Being ill over Christmas- a sign of coping?

Were you ill over the Christmas period? Or maybe you know someone whose back pain started up again or a colleague who got a migraine? In this article I hope to explain why this occurs and how I can help people avoid this from happening in future.

If you look at company absence statistics you will see that there is a significant rise in sick days during the festive season. Not just from winter coughs and colds but from all manner of pains and illnesses. Just think back over previous Christmases in your family and I am sure you will remember several occasions when someone was ill.

Despite all the festivities, Christmas can be a very stressful time of the year. Depending on your previous experiences, personality and current circumstances, stress can be a result of various factors:

• Making sure your business/work is on track to achieve your goals and be left over the Christmas period
• Financial concerns, perhaps due to pressure to spend more money on presents and parties
• Commercialism and the pressure to find the right presents or face busy shopping crowds
• Sorting out arrangements for get-togethers and trying to please everyone, ensuring Christmas is a happy, fun and memorable event for the right reasons
• Finding the time to do all the planning, shopping, preparations
• Relationships and family differences

Our bodies react to stresses unconsciously and automatically- via the fight or flight response. This is a primal protective response which enables us to react instantly to real threats to our lives. For example seeing a wild tiger run towards us creates fear which triggers the response in the brain which then creates a chain of reactions in the body via the autonomic nervous system to prepare us to run or fight. However, this response has adapted to cope with modern life, where most of our stress is psychological, but our body still responds protectively as if it was a physical threat to try and help us cope with these perceived threats.

Our perceived stress is not just a result of what is directly happening in our lives, but how we react to what is happening. Facing a situation, where you feel the demands outweigh your resources to cope successfully, creates stress. How we react is affected by our inner resources, which are made up of factors such as age, mental ability, physical ability/strength/fitness, past experiences and personality. Our past experiences shape who we are and how we react, so our perceived stress is also affected by our beliefs, learned behaviours, attitudes and even memories. Our brain is not able to distinguish between whether an emotion is happening now or whether it has just been triggered by a thought related to a past or even future event. When we feel physical symptoms of stress, therefore, they may not even be based on a current pressure, they could stem from emotional memories from as far back as our childhood.

In our society, we are often taught from a young age to control our emotions. To stop crying because it is a sign of weakness, to stop shouting and punching because we are being disruptive or naughty. Unfortunately when we throw tantrums as children we are often just told to stop and control our temper, and not taught how to express this anger safely. It could be that some people grow to learn that anger is “bad” or “dangerous”, especially after seeing the often scary consequences of people losing their temper. This can result in bottling up their own anger, and in time this can become such a habit that they are often not even aware they are angry, which eventually can shape the personality trait of being calm and always coping. They might seem to always be in control, and not easily flustered, but without a safe outlet for any triggered anger, the unresolved emotions will be bottled up.

Emotions that remain bottled up and unresolved will gradually increase, the more we have to deal with in life. A common analogy is that of a pressure cooker: the pressure will just continue building up until steam is released or it will explode! In addition to this, when “letting off steam” is in direct conflict with our self-image of who we are, for example, someone who is gentle, non-confrontational, calm, in control, a people-pleaser, a coper:  then the body is often the thing that starts to complain. Symptoms of stress are the manifestation of the build up of emotional pressure- just as with steam from a pressure cooker. Pain, coughs, colds, headaches, IBS and other health problems are all examples of symptoms which can be caused by our need to cope with stress and underlying emotions.

When our stress response targets our immune system, causing colds and infections, coughs, even food intolerances, etc., or the nervous system, resulting in pain, muscle spasms, numbness, etc., it is actually a protective response, enabling us to continue coping. The good thing is that coming down with a nasty cold though usually means you spend time resting in bed, often stopping what was causing your stress response. But unfortunately there is a tendency to ignore early warning signs because we have so much to do! With our current pace of life, long working hours, and modern technology that enables us to be in constant contact with the outside world, we often do not take the time to recognise what is going on inside us.  With so many distractions available; watching films, playing computer games, mobile phones, Christmas parties and not least work, our physical symptoms are screaming out to get our attention to tell us that all is not well.

 There is nothing wrong with “coping”, but it is important to acknowledge how you feel, rather than constantly being busy and distracting yourself. Your back pain, headache or that nasty cough was not there to make things difficult for you over Christmas, it was creating an opportunity for you to improve how you look after yourself and to identify the underlying causes of your pain.  Learning how to interpret our symptoms as indicators to the underlying problems, acknowledge our feelings and implement strategies to resolve and let go of the problems: these are some of the techniques I teach my clients to learn to help them resolve their pain.

For more detailed information about the above and other techniques I use to help my clients recover from pain, injury, postural problems and stress induced health problems, or to find out how you or your company could benefit, please get in touch for a free consultation.