when you’re sick with a cold/flu why do you feel better in the morning but progressively feel worse throughout the day, particularly at night?
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Because fighting off an infection takes a tremendous amount of energy for your body so as the day goes on you’re compounding the feeling of being ill with the feeling of exhaustion which just makes everything worse
This is really not a universal experience.
I’d wager more people actually feel worse in the morning during a cold.
It has to do with cortisol, a steroid which affects your immune system. Steroids like cortisol push down your immune system (relatively, it’s not huge) and your immune system’s response to disease is what causes the majority of your “sick” symptoms like fever, chills, body aches, etc. At night your cortisol levels are low and they spike shortly before you wake up in the morning (this has nothing to do with you being sick but is part of your normal day/night body cycle). That means your viral symptoms will typically be/feel worse at night.
Weird. I’m the opposite. Worse in the morning and improve across the day. Fighting fit in the early evening and get to bed early. Wake up worse. Mucous on my chest is my enemy. I’ve not been sick for years, though.
I wake up feeling like there’s a knife in the back of my throat and then gradually feel better throughout the day.
Survival.
Evolution favors those who function enough to hunt and gather in the day. When the sun goes down it’s time to rest (and feel like ass).
So others have pointed out, that’s not how everyone experiences it.
I just had a cold, and usually the sore throat is almost always the worst part for me. So I can at least give insight on the symptom that usually causes sore throats, post nasal drip.
Snot running down the back of your throat(post nasal drip), it irritates that lining of your throat. When you are upright it can much more easily drain into your stomach (gravity works) but when you lay down it’s basically up to reflexive swallowing to clear it out so it often just sits on your throat making the irritation worse and worse.
This week with my cold I was sleeping in a reclining chair not a bed, because I was propped up on an incline the post nasal drip did not sit on the back of my throat all night. So my sore throat was very mild in the mornings compared to when I sleep in a bed.
So one part of the varied experience of colds and flus can dramatically change for different people based on what position they are in when they sleep.
If by morning you meant after sleeping, well, you had a relatively good rest so that’s why. maybe.
I always feel like I’m on death’s front door in the morning and feel progressively better the longer I’m vertical.
What? When I’m really sick I feel worst in the early morning.
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