Why Do I Get Sick Every Month

So you got yourself wondering how come you get sick so often. I hear you, it doesn’t simplify life nor one’s mood. Getting sick almost every month is literally a lot to take in and getting rid of being frequently sick may seem like an impossible mission. In fact, it can be a rather simple thing as long as one understands what is the trigger to one’s sicknesses in the first place. Understanding the origin is halfway through the solution. 

Getting sick every month or very often can be caused by several reasons alone or together. It is usually related with insufficient sleep (quality or/and quantity), poor and not properly accustomed diet, Lack of essential vitamins and minerals, stress and anxiety, poor hygiene, air and people’s pollution (and the free radicals that come with it), weak immune system, and dismaintain of active life.

Sleep patterns – quantity and quality can improve health

If you do not get enough sleep or if you are getting enough hours of sleep but not good enough quality of it then you will most likely tend to get sick more often. 

In this highly industrialized world, many of us don’t get the proper nor enough sleep we really need for our bodies to heal and develop. It has been shown and proven time and time again that people need anywhere between 6 to 8 hours of fine sleep. Meaning, having at least 3 full sleep cycles during night sleep.

Sleep is where the magic of regenerating happens and sleeping deprivation can be a catalyst for many types of illnesses. 

While we sleep and might think that the body sleeps as well the contrary happens: a whole system of actions occur and require massive energy for it to get completed to its fullest. 

Starting from tissue renewal, nerve system fluids regenerating, blood system cleanse, hormone manufacturing and so forth.  What a marvelous machine our body is.

Amongst all mentioned the immune system’s construction is also in the making. Sleep allows us to get stronger, repair damages and prepare for the next day to come so it is only natural that poor sleep will contribute to poor function and therefore getting poor health and get sick every month.

Offered solution:

There are several causes of “poor sleep” as I call it and several steps to follow in order to better your chances towards a good one.

• Avoid sugary foods and beverages in the evening
• Finish eating at least 3 to 4 hours before bedtime (also recommended relatively light dinners).
• Maintain sleep hygiene – shower before bed (hot shower makes us sleepier), go to sleep in a darkened room (secretion of sleep hormone is encouraged in total darkness), seek for noises free bedroom (and if out of reach consider earplugs), aim towards ventilate bedroom (open door, open window and if not possible even ventilator or aircon for air circulation is better than none).
• Electronic led light machines -they drive your eyes and brain crazy – try to avoid playing with your phones at least a few hours before bed.
• dimmer lights at least an hour before bed.
• Indulge yourself with deep breathing for a couple of minutes before bedtime 
• Try to clear your head from “serious” thoughts before going to bed (rest a sure it will be there tomorrow too if THAT important).
• Have a nice, relaxing cup of tea (Kamomil is personally recommended).

Read more about the connection between exercise and sleep quilty of our post.

Poor and not properly accustomed diet (a.k.a) bad food can make you sick

You are what you eat and what you eat reflects on your health. So it only makes sense that if you do not maintain a well balanced, integrated long term nutritional diet as some like to say you will get sick more often.

The math is very simple here – the amount and quality of “fuel” provided to your body will determine the structure and resilience of your body when it comes to illnesses prevention starting from colds and down the road more severe potential health hazards. 

So eating in a balanced manner in which your body gets all the right ingredients it needs is the answer for health to prosper. 

Few things that you want to make sure you eat and avoid are:

Avoid:

• White sugar 
• White flour 
• Dairy products 

Do eat:

• Seeds and nuts.
• Eggs 
• Fiber-rich foods.
• All five colors of vegetables
• Fruits 
• Protein from well balanced (all 8 essential amino acids) sources.

If you find this useful and for more elaboration on why these should be added to your daily diet please see the following article in the matter.

Another important anecdote: Hydration. Our body is about 75% water and its ability to stay healthy lies in how much we drink water. Not sugary beverages, coffee nor alcohol but water. Recommended to drink at least 14 cups a day. (*those who train even more and we wrote about it as well).

Lack of vitamins and minerals may induce sickness

Very important to mention that generally wise if your diet is balanced there shouldn’t be a reason for lack of vitamins and minerals.

However, some vitamins are harder to get from nutrition and sometimes can’t be absorbed easily and need to be consumed in a particular manner but unfortunately isn’t really common knowledge. 

I did a nutrition foundation course last year and will be happy to share my understanding on that matter henceforth.

First things first, go for a routine checkup. Your physician might notice a lack of some vitamins and minerals and direct you what to do, and if the taking of supplements is recommended in your case or not. They will also address you to a blood test if needed.

Second – if you do suffer from “avitaminosis” (lack of vitamins) or lack of minerals getting it from food is always the best way. If that doesn’t help or impossible for some reason I would only then consider supplements adding to your diet but even then do it with care and accuracy.

Please bear in mind that supplements are not candies. Yes, they can help greatly but should not be considered in light head prior consumption. So accuracy and attention is the name of the game here.

One of the reasons you may get sick every month is due to lack of vitamins and minerals, which include mainly: Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Vitamin B12, Vitamin B9 (folate), Mineral Zinc, Mineral Magnesium, and few more others.

