exercising on a cold

Factual Questions
1

So, I have a cold. Naturally, I have a big photo shoot tomorrow that I really need to be alert for (and while the congestion isn’t bad, colds hit me hardest with general weakness/malaise).

Been doing the normal things to try to speed it along – lots o’ vitamins, lots o’ sleep. I’ve been going back and forth on whether exercising would help or hurt, though. On the one hand, I figure rest = good, and I won’t be diverting energy from my immune system. On the other, getting the blood pumping would increase toxin removal (the real deal… more blood through the kidneys/liver means more blood getting filtered), which may help in terms of cleaning out dead virus and dead white cells, although I have no idea whether this would have any impact on the efficiency of my immune response.

Is there any kind of medical consensus on which is better? All I really want to do is sleep, but I get achy and sluggish when I don’t exercise, and that doesn’t change just because I have a cold.

2

I would still exercise with a cold if it was primarily head congestion. Much lower intensity and duration as having a cold means the body is under stress. Feelings of fatigue and malaise means your body is too stressed to add more. Rest and plenty of fluids as you’re doing.

This is strictly my personal experience.

3

Yeah, no congestion to speak of, really. Main symptom is the right side of my head feels itchy (nasal sinus, ear, throat). I have some sinus crud in there (on the right side, again), but not enough to even interfere with breathing; it just feels weird. I’ll probably do a sinus flush a bit later. And the malaise… I’m feeling very sluggish. :stuck_out_tongue:

I considered lifting weights today but perhaps I’d be better off just doing a quickie 20 minute run. I’m having guilt fits over missing two weight days due to getting sick on Thursday.