Does regular exercise stop you getting sick in winter?

Does winter mean you'll catch every cold going around? Not necessarily. The Conversation reports that regular moderate exercise probably lowers your risk of catching a cold or flu. Here's the science: your muscles produce chemical signals called myokines when you exercise. These activate specialized immune cells—natural killer cells and T-cells—and dispatch them throughout your body to fight infection. The boost is temporary, lasting only hours after exercise, but researchers believe repeated sessions add up over time, building a more efficient immune system. But exercise won't shorten a cold you already have, and there's no evidence an intense workout "sweats out" a virus. Think of it as prevention, not cure. There is one caveat: very prolonged, high-intensity exercise can temporarily dip immune function, though this mainly affects endurance athletes like marathon runners. Health guidelines recommend one hundred fifty to three hundred minutes of moderate physical activity weekly, or seventy-five to one hundred fifty minutes of vigorous activity. For deciding whether to exercise when you're feeling run down, use the "neck check": symptoms above the neck—runny nose, sneezing, mild sore throat—mean light-to-moderate exercise is fine. But symptoms below the neck, like chest cough or upset stomach, or whole-body symptoms like fever or body aches, mean rest is better. And remember: exercise doesn't replace a flu shot, hand-washing, or staying home when you're actually contagious.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton