It’s been unusually quiet where I live this August. I’m surrounded by schools, so the whole area empties out over the summer, and I’ve really felt that calm this year. I’m already braced for it to get busier again over the next week or two as term starts, even though my own children are long past school age now, and I haven’t got to deal with the dreaded school run anymore.
You know what it’s like once the school run starts back up. The roads fill up again, the shops feel busier, everything just picks up pace almost overnight. And right on cue, so do the coughs, sniffles and sore throats that seem to sweep through every year at exactly this point.
There’s a reason that shift feels so noticeable every year, and it’s not really about the weather changing, not yet anyway. It’s mostly about contact and getting back into the old routine after a break. After weeks in smaller, quieter circles, suddenly a lot of people are back in shared, indoor spaces again, and that alone is enough to explain the wave of coughs and colds that tends to follow.
But contact isn’t the whole story. In one well-known study, researchers deliberately exposed volunteers to the cold virus, then tracked who actually developed symptoms. Those sleeping less than six hours a night were nearly four times more likely to catch a cold than those sleeping seven hours or more. Poor sleep raises cortisol and increases inflammation, both of which genuinely blunt how well your immune system responds when it meets something new.
That matters here because September is exactly the time of year routines get upended all at once. Earlier alarms, longer days, more to organise, and it often happens before anyone’s fully adjusted. The immune dip isn’t just about picking up more germs. It’s also about asking your body to fight them off while it’s already running on less sleep and more stress than it had in August.
Rather than letting your sleep schedule snap back overnight once term starts, shifting bedtime and wake time by about fifteen minutes every few days beforehand gives your body a real head start. It helps you avoid adjusting to a new routine while also fighting off a wave of new germs at the same time.
Vitamin D is also worth mentioning again as the days start shortening. We looked at this back in July, when we highlighted a study from Newcastle University that found even by the end of summer, sunshine alone hadn’t been enough to maintain vitamin D levels for a striking number of people. Around 55% of over-65s and more than 70% of those with darker skin were still short.
If that many were falling short at the height of summer, it’s worth paying real attention now, as the days shorten and your body’s ability to make vitamin D from sunlight drops off sharply. It’s an article worth revisiting now that the season’s turning, so I’m sharing it again here.
If you want a simple way to stay on top of your vitamin D levels, a D3 and K2 spray is the perfect choice and one I use every day all year round.
Between easing into your routine gently and keeping an eye on vitamin D, both give your body a real chance to meet this busier season head-on.
As always, if something here resonated or there is a topic you would like me to dig into, just hit reply. I read every message.