For those please consume the following food:

Zinc: seeds 

Vitamin C: oranges, strawberries,

Vitamin D: sunlight exposure in healthy hours for 20 minutes period and exposed arms towards sunlight.

Vitamin B12: meat, fish, a combination of lentils +vitamin C 

Magnesium: eggplant

In general combine all colors of veggies, 2-3 fruits (unless prohibited by a physician), seeds and grains, lentils and if you’re not vegan or vegetarian: around 1 course of red meat, 2 fish dish, 1 course of chicken on a weekly basis. Again, this is average.

As mentioned, most vitamins and minerals can be achieved from food. However, one vitamin is unique and can be only provided through sunlight exposure and supplement. It is called Vitamin D and plays a key role in keeping you healthy for longer.

This vitamin can be produced by controlled exposure to sunlight. The best and safest exposure lies in the window between late afternoon and sunset as opposed to the hottest hours of the day which are considered to be less ideal for exposure.

Time of exposure should be about 20 minutes a day with inner arms exposed. 

Another lovely tip I learned is to not wash your arms with soap in the following shower for maximum absorption.

Moreover, spending more time in the sun makes you feel happier and free, as night time for most people can be a bit depressing.

One other way of getting more healthy sunlight exposure is doing outdoor activities, from sports like football and surfing to hiking, just find something that gives you the desire to venture outdoors. We used to spend much more time outside and our body misses it.

Either way, get more sun than you used to. so many people have vitamin D deficiency and doctors recommend getting it from pills and liquids as it is such an important vitamin.

One of the main reasons this supplement is a consensus is due to the busy daily routine where people can’t afford the luxury of spending time outdoors during the day.

For further information regarding the best supplements to boost your immune system try our post. 

Stress and Anxiety (potato and potato) will make us sick

Stress and anxiety are both states of the mind that tire our body, weaken our immune system and the ability to stay resilient towards all that might make us sick. 

When your body is stressed it functions on a “fight or flight” mode which consumes a lot of energy from our beloved body. 

On top of it, the hormone that is secreted in fight or flight mode is cortisol – wonderful magical stress dealing protector and anti-inflammatory BUT also the one that eventually makes us sick as once the alleged danger of stress lowers the opposite result is becoming ill due to exhaustion of adrenal gland.

A bit complicated I know. But what you really need to remember here is that stress and anxiety make us ill, in mind and body, which preferably recommended avoiding or for the very least decreasing. 

This can be manifested in long work hours for example. Health will most likely be affected by external influence, for that matter work is a strong influencer as most of us spend a significant chunk of our day at work.

In many cases work will add stress, anxiety, and restlessness into people’s life. The big question is how can we monitor that pressure and keep it under control?

One loved technique is meditation. I found in time that the word meditation can seem huge to some whereas, in fact, it is simply the ability to put one’s mind at rest. 

Usually, it is recommended to start the day with 15 to 30 minutes of relaxing meditation, but to even start with 10 minutes a day can make wonders on you. A 5 simple yoga poses with breathing can also work or even putting your earphones and listening to music you love.

And please try not to take work with you home.  Work should stay at work full stop. Let go of work when you’re not at work, it will help you relax and enable a fresh return to deal with it the next day with a fresh mindset.

Poor hygiene can make you sick more often

Wash. Your. Hands.

Whether it’s before you eat or after you smoke a cigarette (and I don’t mean to nag here but cigarettes aren’t good for you as well), or even when you come home from work after using your computer there. 

In order to prevent contagious viruses from visiting us often, we should make sure to wash our hands as much as possible (but not obsessively).

This recommendation may include washing your hands: before eating, before food preparation, when returning home from work, after using the bathroom, after coughing and sneezing, after playing with your pet, after cleaning the house and taking out the trash and yes even after visiting a sick friend.

Make sure to maintain clean surroundings (your computer at work is a great place to start from), change your bedsheets around once every 2 weeks and try to shower before getting to bed or at least only after you know that you are done wandering outside for the day.

Poor hygiene was a central cause for endless illnesses and plagues throughout the history of mankind and decreased significantly once brought to human awareness. 

If you get sick every month this might be the time to seek potential improvement in the hygiene department.

Bad oral health is another poor hygiene hazard that can lead to multiple illnesses. Our teeth and mouth health contributes significantly to one’s health as it contains both good and bad bacteria. 

Poor oral hygiene can be linked to even later heart disease, digestive problems, infections and inflammations, bad breath and nervous damages.

The solution is simple and easy to operate: keep your mouth clean. Brush your teeth at least twice a day and floss at least once, especially after meals as tooth stone formation gets within 24 hours already.

Air Pollution and Negative environment (people’s pollution) impacts health

Many people tend to overlook this ultra-important aspect of healthy living, the daily and close environment we surround ourselves by.

The environment holds a great impact on human’s mental and physical health, and as such impacts for better or worse our ability to stay healthy. If a person stays too long in a negative physical or social environment their health will be harmed and illness may occur.

Changes in the environment don’t have to be huge but can start by adding more time in nature, even in urban nature such as a small park in the city center. 

