Last week I got the chance to be part of a focus group looking at the effects that cold sores have on sufferers. I was there to provide a mental health angle on the discussions and something that came up in all three of the groups that were sharing their experiences on cold sores was that what immediately preceeded the outbreak was a period of intense stress. Some group members said they knew the cold sores where a sign that they need to slow down, take a break and start making a real effort to look after themselves.

That got me thinking about the clues our bodies give us that we need to slow down. I don't know about you, but I frequently ignore the signs my body is giving me that I need to chill out and I've come across both friends and clients for whom the same is true. At some point, our bodies will just hit the over-ride button, as if to say "you're not in control of this operation any more and we're shutting it down!". Cue a bout of flu that has you bed ridden for a week or worse, a trip to the hospital.

We aren't floating heads that happen to have a life support system underneath us. Our heads (by that I mean our inner world of day dreams, big ideas, everyday worries, major stresses etc) and our bodies are connected, they work symbiotically. We do need to tune in to what our bodies are telling us and then take action, largely because our bodies can't do two things at once. I'm referring to the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems in our bodies. The former controls things that need to happen quickly - the fight or flight/stress response and the latter, things that take more time - digestion all the way through to sexual activity. Our bodies can't power both systems to run at full capacity at the same time.

So, if you're stressed a lot of the time, your body simply doesn't have the spare power to do things like fight off infections, digest meals properly, support active sex life...see where I'm going with this? Listen to your body, do what it's telling you. It evolved that way!