Coming down with a virus is always a bummer, whether you have an empty calendar or a full one. But it can be flat-out maddening when that pesky cold aligns with a vacation you’re excited about. Who wants to be sick in a hotel bed instead of exploring a must-visit destination?
While no amount of reasoning makes a badly timed illness any better, some researchers say there may be a reason why this happens when you’re on a trip.
Dutch researchers Ad Vingerhoets and Maaike Van Huijgevoort dubbed this phenomenon as “leisure sickness,” or the act of getting sick on vacation or during leisure time over the weekend. They found that 3.6% of men and 2.7% of women they surveyed experienced it over a weekend, while 3.2% of men and 3.2% of women experienced it on a vacation.
Participants said their leisure sickness is tied to issues like work stress, travel stress or work changes; once their body takes a break from work or planning and finally slows down to rest, they come down with symptoms.
Can built-up stress really make you sick when you slow down?
“I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s definitely false, I’ll just say it’s unproven, and what it needs, like any study, it needs duplication,” said Dr. Christopher Sanford, an associate professor of family medicine and global health at the University of Washington. Sanford also hosts the travel health podcast ”Germ & Worm.”
Sanford said there just isn’t enough research into the concept of “leisure sickness.” There need to be larger studies in multiple settings that also compare data to when folks aren’t traveling, Sanford noted.
While you won’t go to a doctor while on vacation and get a diagnosis of “leisure sickness,” there are some separate reasons why you may still fall ill while you’re traveling or feeling stressed. Here’s what experts say:
You may be stressed or anxious and have trouble slowing down.
“Most of us who work hard are not as good at being vacationers as we are at working because we do work most of the time,” said Dr. David Spiegel, the director of the Stanford Center on Stress and Health in California and the founder of the sleep app Reveri.
Some folks deal with anxiety by burying themselves in work while other people’s deepest stressors, like financial instability or job loss, are directly related to their work output, Spiegel explained.
This means that when you aren’t stuck at your desk for hours on end, checking every email and answering every call, your mind…
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