Do Exercise and Herpes Go Together?

This has been a big topic on social media as well as in our Secret Society community. I’ve been getting lots of questions like; will sweat cause an outbreak, will friction cause an outbreak, will HITT cause me to get an outbreak, professional bodybuilders have asked questions about pre-workout and so on. 

I want to say first before going into the should and should nots, if exercise makes you happy and you love doing it, then keep it up. In general, if there is something that you love doing and it lights you up, then keep doing it. 

Okay so let’s get to exercise, the immune system  and herpes outbreaks

Exercise helps boost the immune system and even helps the body fight off viruses and other infections. There was some misinformation going around out there saying that exercise can temporally lower your immune system but that can’t be farther from the truth.

<For the article go here> (Source)

There was a study done that showed acute exercise, meaning moderate to vigorous intensity lasting an hour or less has benefits of boosting your immune system. The study author, David Neiman, Dr.Ph said that people have a small number of immune cells circulating around in the body. Our immune cells prefer to hang out in the lymphoid tissues and organs like the spleen, where our body kills viruses, bacteria and other pathogens that get in there. When we exercise the blood and lymph flow increases as our muscles contract and it also increases the circulation the immune cells. In other works it helps them roam our bodies at a high rate and in high numbers. And also more importantly exercise recruits specific cells, knows as the fighter T-Cells to come to the table and wipe out the bad guys. 

According to the study participants who took a 45 minute wrist walk shows an up-tick immune cells floating around in their body for up to 3 hours post workout. This sounds awesome and translate to our bodies immune system is in fighting mode for hours after we exercise. Of course the down side is that it does go away but if we consistently keep up the exercise our bodies will be in a germ fighting high immune system fighting machine. 

Another way exercise benefits our immune system is, exercise is believed to decrease or lower inflammation in the body. When we have inflammation in our body the immune system operates in an inflamed state too. When everything is inflamed, it makes it harder for the immune system to fight infections. 

Like it appears with all things is, there can be too much of a good thing. So when you push your body into extreme workouts like triathletes or marathon runners that amount of exercise can cause stress and even potentially harm on the body. This amount of physical activity causes stress on the body and we all know that when the body is stressed, we get herpes outbreaks. 

So with this all being said, moderate to high intensity work outs are great. They can be so helpful with other things as well such as, dealing with your mental health and fuelling your body with nutritions foods. In my opinion exercise is a great thing when dealing with herpes. 

Of course if you have questions or concerns talk to your doctor. If you’re a high performance athlete and it’s your passion, then keep it up. The last thing we need to do is give something up that we love because of our herpes diagnosis. That’s when resentment happens and we go into an angry state which then leads to stress and then leads to outbreaks. 

So if you are worried about the friction when it comes to the working out or your workout clothes. We have the Rescue balm. It’s an anti-friction wound healing balm over your herpes outbreak or anywhere that tends toward roughness, chafing or needs tending to. It’s created to be applied directly to open sore but can also be used for runners, hikers, bikers,… really for everybody.

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