do it this week. Been told to get physio treatment twice a week? Book those sessions in your calendar. Got a referral to another specialist? Go make that appointment too. Been recommended to get more exercise, drink less alcohol, stress less, eat healthier, whatever? Make it happen!

The point is: Whatever it is going to take to get back to being a fantastic you, do it!

If you aren’t healthy, you are not operating at your full capacity. That means less energy, less enthusiasm, lower concentration, less patience, lower productivity. None of that is good, whether it affects your home life, work life, or interactions with the rest of the outside world. (And for those who do only sleep 5 hours a night and think they are doing just fine, imagine how amazing you would be doing if you got even more sleep!! Hmm… think about that!). We all want you to be feeling your best so you can go out in the world in top form!

You wouldn’t let a loved one get away with ignoring their health. So be sure to invest time and care into looking after yours. So to all of those reading who are also currently unwell, I raise my glass of water to you and say “Get strong soon!”.

Remember that old gem: “If you don’t have your health, you have nothing”. Now, off to take heed of my own advice… 😉

Are you good at following doctor’s orders? What’s your favourite go-to when sick that helps perk you up? Share below!