Can You Get Sick From Stress? | PYHP 071

The holiday season is upon again, which is a great time of year to spend with family and friends. However, it can be a stressful time of year as well. Not to mention, it is also the cold and flu season. Most of us are too busy and don’t have time to get sick, but that is part of the problem. We push ourselves too hard. Sleep is often never enough, so we open ourselves to illness. In this episode of the podcast, we discuss the connection between stress, your adrenals, and immune function. Over the years, we have seen it many times with our patients. They are very busy with work, family and just life in general. If an unexpected stressor comes along, they don’t have enough reserves to keep them well. Inevitably, they are laid up in bed with a cold or the flu.   PYHP 071 Full Transcript:  Download PYHP 071 Transcript Dr. Maki: Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us for another episode of Progress Your Health Podcast. I’m Dr. Maki– Dr. Davidson: –and I’m Dr. Davidson. Dr. Maki: So have you noticed the weather’s changing a little bit? It’s getting a little cold. Dr. Davidson: Oh, absolutely.  Dr. Maki: I think it was like in the 20’s these last couple of days in the morning. Dr. Davidson: Yeah. I think 30’s because it didn’t completely freeze but when it’s cold here, it usually means that the sun is out which is really pretty. Then with the fall leaves being orange and read, it’s actually been a really beautiful Fall here in Washington. Dr. Maki: Yeah, you and I went for a hike the other day, we have this called the inner urban trail right behind our house and when we went up to this hike that’s in Bellingham called Fragrance Lake which is a really popular hike. You are telling me about when you went down the trail and all the leaves were on the path and it looks like, kind of, like the yellow brick road from Wizard of Oz. Dr. Davidson: Yeah, there was a big– kind of like a windy time like a windy night and then the next day when it was really beautiful I went for a walk by myself on that inner ravine trail and nobody had been on there yet. No bikers, no walkers and it was just all these yellow leaves all over and just me that did it. I was like, “I feel like I’m on a brick trail.” Dr. Maki: Yeah, that’s great. Dr. Davidson: A yellow brick road. Dr. Maki: Yeah, yellow brick road. I’m originally from the Midwest Minnesota and there’s a scenic tour, scenic drive you go from Duluth, Minnesota up the, what they call North Shore which is the North Shore of Lake Superior and everyone takes this kind of– I won’t say everyone– but a lot of people take this annual trip to be able to see the change of the leaves and certainly, we never really got a sense of that in Las Vegas when we live