Moving to a crowded city usually means a more polluted environment. This affects people’s health in a direct negative manner – the air breathed, the water drank, and the noise pollution we suffer from are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to all the influences a big city has on us.

Researchers have shown that air pollution is a big contributor to many of humanity’s biggest health problems resulting partially by wearing face masks to prevent polluted air respiration.

While pollution is the obvious health hazard in modern life, stress is it’s ugly hidden relative as unclear air causes oxidative stress the following over manufacture of little lethal enemy called free radicals. 

While many wish to improve life and find their destiny by moving to the city, they are exposed to a larger dosage of this stress. It’s a vicious circle. What a horrible “fiesta”.

But not all is dark and negative in city life as the mobility comfort allows us to get more easily to parks and spend some time in greenery. Trees are our best friends when it comes to air pollution (and in general), so every time you get some time, give yourself a green park treat, sit, breathe, eat something nice, relax your racing mind and perhaps take a small walk.

If you have a park on your way to work, consider walking through for a decent portion of cleaner air.

On the human pollution note:

If what you eat is what you become then who you choose to spend your time with will eventually be what you become as well. 

This minor yet significant change will greatly impact your health as a better suited social circle will improve your self-esteem, mood, and motivation.

The impact of the social circle has been shown to highly affect animals and humans alike, with a big emphasis on the impact of family and friends. There is a great book I read not long ago that describes this phenomenon in-depth –  The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton, you can find it on amazon. 

The obvious solution is to go to seek for this positive encouraging environment by either joining afternoon activity that suits your nature, sit with friends that makes you feel good about yourself rather than bad, avoid negative conversation or nudge people that tend to complain on a daily basis and maybe even learn to say “no” sometimes if you don’t feel like doing something. 

Once you adjust the “what is it that I really want” attitude life will improve, your mood will rise, motivation will grow as you won’t get drained and you’ll find yourself not getting sick every month anymore. 

This might be difficult in the beginning but the more you practice it the easier and rewarding it will get. Worth a try!

Weak immune system surely makes us sick all the time

Immune system disorders occur when a person’s immune system doesn’t fight antigens well enough. A weak immune system is kind of the central junction of why you are getting sick so often as most hazards lead there.

It is important to emphasize that we can only partially control our ability to maintain a healthy immune system as it is (in a nutshell) divided into our birth immune system and acquired immune system. 

However, when life gives you lemons you can surely make excellent lemonade out of it as even if we did not inherit an amazing immune system from our genetics there’s still a lot we CAN do to improve it to a firm level.

Do:

Eat good food, sleep enough, treat yourself with kindness, consume the vitamins and minerals the body needs and the proteins that assist with a proper build-up of cells, probiotics if needed to empower your digestive system. 

Avoid negativity as much as possible, do 10 minutes breathing techniques and open a window for air circulation, register to dancing class or any activity that ring your bell and last but not least – smile as this action of facial muscles has proved to be very efficient when involves strengthening our health.

Don’t:

Smoke, shout a lot, drink alcohol excessively, eat junk food on a daily basis, skip proper sleep, underdress when cold, live in the air-conditioned closed room when hot, be a couch potato and feel sorry for yourself.

Dismaintain of active life impacts all body systems

Workout and general fitness are both pillar stones that support good health and as such should be a part of our daily routine. 

Many people tend to disregard workout’s ability to improve their health and will prioritize it low in their to-do list. For example, time is the number one excuse I hear when it comes to training or moreover the lack of it, but what we need to understand is that active life makes us healthier for longer and therefore end up saving us time. Being sick every month waste a lot more time than working out 3 times a week.

What if we would really understand the importance of exercise to our happiness and health? Would we still claim not having time for it?

When it comes to fitness some of us are simply afraid of getting back on the horse after a break. The effort and challenge can be rather intimidating.

Having an active routine can help prevent so many future illnesses, from heart and cardiovascular-related conditions to nervous and bone density problems. A workout routine can prevent it all and even cure some. It can definitely reduce your getting sick every month phenomena.

And after all this you still feel you can’t find the time to workout for the very least maintain an active lifestyle: take the stairs instead of the elevator, carry your groceries home instead of delivering them, tidy up your flat occasionally, play ball with your children or friends and keep the movement going.

As to the “Why do I…” question

The inevitable human repetitive question “Why do I…” or ” Why does this happen to me…” and so on is natural as if almost built in our brain structure as default. 

Many psychologists would claim this has to do with our urge to victimize ourselves in order to feel at ease or get sympathy from our surroundings. 

I used to think a lot about the origin of this behavior in us and came to realize that it doesn’t really matter what I tend to ask or how I ask it, but moreover what am I going to do about it from now on. And the answer lies upon a very simple thing called action.

We live in complex yet very accessible times where knowledge is within our grasp at any given moment and as such enables our mind to expand into a quick realization of our state and what can be done about it. So use it. Search, inquire, get answers.

It is more than ok to ask “Why do I…” under the understanding that once asked a wonderful journey of solution or fixing (if needs to be fixed) is already on the rise. 

So good that you’ve asked why do I get sick every month… cause if you won’t ask how will you ever know? 

And now you know.

Her Side