The real reason people get sick after experiencing periods of stress involves the hormones released by the body. The "let-down effect' is a pattern in which people develop an illness or flare-up of a chronic condition after a period of stress dissipates.
Periods of stress may happen during important tasks or events such as an intense deadline at work, a wave of holiday guests or final exams in school. From 1982 to 1992, researchers found that students' immune system went down every year under the impression of stress during a three-day exam period, according to American Psychological Association. While it's been long known that stress can lead to illness, little evidence has been proven the two to be linked together.
During acute stress, the body releases key hormones to prepare itself to fight or flee from danger. The body also triggers the immune system to work overtime in certain types of situations.
In the process, glucocorticoids will reactivate latent viral infections such as cold sores, fever, fatigue, sore throat or swollen glands. The symptoms of such only become apparent after a few days, which explains why the symptoms appear only after the stress is lifted.
"After a stressful period has passed, the body returns to a state of normality and many of the systems that were activated calm down," Dawn Buse says, director of behavioral medicine at the Montefiore Headache Center and an associate professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Once the system calms down, there is a drop in cortisol, which could initiate a migraine. Similarly, the drop in cortisol can also flare-up other forms of pain such as arthritis.
One way to avoid the let-down effect is to prevent the strain from happening in the first place by pacing while under pressure. It also helps to get plenty of exercise and sleep, eat healthfully and taking the time to decompress on a regular basis as explained by Dr. Nieca Goldberg, medical director of the Joan H. Tisch Center for Women's Health at the NYU Langone Medical Center, as cited by Huffington Post.
Buse explains that it would help to have a plan that calls for breaks during a stressful period compared to being active 24/7. Simply taking 30 seconds to focus on breathing in between meeting sand appointments can avoid the build-up of stress that could happen over the course of a day.
