Smolensky says that this immune system activity and the inflammation it produces is not constant, but instead is “highly circadian rhythmic.” As a result, “you tend to experience symptoms as most severe when your immune system kicks into highest gear, which is normally at night during sleep.”
At night, there is less cortisol in your blood. As a result, your white blood cells readily detect and fight infections in your body at this time, provoking the symptoms of the infection to surface, such as fever, congestion, chills, or sweating. Therefore, you feel sicker during the night.
Key takeaways: Cold and cough symptoms often feel worse at night. You aren't just imagining it. This is due to your body's circadian rhythms, hormones, body position, and lack of distraction at night.
Recovering from infections
In addition to preventing infections, there is evidence that good sleep can help in fighting off infections quicker. The cytokines which can help prevent infection are also crucial in fighting infections in the body.
It follows your body's circadian rhythm. Your cortisol levels drop during the three to five hours after you go to bed leading to increased inflammation which makes you feel bad. In addition to elevating your head, a hot shower before bed, and a humidifier in your room will open your nasal passages and help you sleep.
Getting extra sleep when you're sick doesn't just give you a few hours of respite from unpleasant symptoms: Sleep is like medicine for the immune system, ultimately helping you make a full recovery from an illness. “Sleep is the only time of anyone's day or night where we have restoration processes happening.
Excess mucus in the throat can lead to itching, irritation, and soreness. Postnasal drip typically increases when a person is lying down. As a result, a sore throat may worsen at night or first thing in the morning. Exposure to certain allergens at night may also worsen postnasal drip and sore throat.
First of all, more sleep does help you fight infections more effectively. People who get enough sleep (typically between seven and eight and a half hours each night) are much less likely to develop an illness from a virus. Seven-hour sleepers are 300% less likely than five-hour sleepers to develop a viral infection.
Deep sleep involves greater slowing of bodily processes, allowing the immune system to utilize more energy to fight infection. Fever is another important immune response. Higher body temperature can trigger new waves of immune defense, and it also makes the body more hostile to many pathogens.
Fatigue is a common symptom of many different infections. It is a normal part of the body's response to fighting an infection. Usually the fatigue goes away quickly once the body has dealt with the infection.
How the immune system reacts to viruses. The immune system reacts to the injury of these bodily cells by revving up, causing symptoms such as fever and chills. While we sometimes worry about running a fever, an elevated temperature generally is considered a protective response that works to destroy invasive microbes.
If it's a viral illness, typically symptoms are shorter lasting and classically the symptoms include fever, chills, sore throat, nasal congestion, runny nose, cough, and a lot of times you can have some body aches.
What to Expect: Pain and swelling normally peak on day 2. Any redness should go away by day 4. Complete healing should occur by day 10.
Herpes zoster or shingles
The varicella-zoster virus (VZV), the same virus that causes chicken pox, can continue to live in the nerve cells after an attack of chickenpox. It may be reactivated on occasion, to cause shingles in some people. It is among the most painful conditions known.
For example, pathogens that live in the respiratory tract (the lungs, throat, etc.) can leave the body through the mouth or nose in saliva or mucus when coughing or sneezing. Other examples of means of exit are broken skin, mucous membranes such as the eyes, via the stomach and via the intestines and anus.
If you need to take antibiotics more than twice a year (four times for children), your body may not be able to attack germs well on its own. Other red flags: Chronic sinus infections, being sick with more than four ear infections in a year (for anyone over the age of 4), or having pneumonia more than once.
Infection increases the concentrations of cytokines, including IL-1, and the release of neurotransmitters, including 5-HT, in the brain, and interactions between IL-1 and 5-HT contribute to the regulation of sleep.
Your immune system steps in, like a bouncer who means business. It releases white blood cells and other chemicals that destroy these threats. Or it causes a reaction, like a sneeze, to boot out a virus in your nose. It's an elite squad of agents that zap invaders -- like bacteria, viruses, and fungi -- ASAP.
Many mild bacterial infections get better on their own without using antibiotics. Antibiotics do not work for viral infections such as colds and flu, and most coughs. Antibiotics are no longer routinely used to treat: chest infections.
If someone keeps getting a sore throat after taking the right antibiotics, they may be a strep carrier and have a viral throat infection.