How sick is too sick?
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Naturopath Jodi Van Dyk looks at why you shouldn't attend work when you're ill and how you can tell when you should absolutely stay home.
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- How sick is too sick?
You have a fast approaching deadline but you’ve woken up with a pounding headache, your body feels like lead and your throat is swollen and sore. Should you or shouldn’t you haul your body out of bed and go to work?
Many of us lead very busy lives and work long hours in stressful jobs, or we juggle full time jobs and look after a family. We may want to ensure that we don’t take many sick days or that we are constantly on top of our work.
To work, or not to work? That is the question
You have a fast approaching deadline, your work place is one down today or you’re the only person in your department who can fulfill your role, and you have fallen ill. What do you do?
The cost of attending work unwell
Recent studies have highlighted the true cost of coming to work sick. Research published this year highlighted that employees who attend work on a regular basis whilst ill have a greater risk for long term absenteeism at a later date.
Aside from possibly causing yourself long term illness, attending work when ill can also be detrimental to your colleagues. If you go to work when you are ill and you are still in the active phase of an infection and are contagious, you can easily pass on you nasties to the whole office. You can be assured you won’t be the most popular person in the office for a little while! Having a few guidelines may also help in the decision making.
Stay home when you:
- Have an illness
- Are suffering from a respiratory infection and are coughing a lot – coughing spreads infectious airborne droplets that can infect others
- Have a temperature above 40 degrees
- Are suffering from diarrhoea or vomiting
- Wonder how well can you carry out your work duties
- Are on are medication that would effect your ability to drive or operate machinery
Why stay home?
- To speed up recovery
- Reduce transmission of infection to colleagues
- Get your back to productivity at work faster
Good things to do when you are home feeling ill:
- Get ample rest
- Drink adequate fluids - especially if you have a fever
- Try to eat small amounts of bland foods such as toast to keep up your energy
- Stay away from sugar as this can hamper the immune system efforts
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