When you are under the weather do you stop & rest or carry on?

[C1239]

Im really crap at resting, feel guilty that I’m under the weather and that I should just be carrying on as normal. If your not feeling well with a cold / bug do you stop and rest up or just carry on hoping it clears off soon?

If I can stop without anything falling apart, I will. Harder if you have to go out to work full time. I freelance so can make up time another day.

I carry on and hope it gets better. I don’t have time to rest with a toddler and work.

I'm too busy to stop. It only happens when I'm actually incapable of carrying on. It's probably not the best way but it's what has to happen.

If it’s just a cold I carry on. Right now I’ve had to stop because I’ve got shingles and it has totally wiped me out.

Define "under the weather"? Probably I Have to slow down, but i still keep going if i can.

I am very good at resting so if I feel rough I would try and stop and rest unless I had a really important commitment that I couldn't get out of. But perhaps because I pace my lifestyle and rest a lot I rarely feel 'wiped out'!

It depends. Colds are non stop for me due to working with young children and having a young child myself so I carry on.
If it's an actual bug I usually try to rest or at least stop working for a bit. Hard to rest when you've got young DC.

Depends how ill I am surely?

I carry on unless I actually can't. But I struggle to rest unless I am really ill and in a fever coma

I have to carry on as I've got kids and husband can't afford to take a day off I'm unwell. But I would probably just do the bare minimum.

I used to just carry on. When I was married to exH, I had to, because if I was ill, he got childish and nasty, and he would never lift a finger so I could rest. It's a habit I carried on past divorce, and am now trying to shake. I wfh so will carry on doing my paid work if I feel up to it. But housework can sod off, so can cooking, freezer meals and takeaways instead. Anything I can drop, I will, and I will rest instead. Usually means I feel better after a few days rather than dragging on for over a week.

In the 'old' days be I would have just ploughed through, even with a grotty cold. But then it didn't wipe me out as much as it does now (in 50s). Plus I was in an office and there was always a bit of a stigma about being off with 'just a cold' which is crazy now when I look back.

Now, if I have the same it's easier as I wfh most days or have the flexibility to. Can sit in trackies and hide behind webcam etc. plus I will often just go and have a snooze at lunch - can't do that in the office.

All that said, I will also not be a martyr and fully realise that a day/2 days rest is miles better than ploughing through and helps speed up the healing process. Kids are older now too so can fend for themselves if I'm in bed or laid up on sofa.

I rest and do as little as possible otherwise I'm a massively grumpy fucker to be around, so it's better that I just stay out of the way in my bed 😬

I’m recovered now but Dec/Jan/early Feb we’re very hard with me, DD and DH all down with a long running throat infection, bad enough that DD got referred to consultants and was on strong medication and all of us got more than 1 course of antibiotics. Plus one of our guinea pigs was ill and needed feeding, which took several hours a day, shared between the 3 of us depending on who was feeling a little better. It was a really depressing time but we had to carry on. I took a few days off when I really couldn’t cope but mainly battled on. DH was the least effected by illness but carried on commuting and working through it all. DD is 16 and also took a few days off but mostly carried on and kept up to date with her 6th form work. TBH DH and I need to work and can’t take weeks off to rest. I did WFH much more than usual and work were flexible about this, which really helped. And I’m so pleased DD didn’t get behind at school. We are all better now, including the guinea pig who is elderly but really quite perky, and it’s a huge relief. Worst winter ever.

I’m now hybrid working. Recently I made the mistake of thinking that as I could do part of my job wfh with a bad cough so could barely speak that I should do it. I was really too ill and came to my senses and called in sick the days after and it was such a relief. No way I would have worked pre covid when fully office based - you generally need to be able speak to others in an office as well as not passing on the illness.

I carry on, I don't have time to stop and rest.

I’m self employed now and my kids are both over 16 years so I stop and rest and make sure I recuperate now especially now I am older. In the past with younger kids and full time employed I just had to crack on. I have hypothyroidism so I was often exhausted and didn’t know why until I hit forty became very ill and was eventually diagnosed with hashimotos. Since then I have tried to take time to recover any illness as my life ideals changed. Look after yourself as best you can and don’t let guilt stop you.

I've just push on with a cold taking all the over the counter meds. Now this has moved into my chest and I'm really ill. Having a rest for a few days may have helped.

Don’t get sick pay so can’t afford not to work. But if I’m unwell I’ll be less active in my spare time eg not go running, won’t do the house renovations, do elaborate cooking etc. I’ll just pause those things till I feel better.

I think shingles is going around. I felt wiped out a few days ago it wasn’t a cold just a weird feeling and body rash so I rearranged my clients and have rested for 3 days and starting to feel better now. I did think it might be shingles but it’s mostly older adults who suffer with this. I might pay for the vaccine cause it’s not a nice thing to get. Glad you’re feeling better.

I don’t get colds/bugs very often at all now, but when I did pick up more when the kids were younger, it would depend how bad I felt. A bit of a cold with a headache, I’d carry on. A chest infection with constant coughing and temperature, I’d definitely rest. I used to get migraines that I would have to rest with but thankfully I rarely get those now.

The only thing that seems to stop me carrying on now is period pain, I’ll have a couple of days every few months where I just stay in bed.

I think it’s good to know when you need to rest, people go on about resilience and carrying on, but sometimes you just need to stop and rest. Obviously a good support network really helps and I’m fortunate to have a good partner and friends to rely on.

I used to push through, especially when I had young kids and ended up a single mum; but I've always struggled with my health and have eventually realised I suffer from ME/CFS; as it's got worse I've learnt to accept it and rest when my body says I have to, otherwise I risk deteriorating to becoming bedridden. My OP and I got flu two years running a couple of years ago, were completely wiped out. He's very much a 'push through' type so when he took to his bed I knew he was properly ill! Since then he's also found he simply must stop if his body tells him to; if he doesn't he just gets worse and worse until he can barely move.

If your body tells you to rest it's what your body needs. Obviously life has to carry on but there are usually areas you can back off in (I have a well-stocked freezer and the house won't fall down, etc etc). We need to be kind to ourselves!

I rest - if it just a mild cold then no, but I've had a run of not resting when I'm unwell that's turned one illness into 3 back to back cos my immune system gets so shit if I don't rest, so I've learnt my lesson now!