Downtime: It's Enough to Make Some People Sick

"The reason [cortisol] works as an anti-inflammatory is because it's turning off the immune cells," Sternberg said. ". . . You're no longer able to effectively fight infection."

The two hormones are timed differently, with adrenaline starting up and shutting down within milliseconds, much faster than cortisol, which takes five to 10 minutes.

"What happens when you stop doing what it is you were doing that stressed you is that the adrenaline shuts off first," Sternberg said. "You are left with this cortisol floating around. And if at that moment someone coughs in your face, you get sick."

Don't like that hypothesis? How about this one: Vacations and holidays involve greater exposure to germs that make you sick. Then there's the psychological theory: Much of the year, busy people ignore the signals they are sick because they don't have the time to acknowledge the symptoms.

But Sternberg said stress hormones go a long way toward explaining why most people who suffer from leisure sickness on vacation experience their symptoms within the first couple of days after they stop work, a pattern Vingerhoets observed in his survey.

"There is a science to it. There is a biology to it," Sternberg said. "It's not really psychosomatic because the term 'psychosomatic' carries with it the baggage of implying that it's not really real. . . . But there is enough evidence in other settings that we can draw upon to say that leisure illness is probably a real phenomenon."

What leisure sickness lacks in empirical evidence it makes up for in anecdotal evidence.

"I have spoken with people from many countries -- from South America to Brazil to Australia," Vingerhoets said. "In all of these countries, they recognize it."

But what can be done about the syndrome?

Suena Huang, an instructor of psychiatry at George Washington University Hospital, said it may require rethinking your outlook on success.

"There's a relationship between certain personality types and the amount of perceived stress," Huang said. "Someone who's a perfectionist may impose higher expectations on himself and bring about higher anxiety on himself [than others would]. Instead of seeing perfection as the goal, perhaps seeing a balance as the goal would be one way to go -- working leisure activities and relaxation time into each day."

Huang said she sees many patients with workaholic personalities who are prone to leisure sickness. She encourages them to be more accepting of their imperfections.

Vingerhoets and Sternberg also recommend regular exercise to fend off stress.

"If you're under such chronic stress that you're impairing your immune system, you need to pace yourself, balance yourself," Sternberg said. "You can't expect to push your body to the breaking point and not have it break." ¿

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