Start off slow, with some light coughing or sniffling if you want to imitate a cold or the flu, or act more sluggish and react slower to things if you want to imitate nausea. Stay up late to give yourself bags under your eyes, as if you couldn't sleep.
Use a little bit of pale foundation and/or powder to make yourself look sick and tired. Lightly apply a dark eyeshadow under your eyes. If you're faking a cold/flu, put a little blush or red makeup on the tip of your nose and in the inside corners of your eyes. This will give the appearance of sinus issues.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a fever is at least 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius. If you have flu-like symptoms, the CDC recommends that you stay home for at least a day after your fever is gone, except to get medical attention or take care of necessities.
The occasional fake sick day, as we said, is quite common. However, avoid it if you can. Your manager and coworkers are more perceptive than you think, and showing a pattern of deception in this area can lead them to wonder just how trustworthy you are in general.
Do not abuse the fake sick day. Try to keep it to once every three months; if you're serially ill, it could give your employers reason to think you're a person of dubious integrity.
Nearly 40 percent of those polled say being sick allows them time to focus on themselves and permission to slow down. While feeling sick is certainly nobody's idea of a fun time, many people found there are some perks that can go along with it.
An easy way to make yourself appear paler is to wear black clothing or other dark colors. Dark clothing creates contrast so that your skin looks lighter by comparison. It's an easy way to instantly look paler and more dramatic.
When you're sick, it's written all over your face. That's the conclusion of a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B , which finds that sick people share facial features—pale skin, swollen faces, droopy eyelids, and looking tired—that reveal they might be contagious.
Look for signs of a fever and keep them home if they have anything over 100 degrees. Vomiting and diarrhea are other tell-tale signs of legitimate illness. A rash is another symptom of actual illness. Like a fever, a rash is hard to fake.
The most common reasons children fake being sick fall into two categories: avoidance and attention. They could be avoiding school because of a bully or because they have anxiety about an upcoming test or assignment. They might also be faking an illness because they miss their parents.
Pull at the bottom of your eyelids until it hurts then blink hard a few times; you should get watery eyes. For flu or sore throat symptoms, cough or clear your throat loudly enough for them to hear in their bedrooms. Rub your face vigorously right before they come in to look red and appropriately ill.
Coughs are easy to fake, since anyone can cough on command. When you're sick, though, you're clearing mucus from your airways, so it has a significant sound. Also, when you're sick your coughs are more reflexive. So, if your child is faking a cough, there's a good chance they'll forget to keep doing it.
If you're experiencing chronic insomnia and you repeatedly feel unable to work because of sleepiness then it's perfectly justifiable to take sick leave. Your employer may expect you to be actively seeking treatment for you sleep problems or for the medical conditions that may be disturbing you sleep.
The main reason your child is getting all those infections is that he or she is being exposed to new viruses all the time. The viruses are everywhere no matter how much you sanitize and clean. There are at least 200 different cold viruses and they're constantly getting tricky, mutating all the time.
Although it's not always clear when a child isn't contagious, most schools have adopted a 24-hour fever free policy because they know temperatures can come back as the day progresses. That's why you shouldn't take your kids to school the morning after a feverish night.
Everyday fatigue that is not illness-related starts with a baseline of health. You may feel sleepy, you may in fact be sleep-deprived, or your body and mind may be worn out from long hours, exertion, or unrelenting stress — but you don't feel sick. Your muscles and joints don't ache like when you have the flu.