Adam’s training journal
Well, the good news is that my summer and early fall spent training for the Chicago Marathon paid off nicely. I ran my fastest time in a half-dozen years. At the risk of excessive back-patting, I thought that wasn’t bad for a 41-year-old.
The bad news? I’m pretty sure I could’ve done better.
You see, the morning before the race, I woke up with a sore throat and a throbbing head. The headache dissipated, but the throat issues did not. By race time, a stuffy head had joined my burning throat.
I managed to run through my cold. But I might have lopped a few minutes off my time (and felt a whole lot better during the race and afterward) had my body not been forced to devote significant energies to fighting off whatever pathogen was causing me grief.
Despite my best efforts to remain germ-free, I had picked up one of the many bugs floating around this season. Perhaps coincidentally, it happened on the heels of a too- late night spent packing and re-packing my suitcase for every imaginable weather scenario on race day.
Do you think my lack of sleep caused this cold?
Dr. Prescott prescribes
I doubt that a single night spent burning the midnight oil brought on this illness. But studies have shown that poor sleep habits and susceptibility to colds go together. In a recent study published in The Archives of Internal Medicine, scientists exposed two groups to cold viruses. In the otherwise identical groups, the scientists found that those who had gotten less than seven hours of sleep a night over the previous two weeks were three times as likely to get sick as those who’d averaged at least eight hours.
In other studies, researchers have found that species that sleep more have a greater resistance to viruses and bacteria. These findings appear to go hand-in-hand with findings that mammals needing the most sleep produce higher levels of disease-fighting white blood cells.
Species that require longer sleep durations appear to be better protected against illness-causing pathogens. So when we don’t give our pillows enough quality time, we also shortchange our immune systems.
Will getting eight hours of sleep immunize you from colds? Absolutely not. But if you consistently hit the hay before the late-night TV shows come on, maybe you won’t have to ask “what if?” next time.
[ask-drp]
