I think I fall sick more often than my peers. I’m not completely sure of this, I don’t have enough data to be conclusive. Either way, I fall sick more often than I’d like.$Being slightly under the weather is occasionally justifiable, perhaps after a few indulgent late nights. But falling ill- crippling, can’t-do-anything ill- strikes me as a massive system failure.

Some things I’d like to ask health care professionals- is it possible to be bombarded with viruses and not fall ill? After all, when flu season hits, some people somehow manage to escape it- how, and why? I don’t think it’s because anybody manages to escape contact- I think it’s because some people’s immune systems are stronger than others’. The viruses (I imagine) still enter our bodies, but our immune systems fight them off. If I understand correctly, fevers are believed to raise body temperatures  for the purpose of making Sun Tzu proud- a warmer body is less comfortable for germs, and our white blood cells get more numerous and aggressive, or something.

Surely we’re being bombarded by viruses all the time, every single day! I imagine that on an average day, the heroes of our immune system are able to fight them off without breaking a sweat. It’s only when they face trouble that they need to sound the alarm to the central system to turn up the heat, and that’s when we feel the discomfort. (I’m just assuming, here.) And I presume that this happens when they’re weakened and lethargic- when we’re stressed, tired, upset and stuff like that. I used to consistently fall ill whenever I had a hard workout at the gym after a long layoff, followed by a late night with little sleep. It was like a recipe for illness with an incredibly high success rate!

The last time I fell ill- (which I am still reeling from) was when I was living on an off-shore island (aka complete change of environment), and for some manic reason decided to push myself to the absolute brink of failure in a weights room after already having done some pretty intense physical training. On hindsight, that was an incredibly ridiculous thing to do, and completely explains the illness. I’d overloaded my system to the point where it collapsed- one of those serious breakdowns where no immediate attempt to get things back on track can work- like after the worst arguments, when you’re going to need some time away before you can reconcile- because anything else you do or say will simply aggravate things in your derelict state. You gotta clear the rubble before you can start rebuilding.

I really don’t want to fall sick again anytime soon if I can help it. I’ve got to take care of myself a lot better, and keep to my limits. I do it time and time again- I stagnate for a while, then try to compensate by biting off more than I can chew. I don’t understand why I can’t assimilate the knowledge that steady and consistent phase-cycling always works better than sudden, unprecedented overloading. (Well, perhaps it’s an evolutionary hangup from how our ancestors used to hunt and eat, but hey- surely we can overcome these impulses with conditioning?) Perhaps my problem is that I’m using a weekend warrior approach to try and cure my weekend warrior approach. Clearly that can’t be good!

(I might be wrong about some of the technical details, of course. I’d love to be corrected and educated on this by anybody who knows more about these things!)