If you’re wondering why everyone seems to be ill this summer, you are not alone. “All my clients seem to have coughs and colds,” says Inverurie nutritionist Laura Leslie. “Even this week, I’ve had four clients who’ve been coughing and two that have rescheduled.
” Laura isn’t working with these clients because they are sick — they just happen to be ill. But the clinical nutritional therapist and health coach who specialises in gut health, does have a few ideas about why so many people are under the weather at the moment. And it’s got something to do with those summer blues.
“My clients that are sick have been really stressed over the past couple of months,” she says. “Work stress, going out to socialize, just maybe pushing themselves further than they have done for a while.” Laura says that while the winter tends to see people paring back the social calendar, we are far more inclined to go all out in the summer.
Holidays, barbeques, weddings — they come thick and fast at this time of year, which means the body has less time to recover. And though the sun does now appear to be out, it’s been a miserable summer in terms of weather, more suited to raincoats than Ray-Bans. Northern Scotland , according to the Met Office, while changes to the jet stream — the air current that usually warms the country — meant temperatures dropped.
All of this affects the body, especially for us north and north–east Scots who don’t get enough sun — and the vi.