IT MAY NOT BE KAROSHI, BUT MANY HAVE EXPERIENCED LEISURE ILLNESS August 15th is Relaxation Day and Canadians are encouraged to remember to slow down, breathe and make healthy lifestyle choices. 
Little Britain, ON – We finally have a day off. One that we have been looking forward to. Only to be struck down with some kind of bug which makes us feel rotten. For some, taking a vacation doesn’t lead to sleeping in, relaxation or family fun. It may mean headaches, migraines, fatigue, muscular pains, nausea and viral infections that caused flu-like symptoms and colds. These symptoms can be a sign of leisure illness and they are often linked to stress caused by work overload and pushing ourselves too hard before taking time off.
This illness was often considered to be psychosomatic, because most people in the midst of it were not suffering from any viral or bacterial infection and it tended to be experienced by people who were overworked, expressed a lot of stress around working, or who rarely took time off from work. However, it may be that these people pushed themselves to the point where they compromised their body systems and when they finally took time off, their bodies ‘gave in’ and responded with aches, pains and illness reactions.”Our bodies respond to the stressors that we face. Sometime these reactions are not immediate as in the case of being in a car accident and our heart racing. Sometimes these reactions build over time and eventually they can wear us down. Sometimes it is not until we stop the ‘rollercoaster ride’ that our body responds and we experience these flu or cold like symptoms,” says Beverly Beuermann-King, a Canadian work-life balance expert. Continue reading
