Keep healthy this fall

Autumn is peak season for illnesses such as colds and stomach flu, as everyone more or less simultaneously transitions from a relaxing summer pace into a often stressful everyday life with new routines or the need to catch up on things postponed during vacations and lazy summer days. At the same time, the sun seems to prefer the other side of the globe, leaving us scandinavians in growing darkness. All of these factors conspire against our immune system. Fortunately, there are plenty of measures we can take to improve our chances of staying healthy.

First and foremost, we are less sensitive if we are NOT stressed, eating junk food, or suffering from sleep deprivation. So before diving into all the details below, focus on making sure you have control over your life balance, eat a normal diet, and get at least 7 hours of sleep per night.

Daily life

If you are not exposed to pathogens, you will not get sick, so stay away from sick people. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. Most people need to do things like take public transportation, attend client meetings, or pick up children from daycare, which involves contact with others who may be contagious. Isolating yourself or wearing a protective mask likely feels socially unthinkable for most people.

Instead, consider the following:

• Keep a distance of at least about 1.5 meters from people you suspect are ill, as the risk of droplet transmission through the air decreases drastically after roughly that distance and decreases even more if you are not face-to-face but at an angle to the other person.

• After spending time in crowded environments, especially in confined spaces like airplanes or trains, a good routine is to gargle with something bactericidal soon afterwards, for example, strong alcohol (swallowing is optional). This kills bacteria and often viruses while they are still superficially on the mucous membranes.

• Many need to touch door handles, press buttons, shake hands, and other actions that can transmit infection. Naturally, it is important to wash hands frequently, especially before meals. Avoid using cloth towels whose cleanliness you don’t know; instead, use paper towels when possible. You can also turn off faucets with a towel.

• When in environments with many people where it is difficult to wash hands with soap and water, hand sanitizer is a practical alternative. Also, avoid touching your nose or eyes because those mucous membranes are less suited to handling pathogens compared to the respiratory tract.

Training

Most people are inevitably faced with various risk factors—not just in autumn but practically all the time—that they must manage to balance life’s equation of family, work, and a host of more or less superficial additional commitments. In such a situation, it is unwise to add intense and ambitious training, no matter how well planned it might be, and definitely not to engage in careless or panic-driven training.

Occasional tough workouts rarely pose a major problem, but sustained periods of hard training aimed at pushing your fitness and development curve upward should ideally wait for favorable conditions, even if that means only managing it a couple of times per year. In between, it can often be counterproductive to aim for anything much more intense than simply maintaining your current level to avoid taking one step forward and two steps back when you catch a cold.

A good rule of thumb is that maintaining a certain performance level requires about one-third the intensity of the training that initially built it, especially if, as an endurance athlete, you include around 10 minutes per week of efforts lasting at least 2 minutes each.

It is often during weather transitions from warm to cold (autumn) or vice versa (spring) that most people make the mistake of dressing too lightly. If you’re unlucky, you may become chilled enough to weaken your immune system for a period. Be sure to bring enough clothing on your training rides—it’s better for your back pockets to look like they’re stuffed with down pillows than for you to end up bedridden clutching real pillows.

It may sound obvious, but do not drink from someone else’s cycling bottle or eat from their opened energy bar. Naturally, everyone can become so exhausted and desperate for fluids and energy that rules go out the window—but until then, best to stick to your own supplies.

Ergogenic aids

No supplements in the world can save a poor diet, but there are some details to consider on top of an already good diet.

Be sure to quickly consume approximately 30-60 grams of carbohydrates after a tough training session, as they help restore the immune system faster. The autumn darkness increases the risk of having low levels of vitamin D, which can weaken the immune system. For those sensitive to this, a vitamin D supplement may be appropriate during the darker part of the year.

So far, the focus has been on avoiding bacteria, but there are plenty of bacteria that help keep us healthy, known as probiotics. We have several kilograms of good bacteria in our intestines, and our gut flora controls many aspects of our health, including the immune system. Therefore, eat foods that contain probiotics, such as yogurt, sauerkraut, kombucha, sourdough bread, apple cider vinegar, or foods fortified with probiotics.

If you do get sick, taking more than 75 mg of zinc per day has been shown to reduce the number of sick days.