’Vacation makes workaholic ill’

Spending a lazy holiday on the beach, listening to music, gorging on your favourite food or whizzing off for winter sports to break free from a workaholic schedule can make you fall sick, experts warn.

According to a study, illness goes up when the stress of work goes down. The condition termed as “leisure sickness” leads to aches and pains, cold and flu-like symptoms and other health problems just when people tend to take a break from their busy schedule to enjoy a little relaxation.

The underlying cause of the problem has a lot to do with stress, the Wahington Post quoted Ad Vingerhoets of Tilburg University as saying.

A survey of 1,893 persons revealed that about 3 per cent of respondents indicated that they seldom fell ill during work days.

Many attributed their symptoms to difficulties transitioning from work to non-work, to stress associated with travel and to balancing a heavy workload.

Respondents who identified themselves as workaholics or perfectionists tended to have a much harder time relaxing than others.

Esther Sternberg of the National Institutes of Health termed leisure sickness a real condition, tied to the release of hormones under stress and their interaction with the nervous and immune systems.

In times of stress, the body’s adrenal glands release adrenaline, which makes the heart beat faster and causes you to feel sweaty and anxious. Adrenaline gives a boost to the immune system, the body’s defense against infection but while adrenaline is pumping, so is cortisol — a potent anti-inflammatory hormone also released by the adrenal glands, he explained.

Paul J Rosch, president of the American Institute of Stress in Yonkers, however, rubbished the claim saying: “The condition is psychosomatic and not a bona fide diagnosis.” — UNI