intense workouts suppress your body’s immune system.
The problem is that intense, prolonged workouts suppress the body’s immune response for a period of time right after you finish exercising. And the longer and more intense your routine, the longer your immune system is down. And that means you’ll get sick more often.
The reason for this is simple: your body interprets long periods of exercise as stress.
This raises the levels of norepinephrine and cortisol. These stress hormones tend to suppress the immune system. They cause the numbers of immune cells (including white blood cells) to drop during and after the workout.
Staying in shape to exercise
The following guidelines can help reduce their odds of getting sick.
- Eat a well-balanced diet. The immune system depends on many vitamins and minerals for optimal function. However, at this time, there is no good data to support supplementation beyond 100 percent of the Recommended Dietary Allowances.
- Avoid rapid weight loss. Low-calorie diets, long-term fasting and rapid weight loss have been shown to impair immune function. Losing weight quickly is not good for the immune system.
- Obtain adequate sleep. Major sleep disruption (e.g., three hours less than normal) has been linked to immune suppression.
- Avoid over doing it. Space vigorous workouts apart as far apart as possible. Keep “within yourself” and don’t push beyond your ability to recover.